Gift Banda handed Zifa reigns

Harare Bureau
Zifa councillors yesterday voted unanimously to recall their president Felton Kamambo and two other board members — Philemon Machana and Bryton Malandule but averted a leadership crisis when retaining the rest of the executive committee.

In a highly-anticipated Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) that had Zifa lawyer Chenaimwoyo Gumiro giving the assembly guidance on the legalities of the indaba and presiding over the voting process, 45 of the 58 Congress members turned up.

Despite all members of the board that was suspended by the Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) on November 16, 2021, being invited to answer to the charges that had been levelled against them, Kamambo, Machana, Malandule and Stanley Chapeta were conspicuous by their absence.

But that did not stop the congress from proceeding with the vote to revoke their mandate. During the same indaba, the trio of Premier Soccer League and Women’s chairpersons Farai Jere and Barbra Chikosi as well Sugar Chagonda were accorded an opportunity to respond to the charges laid out against them and were in the end spared the axe.

There was no axe too for vice-president Gift Banda, whose controversial suspension by his colleagues in the board had been lifted a month before the SRC banned the Kamambo board. With Banda, Jere, Chikosi and Chagonda spared from revocation, the Congress ensured that Zifa would continue to be led by a duly elected board and the quartet is enough to make a quorum. Banda assumed the presidency, since he was the sitting vice-president following the firing of Kamambo.

Gumiro told the media after the indaba that yesterday’s EGM was a “certified as a constitutional internal process’’ which saw 43 councillors out of the 45 that attended, voting in favour of the ouster of Kamambo, who was facing a host of charges including the abuse of Covid-19 relief funds and breaching the constitution on several occasions.

“This was internal process which does not change much regarding the situation on the ground, the SRC suspension remains in force, the Fifa suspension remains in force.

So what now needs to be done is to ensure or convince the SRC to first uplift the suspension of the executive committee and also to convince Fifa because remember there is a condition on the Fifa letter that they can only uplift the suspension (of Zimbabwe) upon the reinstatement of the Kamambo-led board. So it’s now for the SRC firstly to uplift the suspension and then for Zifa now to say the Kamambo board has been reinstated without A, B, C, D.

Fifa is the second rung of the equation. The first is for the SRC to uplift the suspension. Once the SRC uplifts the suspension then the second run now kicks off to say, which board has been reinstated. Zifa now has to say, in terms of our constitution, the board that was there, the Kamambo board has been reinstated but in terms of the Zifa constitution there is this revocation that was done to A, B, C, D but it’s still the Kamambo board,” explained Gumiro.

However, there were still dissenting voices, with some football administrators arguing that the outcome of the meeting will not be accepted by Fifa, which has suspended Zimbabwe from international football. On Friday, an email was shared on social media, purported to be from Fifa to suspended Zifa CEO Joseph Mamutse and Kamambo, pouring cold water on the meeting.

“Fifa has insisted that Kamambo and his board should be reinstated first, but in this case, Kamambo and crew were recalled while still on suspension, and the Emergency General Meeting turned out to be a disciplinary hearing on one hand, which is controversial,” said a football administrator.