JUST IN: FIFA backs Chiyangwa-led Executive Committee

The Sunday News

Sports Reporter

WORLD football governing body FIFA has backed the Philip Chiyangwa Zifa board to remain in office until the next elections. In a statement posted by Chiyangwa on the Zifa website today (Tuesday), he also castigated those who have been calling his board illegitimate.

There has been an outcry from some football stakeholders claiming that the term of the current Zifa board had ended and thus, Chiyangwa and team were in office illegally.

Following is the full statement.

1. ZIFA wishes to advise all football stakeholders that FIFA has duly confirmed to both ZIFA and the mainstream media in Zimbabwe and South Africa that ZIFA elections shall soon be held in accordance with the ZIFA Statutes which give full responsibility and authority to the Electoral Committee duly installed by Congress on the 17^th of February 2018. Accordingly, the ZIFA Electoral Committee is presently seized with ZIFA electoral processes and shall soon make public, the timelines for the holding of elections.
2. FIFA has also duly confirmed that the current ZIFA Executive Committee, led by President Dr Philip Chiyangwa, remains the duly mandated Executive Committee of ZIFA and shall remain in office until completion of the electoral process when winners in the election shall be declared.
3. ZIFA has in the past months communicated the position as confirmed by FIFA which is clearly as provided in the ZIFA Constitution and the Electoral Code. It is noteworthy that notwithstanding the clear provisions of the ZIFA Statutes, there has been relentless attempts by failed and banned former football administrators and other well-known imposters to author chaos and confusion by making baseless allegations against the ZIFA Executive Committee and by seriously misrepresenting provisions of the ZIFA Constitution.
4. In particular, on the 10^th of April 2018, one Cuthbert Dube who singlehandedly created a whooping $7 million debt and was ultimately dismissed by the ZIFA Congress through a vote of no confidence in October of 2015, wrote to FIFA begging to be given authority to resume ZIFA leadership, notwithstanding his proven incompetence, ban and rejection by ZIFA members. FIFA has dismissed Dube’s shocking and shameless request with the contempt it deserves.

5. Equally, on the 10^th of April 2018, ex-convicts Mr Rafik Khan and Mr Vincent Pamire, and two other former Presidents, Mr Trevor Juul-Carelse and Mr Leo Mugabe (who were both dismissed from office) on proven allegations of maladministration, also begged FIFA to be given Executive authority in ZIFA by falsely claiming to be “elders of Zimbabwean football and honorary Presidents.” The shenanigans of these discredited failed football administrators were equally frowned upon by FIFA, which upheld the authority and sterling efforts of the ZIFA Executive Committee led by Dr Philip Chiyangwa.
6. Most surprisingly, on the 17^th of April 2018, a Joseph Muchechetere purporting to be the “Acting” Director General (a position not provided for in the SRC Act) nicodemously wrote to FIFA falsely alleging a “constitutional crisis” and desperately seeking to usurp the exclusive authority of the ZIFA Electoral Committee to run ZIFA elections. Mr Muchechetere has been seriously working in cahoots with the banned pseudo journalist and known rabble-rouser, one Hope Chizuzu, to smear the ZIFA leadership through publication of outright defamatory lies on Social Media.
7. ZIFA wishes to assure all football loving Zimbabweans that there will be strict compliance with football statutes and appropriate legal action is being taken against all charlatans who have attempted to destabilise the smooth administration of football in Zimbabwe.