It has been 23 years since Zimbabwe hosted a major football tournament. But this month the Cosafa Senior Challenge soccer tournament kicks off in Harare.
Cosafa — the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations — comprises 14 countries: Angola, Botswana, Comoros Islands, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Madagascar has pulled out of the tournament because of political turmoil at home and has been replaced by Tanzania.
Zimbabwe let the chance of hosting Africa’s biggest soccer showcase slip through its fingers at the turn of the new millennium when the government failed to provide funding for the development of infrastructure. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) then shifted the tournament to Nigeria and Burkina Faso.
But with Zimbabwe’s hopes for a better future seemingly brightening, the tournament roars into life on October 17 with the final set for November 3.
The last major football event hosted in Zimbabwe was the Central and Southern African Football Associations Cup in 1985, which the host country won with a 2-0 victory over Kenya in the final. The man who lifted the trophy then as captain of the Zimbabwe national team was Sunday Chidzambwa — who will lead Zimbabwe again, this time from the bench as head coach.
The veteran coach commands respect after he guided the Warriors, as the national team is known, to their first appearance in the African Cup of Nations finals held in Tunisia in 2004. He also guided the Dynamos Football Club to the final of the African Champions League tournament in 1998.
Despite reeling from economic ruin, Zimbabwe jumped at the chance of hosting the Cosafa Senior Challenge after South Africa indicated that it was not in a position to host this year’s tournament.
The Zimbabwean government backed the bid by the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) to host the tournament with a US$1-million package to which the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority added another US$100 000.
This comes at a time when the government is failing to pay civil servants, but officialdom clearly hopes the extravagance will attract the attention of teams wanting to acclimatise in the region ahead of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. The country is well positioned to host any World Cup entourage, being only a short flight away from South Africa, but a lack of proper training facilities in major tourism centres such as Victoria Falls, Nyanga and Masvingo could damage its hopes of cashing in on 2010.
Education, sports and culture minister David Coltart is delighted with the country’s sporting breakthrough. ”As you are aware, the government has been engaged with Cosafa with regards to the hosting of the Senior Challenge Cup. We have sealed the deal for the tournament to go ahead and I am grateful for the US$1-million government commitment,” Coltart told the press recently.
Zimbabwe will provide accommodation, transport, food, medical cover and other necessities to the visiting teams. Cosafa vice-president Salame Phafane said he was confident Zimbabwe would stage a great tournament.
Four nations — Angola, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe — have lifted the trophy in the past, each three times, since the competition’s inception in 1997. The tournament will be played in two stadiums, Rufaro in Harare, which has artificial turf after getting a face-lift via a Fifa-funded programme, and Barbourfields in Bulawayo, which still lags behind international standards.
But Zifa president Wellington Nyatanga said he was optimistic that Rufaro and Barbourfields, as well as the hotels for the tournament, would provide first-class facilities.
South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi and Namibia have been given byes in the preliminary round because of their superior Fifa rankings, leaving the hosts — Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Seychelles, Tanzania, Mauritius and the Comoros — to participate in the first-round knockouts.