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Sports Reporters
THE bruising battle for the control of the beleaguered football body Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) continues when the board meets tomorrow in a contested gathering where some members of Zifa are set to be suspended. While some board members feel tomorrow’s meeting is unconstitutional and should not be held Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze insisted yesterday that they were going ahead with the indaba as planned with one item on the agenda being the suspension of “some’’ members.
Following a failed effort to push out Cuthbert Dube by some members of the Zifa Assembly during a meeting held last month, the Zifa president is expected to make his own attempts to chuck out those he suspects were behind the move.
Mashingaidze said due notice had been given for the meeting and there was no way it could not go ahead.
“We certainly cannot call for an unconstitutional meeting. There are many pressing issues that need to be attended to and if you remember we postponed another board meeting in March, naturally this one has to go ahead,” he said.
The agenda that was sent out to board members reads that items that will be up for discussion include suspension of members, national teams, Zifa debt, the Fifa’s mission that was in the country, the extra-ordinary general meeting and the annual general state.
However, a board member who spoke on condition of anonymity said tomorrow’s meeting is unconstitutional in that it has a changed agenda from the postponed one and the norm was to have a board meeting a day before an AGM.
“I do not know how they will justify the meeting but it is against the constitution but again why should we be suspending members when the association is burning and we are faced with a myriad of problems? We should concentrate on fixing these problems instead of chucking people out,” he said.
Sources close to Zifa said vice-president Omega Sibanda, board member finance, Bernard Gwarada, Southern Region chairman Musa Mandaza and his counterparts from the Northern and Eastern Regions, Willard Manyengavana and Piraishe Mabhena are likely to be suspended although their suspension will have to be endorsed by Congress as stipulated by the Zifa constitution.
Zifa councillors, totalling 30, met in Harare on 16 May in an extra-ordinary general meeting and decided to remove Dube but Fifa later nullified the move saying the meeting was illegal and the world football body instructed Zifa to organise an EGM by 16 June. The meeting had also suspended board members, Fungai Chihuri and Tavengwa Hara.
The Zifa councillors had set 20 June as the new date for the EGM after the lapse of the Fifa date but it has since emerged that Fifa has given Zifa the leeway to hold an annual general meeting that would accommodate the concerns of all Zifa stakeholders a month from now.
In a new development, Fifa wrote to Mashingaidze on Thursday informing him they were in agreement with new dates that can be in July or August after the Zifa chief administrator had written to the world football body although the contents of that correspondence could not be ascertained.
The letter signed off by Fifa secretary-general Jeremy Valcke reads: “We acknowledge receipt of your correspondences dated 8 and 10 June 2015 regarding the ordinary and extraordinary congresses of the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa).
“We understand that our recommendation to hold both an extraordinary congress and an ordinary congress on 16 June 2015 could not be implemented and that there had been some confusion with regard to the content of the agenda. We also take note that the Zifa Board decided to hold both ordinary and extraordinary congresses in July or August 2015 including items raised by Zifa members.
“We agree with your proposal which should accommodate the Zifa stakeholders who will have thus the possibility to discuss any of their concerns. Knowing that the first request by the Zifa Councillors was made in March 2015 and in order to shorten the 60 days’ notice deadline of an ordinary congress as stipulated in the Zifa Constitution, we suggest that you organise one extraordinary congress whose agenda would consist of topics drawn by Zifa Board and topics sent by Zifa members.
“Should you consider our recommendation, you could therefore announce the date of the extraordinary congress one month in advance and provide 10 days to the members to send their proposals for the agenda. Zifa would then have few days to compile the topics and send the formal convocation with the agenda two weeks before the congress in compliance with Zifa Constitution.”
Mashingaidze said the Zifa board will set the new date for the AGM when it meets tomorrow in Harare. The Zifa councillors were e-mailed the same letter by Fifa’s head of Member Associations, Primo Corvaro who also informed them that Fifa will attend the congress as observers.
Online Reporter