With match officials having attracted a lot of limelight for wrong season during the 2024 season, Zifa referees committee challenged all-football stakeholder to come together to map a forward in the development of the game.
The committee chairperson Norman Matemera admits that the performance of the match officials has not been up to scratch in the 2024 season and believes that football stakeholders need to come together and map a way forward to improve the level of officiating in the country.
“We need to get united and work together for the development of football," Matemera said.
“It is now up to the football stakeholders, football leadership, to work together with us (Zifa referees committee) and find a common ground and find ways of improving our refereeing and improving our players and our coaches.
“We need development in all sectors so that we don't point fingers at each other.”
With the season having been marred by controversy, Matemera revealed that his committee had to intervene by suspending officials as they sought to send a message.
“We were coming from the Fifa ban, which was lifted last year around June, and the first six months in 2023," he said.
“2024 now, it was mixed in the sense that the first 12, 13 weeks, we had some challenges with our referees, they were making too many mistakes, too many errors, which cost some teams.
“And we were ruthless that time as the leadership to try to bring them into the field where we want them, performance wise; they improved.”
He said following the intervention of the committee, which saw officials being suspended match officiating levels rose.
“There was stability.
“Although one or two incidents raised tempers again, I would like to believe that they were genuine mistakes, which were not man made," Matemera said.
“Overall, our referees on a scale of 10, I can rate them up to around six and there's room for improvement,” Matemera said.
The Zifa referees boss revealed that they had challenges with officiating in the lower leagues particularly the Zifa Northern and Eastern Region Division One leagues.
“And in the lower leagues, we had a bit of challenges in the eastern region and northern region; central and southern, were a bit stable,” Matemera said.