The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
Zifa has laid the blame for the country’s suspension from next year’s Cosafa Senior Men’s tournament on the doorstep of former president, Philip Chiyangwa accusing him of making a bid to host this year’s tournament without consulting Government.
In a media statement released yesterday on resolutions of the Zifa executive committing meeting held on Friday, the association said they believe Chiyangwa, who is Cosafa president, is playing a role to push for the banning of the country from Cosafa.
“Zifa is however, mindful of the role the Cosafa president is playing to push for the ban of his country of origin from Cosafa for a crime he individually committed through making the unauthorised bid to host (the 2019 Cosafa tournament) in 2018.
“The current Zifa board while taking the punishment didn’t bid for hosting the tournament and equally its efforts to escape the potential censure through hosting the tourney was equally rejected by the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation. It is important that the public appreciates that Zifa is therefore being punished for crimes committed by other parties,” read part of the statement.
Cosafa suspended the national senior men’s team from competing at next year’s Cosafa tournament after Zifa failed to comply with a deadline to commit to hosting the 2020 edition of the competition after they could not secure Government guarantees.
The regional body also fined Zifa US$200 000 and gave the national association a deadline of August 15 to pay the fine or risk a permanent ban from participating in all the regional body’s competitions.
Zifa said they are “still engaging and will soon come up with its official position regarding this matter (Cosafa ban) and key to this decision is whether Zifa will in future be partaking in the Cosafa competitions or the association shall concentrate on development of our local competitions, Caf and Fifa competitions”.
The Zifa executive committee also adopted a resolution by the Emergency Committee to set up a board of inquiry to will investigate events around the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations participation although it could not be ascertained which events in particular they were alluding to.
There was chaos over a charter place hired by Zifa after some members took on board undeserving people while the Warriors on several occasions threatened not to train over unpaid allowances.
Meanwhile, lawyers representing former Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda have written to the association demanding a retraction and apology after the associated claimed Sibanda was part of the people who disturbed the Warriors camp in Egypt. The lawyers have Zifa five days to do so, failure to which the Zanu-PF legislator would proceed to sue Zifa for defamation of character. The lawyers argued Zifa wrongfully accused Sibanda, as they do not have evidence of any sort.
