The Sunday News
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
AS 199 Fifa members who attended the world football governing body’s Congress held in Rwanda last week voted to keep the Zimbabwe Football Association membership suspended, the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) remains unmoved.
The Fifa Congress held in the East African country voted not to lift the suspension imposed on Zifa’s membership last year. Only one member nation was against the continued suspension of Zifa with 199 members voting to have the suspension upheld. In 2022, Fifa suspended Zimbabwe’s membership over what it termed “third party interference” in the internal affairs of Zifa. This came after the SRC suspended the Felton Kamambo-led Zifa executive committee in November 2021 for a number of reasons.
However, Kamambo and two other members of his executive, Philemon Machana and Bryton Malandule had their mandates revoked by the Zifa Congress in April 2022. Fifa have set among other conditions for lifting Zifa’s suspension, the reinstatement of the Kamambo led Zifa leadership, which the SRC insist have no power to do after what transpired at the Zifa Congress. SRC chairman, Gerald Mlotshwa appeared to scoff at the latest development, insisting that their focus is on reforms, not readmission back to the Fifa family.
“There’s nothing new here. Neither SRC or to the best of my knowledge Zifa have approached Fifa to lift the suspension of Zimbabwe’s membership. The focus is on reforms. Our conversations with Fifa are centred on reforms and not the lifting of Zifa’s suspension. No such formal request has been made yet.
Zifa
And no such formal request will be made until Zifa and SRC have agreed to the roadmap we have made previous reference to. That’s where our focus is and should be. It’s as simple as that,’’ Mlotshwa was quoted as having said.
Zifa’s suspension has come with consequences as Zimbabwean national teams and clubs cannot take part in any international football competitions, the country cannot benefit from any Fifa or Caf development grants while local referees have also been frozen out from officiating outside the country’s borders.
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