With just over eight weeks remaining of the regular football season in Zimbabwe, analysts have completely ruled out the resumption of action in 2020.
Foothold was put on hold in Zimbabwe on the brink of commencement in March just as the global coronavirus pandemic swept up to Southern Africa for the first time leaving a trail of casualties mainly in Western Europe and North America by then.
Neighbouring South Africa suffered its first victim on March 6 and Zimbabwe recorded its ground-breaking case 14 days later.
Measures taken to fight the Covid-19 threat included debilitating national lockdowns that saw the sporting scenes of both countries effectively closed.
Since then, South Africa has resumed action and managed to conclude their interrupted 2019-20 football program.
The picture is different from their northern neighbour whose March to November league schedule never got to start.
And it will never get underway, according to a snap survey involving experts of the Zimbabwean game that EntersportNews conducted this week.
What had been billed as a glorious opportunity to experiment with the widely-recommended August-May season is now just a wasted chance,” ‘bemoaned Newsome Mutema, who is the secretary-general of the Soccer Coaches Union of Zimbabwe (SCUZ).
“I do not see the season starting anytime in October, meaning we might just hope for an early start like January for the regular year-long season in 2021.”
Central to the ongoing delays to kick-start action is the disagreement among football leaders and sport stakeholders over what needs to be done to safeguard the health of players and staff amid the lurking Covid-19 scourge should the games restart.
Felton Kamambo, the Zifa president, said he wrote to the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) asking for their nod for the competition to resume.
SRC, in turn, nudged the Sports Ministry with Minister Kirsty Coventry telling the media last week that games could only return if the football authorities presented a clear outline of mitigatory steps they plan to institute to adhere to the general health guidelines prescribed for preventing transmission of the deadly disease.
Whereas Zifa had set October 6 as the date when the first league fixtures of the year could be played, the Premier Soccer League has expressed itself that it will not be ready on the day as clubs are unwilling to pick up the tab for expenses to be incurred in ensuring compliance.
A football administrator complained to EntersportNews that they could not afford the first batch of funds required for PVR-testing of players.
“The mother body (Zifa) expects us to find US$60 per person for our squad of 30 players and 10 officials and that’s an unrealistic expectation when they know there were no gate-takings this year,” Kennedy Shava, a Manica Diamonds official, said.
According to the set requirements, clubs should further provide litres of sanitizers, protective gear for their players and officials during training and at matches, as well as implement a level of social distance as is practical.
Gate-takings, the other thorny issue has become the unresolved question of whether fans will be allowed into stadia.
Although much action around the world, and in South Africa, has proceeded without spectators, in Zimbabwe analysts say this will not be possible.
“Football in this country thrives on gate-takings as there is little sponsorship,” Ronald ‘Dtrain’ Chiwanza, a radio commentator said.
“‘We have no television rights for football like those leagues that have restarted so here there is nothing to cushion our clubs if there are no fans paying to watch.”
Zifa badly needs the domestic season to get started to ease their worries of failing to raise a team when Zimbabwe engages Algeria in African Cup of Nations back-to-back qualifiers in November.
The national football body says PSL should use the bulk of Fifa funds it recently disbursed to the league for Covid-19 relief, but clubs maintain that they had already exhausted the money in meeting their basic needs.
It is doubtful the Warriors will be able to secure their foreign-based players due to the strict quarantine measures demanded in several countries for residents returning from abroad.
“It is safe to entirely cancel out 2020 from the pages of local soccer history,” posited Tendai Chara, a veteran football journalist.
