The Sunday News
THE year is coming to an end, football like other sports codes is taking stock of the activities of the year. More importantly football is preparing for a crucial “by-election”, for the Zifa presidency and executive committee.
The Zifa elections are coming as a result of the councillors’ withdrawal of the previous Cuthbert Dube led executive committee’s mandate.
The squabbles and fights to remove Dube and his executive committee led to the involvement of the Sports and Recreation Commission and Fifa . Pressure was exerted on Dube for him to resign after Zimbabwe was barred from participating in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers.
During the squabbles to remove Dube and his committee the SRC set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the problems besetting football. Public hearings were conducted. We understand a report was compiled, although it was never made public.
The SRC were for the better part of the year issuing statements condemning the Zifa executive committee. It is strange that the SRC went mum after the removal of Dube and his executive . Why did the SRC keep the report a secret? One would have thought that there are more football problems at Zifa than just changing the executive committee. Is the SRC toothless as some people have said? Is the sport body still relevant?
We understand the SRC Committee led by Mr Obadiah Moyo observed a number of flaws in the Zifa constitution. The question is why is the SRC allowing the Zifa elections to proceed when they know that the constitution has a lot of flaws?
We further note that the composition of the Zifa Electoral Committee has been challenged by one member of society and SRC has kept quiet about this? The Zifa constitution requires candidates for the executive committee to have at least five years in football administration. One would assume that this refers to football administration at the top level.
We now see candidates from Beach Soccer and Fustal (five-aside-football). Honestly do we want to trust candidates from such affiliates? We all know that the said affiliates are not active or running any competitions. Perhaps we should have seen more candidates from the PSL and Women’s football. These affiliates have teams representing Zimbabwe at the top level.
Another question to be asked is what are Zifa councillors are doing in their areas to justify their mandate of either electing or removing the Zifa executive committees. Are they representing their constituents or is it for personal gain. Have these councillors called meetings with their members to discuss the candidates of the national Zifa elections?
It’s an open secret that there are few provinces and regions that are self-sustaining. Most of the provinces have been relying on Cuthbert Dube’s monthly grants.
The regional leagues have failed to attract meaningful sponsorship.To clean up, SRC and Fifashould have started revocations from area zones right up to the regional leagues. Obviously we need to look at qualifications and the calibre of councillors.
Another interesting phenomenon about these Zifa elections is the selection of candidates. Organisations elect their leaders or office bearers from their membership. This applies to all organisations, including burial societies.
The candidates must be of good standing. The Zifa constitution defines who is a member of the association. It is strange that the Zifa Electoral Committee consider this important aspect when vetting candidates as some of the candidates are not coming from bona fide members of the association.
We now understand that some affiliates are not of good standing. Interestingly these have been attending Zifa Assembly meetings all along. If affiliates are not organising competitions ( Beach and Fustal) it means they are not of good standing. Whither Zimbabwe Football?
Finally, all the candidates were required to pay huge non-refundable nomination fees ranging between $1 500 to $2 500 each. These fees are three to five times more than fees paid by the National Presidential and Members of Parliament Election Candidates fees.The question who gazetted these fees since there is no executive committee in place?
The SRC is on record saying the nomination fees were too high. In fact the nomination fees for the candidates are higher than the annual subscriptions of some of the affiliates. Why is the deposit non-refundable? We hope that those advocating for change at Zifa will audit how these fees were utilised by the association. We hope the Electoral Committee members expenses did not consume the whole amount.
We can only say good luck to all the candidates contesting in the elections set for next Saturday.
