FOR more than a year and a half, we have not seen our Warriors in action.
They were paying the price for our suspension from the FIFA world football family after the Zurich-based organisation deemed the interventions, to bring sanity back to ZIFA, interference by third parties.
We are a country which really likes our national game, football, and our senior national team, the Warriors.
It’s a measure of our deep-rooted love for the team that, even though the Warriors haven’t been the most successful national football team in Southern Africa, they are probably the best supported and most loved.
When they are playing, the stadium is usually full with expectant fans who, despite the team’s limited success stories, always dream that real success is just around the corner.
If the next Warriors game is played at the National Sports Stadium, in November this year, the expectation would be that a full house of 60 000 fans will be there to support the team.
We had expected that those who were tasked with managing our football, after our suspension was lifted by FIFA, would make the Warriors one of their top priorities.
But, a few weeks after they took over the administration of our national game, it’s disappointing to note that the five men and women appear to be marching in a different direction.
The Warriors appear to be the least of their concerns and some of them appear to be transfixed with purging those who have been running the ZIFA office, the staff who kept this association going when it didn’t have any leadership.
They appear to be fighting the boardroom battles for those who used to be in charge of ZIFA and were pushed out by the Sports and Recreation Commission.
We also hear that the FIFA official Solomon Mudege, a Zimbabwean who played a big part in the negotiations which ultimately led to our suspension being lifted, has also been pushing an agenda which protects, or promotes, the interests of the former ZIFA leaders who were swept away by the SRC intervention.
Why Mudege’s name continues to be dragged in the mud baffles us but some are saying the former ZIFA bosses could destroy him if he pushes an agenda which doesn’t promote their interests.
They say this is why we are seeing this relentless pursuit of petty boardroom politics, including a feverish attempt to dismantle the ZIFA secretariat, by those who are now running the normalisation committee.
So, in essence, we moved five steps forward, when our suspension was lifted and an interim leadership was unveiled, then took 20 steps backwards.
Some analysts are even saying we were better off under Felton Kamambo, for all his weaknesses, than under Lincoln Mutasa even though, at this newspaper, we feel it’s too early to judge the former Dynamos boss.
However, it’s hard not to see why those voices are growing louder because, as we enter an international break week, the Warriorsstill don’t have a coach.