The Sunday Mail
Nyararai Sibanda
IT’S an honour to have been elected as the Zimbabwe Rugby Union president.
First I would like to thank the constituency for having confidence in me and trusting me with the leadership of the union.
We have ahead of us, as a board, a tough road.
It is essentially a cycle that needs revamping the pillars that we have always had and restoring certain sectors that were falling behind.
We need to sharpen our skills and have an induction, as a first port of call, for the whole board so that everyone understands their duties, roles and responsibilities.
These are all responsibilities bestowed upon us by the union, community and the rugby fraternity in general.
It is only after this induction ceremony that we will come up with a strategic plan; one which is in synergy with the Confederation of Africa Rugby and the World Rugby goals and requirements.
We are looking at ourselves as people who are going to start, from this point in time, writing their own history.
The plans that we have are plans to ensure that we grow the sport in all its facets and this refers to spectators, players, officials, medical personnel.
We should qualify for the 2018 IRB Rugby World Cup.
We have teams, for instances, that are currently vying for the Olympic games in Rio, playing reprecharge in Monaco and Dublin in two months’ time, so preparations should move a gear up and ensure that we qualify.
The dream for every leader, obviously, is to succeed with these teams.
The flagship team, and this refers to the Sables, have the tough ask of ensuring that they maintain their position on the African table and also on the world standings.
Also, they have to beat Namibia, in all age-groups, and ensure that we climb above them on the table.
As far as immediate goals are concerned, we want to restructure and understand our goals, duties and targets; that is why we intend to start with the induction and strategising stage.
From a personal standpoint, my immediate goal is to ensure that everyone is going in the same direction and is on the same page.
This, however, is not about me; it’s just about ensuring that everyone else is going in the same direction and wants what we all want and that is to see the sport grow.
We currently have, in our constitution, provinces that are inactive and in my time as vice-president I was actively involved in trying to resuscitate these ailing provinces.
Now that I am in this position, there are opportunities to get Mashonaland West, Masvingo and Mashonaland Central back to sound footing.
We are looking at ourselves as people who are going to start, from this point in time, writing their own history
We want to get those structures running again and it is those structures that will feed into our goals of increasing the numbers of players, officials and administrators.
When my term is finished, I would like to have Zimbabwe rugby on sound footing and that means they will have a home or base, facilities like a Center of Excellence and High performances centers.
I also want to leave the union financially sound. This means maintaining or solidifying our current partnerships with sponsors and looking for new ones.
I also want Zimbabwe to become a destination that is lucrative for anyone who might want to join in.
We already have specialists, in our ranks, charged with taking charge of the commercial side of the sport. However, they will be guided and mandated not to look at just Zimbabwe or local partners but look at global opportunities.
The newly-elected Zimbabwe Rugby Union president, Nyararai Sibanda, was speaking to The Sunday Mail’s Tinashe Kusema in Harare on May 4, 2016
