The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube Sports Correspondent
THE Zifa Board and Assembly are scheduled to hold separate meetings this coming weekend with current controversies bedevilling the local game likely to take centre stage.
The Zifa Board will meet on Friday; while the association’s annual general meeting is slated for the following day.
The Board meeting is likely to be explosive following Zimbabwe Women Football chairperson Miriam Sibanda’s letter to fellow Board members that was leaked to the media.
In the controversial letter Sibanda attacked Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze, while accusing some Board members of siding with him.
The issue is likely to come up for discussion and might lay bare the simmering tensions within the association as some Board members are also not happy with Mashingaidze, whom they have accused of usurping their powers and unilaterally making decisions.
At the Zifa Assembly meeting at the Zifa Village on Saturday various issues are expected to come up for debate with pressure coming from the Sports, Arts and Culture Ministry likely to influence some of the discussions.
Councillors who spoke on condition of anonymity said outcomes and decisions from the meeting should not be influenced by sinister agendas but be in the interest of football.
“Councillors should take this opportunity to ensure that we bring sanity to football. We need not be swayed by any influences whether monetary, political or otherwise but we should know that football is the king and we should only serve it only and no one else. Yes some may have been labelled rebels and enemies of football but as councillors the onus is on us to come up with the right decisions that do not leave the sport in a lurch. It is an opportunity to show the nation that we have football at heart,” said the councillor.
Another councillor said despite threats of the Cuthbert Dube-led board being suspended and then Fifa isolating the country from international football, they were unlikely “to pass a vote of no confidence on Dube’’ and that it would not be the “best solution as far as the game is concerned.”
“There are weaknesses here and there with the current Board but we do not feel there is need to remove them or pass a vote of no confidence in them,” said the councillor.
Outside the fiasco around the Zifa’s ban, the assembly will be seized with ratifying the new draft rules and regulations that have been crafted by the football controlling body in the country.
The rules and regulations will replace the obsolete ones that came into effect in 1996 and had not been updated despite numerous changes that took place on the international soccer scene.
New statutes that came with the altering of the Zifa constitution last year saw a new look Board which was trimmed down from 13 to eight and with the Board members having no titles except the president and vice-president. Other members were assigned roles to chair standing committees.
The Zifa Strategic Plan that was launched last year and hinged on seven key result areas will also be adopted on Saturday.
The seven key result areas include general administration, finance, development, competitions, marketing and communications, the legal framework and institutional capacity.
