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Minister Makhosini Hlongwane

Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
THE Minister of Sport and Recreation, Makhosini Hlongwane, will next week lead a high-powered government delegation to the Fifa headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland on an audacious mission to salvage Zimbabwe’s participation in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers.

The road to the 2018 global football showpiece begins this weekend but Minister Hlongwane remains confident that an unprecedented decision that will see Zimbabwe back in the qualifiers can still be taken by Fifa.

Zimbabwe was kicked out of the qualifiers on March 12, 2015 due to failure by Zifa to pay former coach Jose Claudinei, popularly known as Valinhos, his salary.

“We leave for Zurich next week to appeal Zimbabwe’s ban and the reasons for our action are basically three fold. We believe the action was too harsh so as to induce a shock among players who still have a shelf life in football and four years might be half of that shelf life for some of the players,” said the minister in an interview in Bulawayo yesterday.

He said the public has been hard done by the ban.

“Also last October there was a meeting, whose minutes are minuted where Fifa pledged $2 million to Zifa, money which could have been used to offset the Valinhos debt but just four to five months after that, Zimbabwe was banned from participating in the qualifiers despite the fact that Fifa hadn’t even fulfilled its pledge so in a way, Zimbabwe’s expectations of extinguishing the debt were now very high as a result of the pledge,” said Minister Hlongwane.

He added that it was common knowledge that Fifa is interested in football development but when Zimbabwe gets banned, that development, shared by the government of Zimbabwe too, will not happen.

“As the Zimbabwean government, we’re not challenging the liability of Zifa to Valinhos but we’re certainly challenging its disqualification from the World Cup tournament and I want to state that even if we don’t succeed although we know we will, an appeal has to be made,” said Minister Hlongwane who had no kind words for Zifa because of its failure to launch an appeal as provided for in Fifa statutes.

Zimbabwe are the only African country missing when the draw for the preliminary rounds of qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup in Russia was held. However, Minister Hlongwane believes there is hope for the Warriors to be reinstated. Fifa statutes provide for appeals.