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Eddie Chikamhi Harare Bureau—
ZIFA president Phillip Chiyangwa yesterday sought to extend the olive branch to Warriors coach Callisto Pasuwa by issuing out a public apology as the first step towards normalising relations with the coach. Pasuwa on Sunday demanded an apology after relations with his employers had been strained over a raft of accusations which had been used as basis for his shock sacking last Thursday.
The coach has since been reinstated and is expected to resume the preparations for the African Nations Championship with his Warriors. Chiyangwa, who had been in Johannesburg, South Africa returned home on Sunday night after attending his maiden Cosafa annual meeting together with chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze.
The Harare property mogul yesterday convened an emergency board meeting to restore order in the Zifa house that had been left burning following a national outcry over the association’s state.
Pasuwa was reinstated on Saturday but he was still apprehensive especially about the allegations levelled against him and his management team by Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda as the basis of his brief dismissal.
The coach said he wanted the Bulawayo businessman to withdraw his allegations that half of the players that had been in camp in preparation for the Chan tournament belonged to the same management stable as his manager Gibson Mahachi and that insinuated that underhand deals could be taking place to sell players abroad.
It later turned that only four players were under the management of Mahachi. The Zifa board issued out a statement after their meeting yesterday and top of the list of their resolutions was the apology to the coach and the nation for the misleading information.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association would like to unreservedly apologise to members of the football fraternity, members of the Zifa congress, players, coach Callisto Pasuwa, his manager Gibson Mahachi, the Warriors technical team, members of the media and all interested stakeholders for the unfortunate disturbances that characterised the senior national team’s African Nations Championship (Chan) preparations.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association executive committee would like to reaffirm its commitment to service the beautiful game of football in its entirety in line with the mandate bestowed on us by the Zifa congress.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association executive committee also resolved that coach Callisto Pasuwa be given a contract of employment as soon as possible.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association is currently seized with logistics for the technical team and players to resume camp immediately in preparation for the 2016 African Nations Championship (Chan) finals,” said Chiyangwa.
Last night Zifa were working to finalise a contract for the coach, one of the major pre-requisites for Pasuwa to return to duty. Zifa have constantly been urged to sign a contract with the coach that would help set the terms of reference and the obligations that either party need to fulfil.
The former Dynamos gaffer who has been doubling up as Warriors and national Under-23 man has been working with both the senior team and the Under-23 side for over a year on a gentleman’s agreement and his manager Mahachi yesterday said the contract issue should now be the priority.
Mahachi said the coach had not seen the apology by yesterday and had wanted a detailed explanation from Sibanda over what led to his shock dismissal last week. The Zifa board wants Pasuwa to resume duties as soon as possible but it appears the working environment could have been poisoned.
Mahachi said the coach will only return to work once relations are normalised and “all conditions” met. “We haven’t seen the apology yet but if they’ve apologised, they’ve done good. We’ll then see the course of action to take afterwards, which is obviously the negotiations for the coach’s contract,” said Mahachi.
The Warriors camp was dissolved last week when the coach was fired. The team was already behind time and it now means they have lost two weeks of preparation. Pasuwa had revealed last week that he had a six-week programme and the disturbances which led to the dissolution of the camp by the association have not helped matters.
“If all things and conditions are met he can always go back and resume the preparations. The coach had a working programme that he had drafted and it’s now difficult to implement it with this chaos.
“In other words, we’ve already failed in our preparations for the Chan tournament. We’ve lost valuable time all because of someone’s carelessness. If the team doesn’t do well at Chan who do we blame? Somebody has to be accountable for this,” said Mahachi. It emerged that frantic efforts were being made to get the Warriors to start trooping back into camp today.