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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter

PLANS are underway for the country to have its own football philosophy and Zifa will organise an all-stakeholders indaba that will come up with a working document towards that objective before the end of the year.

The indaba will be attended by all coaches, football legends and other stakeholders.

Chairman of the Zifa technical and development committee, and a member of the executive committee Bryton Malandule said the idea of a football philosophy was part of the agenda when the committee met at a Bulawayo hotel on Saturday.

It was the committee’s second meeting this year and it also touched on the disbursement of Covid-19 relief funds for Zimbabwean coaches.

According to Zifa’s distribution list, the coaches were allocated US$10 000.

In a brief media statement, Malandule said other countries like Spain, Brazil, Germany and even South Africa have their own brand of football that they follow even when they hire foreign coaches.

Spain call their style of football tika tika.

“As Zifa technical and development committee, we are looking at having an all-stakeholders meeting where we are going to discuss and then come up with a Zimbabwe football philosophy of playing football. We are looking at having our coaches, legends of the game such as Peter Ndlovu, Douglas Mloyi, Madinda Ndlovu, Moses Chunga, Rahman Gumbo and a lot more. We hope all our legends will attend this very important indaba which will be hosted by the Zifa technical director and the technical development committee,” said Malandule.

“The thrust is to make sure that as a nation we have a football philosophy so that when maybe we employ our coaches they come and fit into our football philosophy. We must, as a country, know what type of football we are playing right from the grassroots level up to the senior national team; this is our vision.”

He said continuity from grassroots to the senior national squad was critical and coaches local or foreign coaches need to fit into that instead of moving with the wind depending on the nationality of the coach.

“At one time the Caf technical director asked us about the type of football philosophy we have as a country and we could not answer him because we don’t have any at the moment. This should and must be a thing of the past now,” he said.

Meanwhile, Malandule said they had also discussed distribution of the Covid-19 relief fund to coaches, mainly those in the national team structures.

“Football has not been played this year and our coaches, especially those that are in the national team structures, have not had an opportunity to be engaged in any football activity due to this pandemic. The committee sat down and has come up with a distribution plan for our coaches in the set up from the senior national team right down to the Under-15 as well as all our technical instructors,” said Malandule.