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IT’S now official; Zimbabwe will not take part in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers for the first time since independence. When the draw is conducted in St Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday, Zimbabwe will be the only African country among the 54 Caf affiliates missing from the hat — not because they pulled out, but because of Zifa bungling.

Zifa hired Brazilian coach Valinhos as national team coach in 2008, but failed to pay him resulting in the world football governing body Fifa expelling the Warriors from the qualifying process.

Since March, Zifa has been hoodwinking the nation, falsely assuring us that they would pay the Brazilian his $81,000 to have the ban lifted. The figure has risen to this level after legal fees were included.

But the truth has finally come out that Zifa president Cuthbert Dube and his men botched up the country’s World Cup dreams by devoting most of their time to positional battles instead of focusing on their core business of national assignments.

This is nothing less than an international embarrassment Dube and Zifa have caused to the country’s long suffering football fans.

Zimbabwean players are surely gutted by the latest confirmation, as the World Cup is the ultimate aim for every player that dons his country’s national jersey. If they can’t play World Cup qualifiers, then why should they continue playing for the national team?

We’ve got a fantastic crop of players and the least Zifa can do for them is to provide a platform for them to showcase their talents and secure moves to improve their game in superior leagues for the benefit of Zimbabwean football.

And what better platform to showcase one’s talent than in World Cup qualifying matches! However, Dube and Zifa have suffocated us with their limited management skills. Their record in office over the past five years is well documented, and frankly it’s an embarrassment.

What Dube and his clueless lieutenants have succeeded in doing during their tenure in office is to manage Zifa into the ground.

Under Dube’s watch, five national representatives have been thrown out of international tournaments.

It all started with Highlanders FC when the financially-crippled Bulawayo giants were registered for the Caf Confederations Cup without their consent.

Bosso could not take part and were handed a three-year ban in 2011 by Caf. In 2012, the Under-20 and Under-17 national teams failed to travel for the African Youth Championships second-leg qualifiers and just like Bosso, they were also handed three-year bans.

Just last week, the Mighty Warriors failed to fly to Cote d’Ivoire for a 2016 Olympic Games qualifier and are now certain to be banned.

It’s now certain that stupidity rather than greed at Zifa is driving our football on the road to ruin.

With so many bans in the absence of government interference, the time has probably come for the government to move in and rid Zifa of the mess it is currently wallowing in.

Zifa have been hiding behind Fifa’s threats of bans for government interference, but there is now nothing to lose because our boys have been denied an opportunity to hoist the country’s flag high in qualifiers for the biggest and most watched global sporting event through exclusive Zifa failure.

Dube and his board have now failed to justify their continued stay at Zifa House and it’s time to channel our hurt at normalising the country’s most popular sport by drumming them out of office.

Fifa will sanction us, but it’s better to be sanctioned for cleaning football than induce self-inflicted bans through incompetence and incapacity.

Why not intervene and install a normalisation committee just like Cameroon, whose government axed the old executive and jailed the federation’s president on fraud charges.

There has been plenty of talk about the ruin Dube and his men have caused at Zifa, and now is the time for action, and a clear action plan for that matter.

Since the 2018 World Cup route has been closed for the Warriors, the Sports and Recreation Commission should now be seized with how Zimbabwean football returns to the international stage a better governed sport, and not their current state of football inquiry.

If the SRC can’t see that domestic football long plunged off the cliff into the gorge, then we risk remaining banned even for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

We can’t keep trying to draw fresh water from a salty well, so there is need to flash the current Zifa personnel down the toilet and install new people with the love of the game at heart because we are tired of being led down the garden path.