adminZifa has been relying heavily on its president Cuthbert Dube to cater for most of the association’s expenses, which include paying the secretariat and funding national teams’ expenses.
There have been growing concerns that this has led to Dube single handedly dictating the operations of the football motherbody.
Other fears are on how Dube would recoup his money from an association that is ever accumulating debts.
“Truth of the matter is that Zimbabweans want to see the national teams, particularly the Warriors, doing well. I think the major problem is to identify the owner of national teams who has to be visible. We are just a board of administrators and I didn’t go to Zifa to use my personal funds neither did I use my pocket to get into Zifa.
“If I have a cent or any extra dollar to spare, why shouldn’t I give? I think we should be grateful to Dube for bailing us most of the times because he has some money to spare, but it must be noted that he is not donating that money to Zifa but he is loaning us. We have approached the Government and corporate world for assistance but nothing came out. We must be grateful in the sense that that is an interest-free loan which Zifa will have to pay back,” said Kasu.
Kasu said it had been difficult for Zifa to cope as they were hitting brick walls in terms of getting sponsorship.
He said most companies wanted to associate themselves with brands that do not have controversy and as such his organisation was trying to clean the dirt in their house.
Kasu said they had derived strategies to attract sponsors and they had identified potential sponsors from around the country who they were approaching.
He said dealing with the Asiagate, addressing reports of alleged match-fixing in the Zifa Central Region and suspension of some board members to allow investigations to be done had seen them winning sympathy from the corporate world.
The Zifa board member said a collective effort would bail out the debt-ridden national association.
“All stakeholders should work together in our football if our state of soccer is to improve. Even for Zifa finances to improve we need Government to come in and the corporate world will flock in a complementary role.
“As part of our strategy, we have segmented national teams and what we want is for companies to adopt the brand that they want,” said Kasu.
Online Reporter