Online Reporter
Sports Reporter
PHILEMON Machana’s application to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) claiming third party interference in the recent ZIFA elections has triggered a lot of questions about what, and when, does something qualify to be termed third-party interference.
Machana was one of the candidates who were vying for the ZIFA presidency but lost out to fellow businessman Nqobile Magwizi, who won by a landslide.
He has joined hands with former PSL chairman Twine Phiri and they have filed an application at CAS seeking an order to have the outcome of the ZIFA poll declared null and void.
They are claiming that businessman Wicknell Chivayo’s promise to buy a top-of-the-range car for Magwizi and cars for the Councillors, in the event the businessman won the poll, was tantamount to third party interference.
Chivayo also promised ZIFA a US$10 million sponsorship package should Magwizi win the elections.
They want a fresh poll held within 30 days of a judgment being passed nullifying the elections.
They want:
◆ A declaration that there was third party influence in respect of the election for president of ZIFA, which rendered the poll illegitimate.
◆ A declaration that the election of the first respondent (Magwizi) as the president of ZIFA on January 25, 2025 is null and void.
◆ An order that second respondent, i.e. ZIFA, is to conduct a fresh poll for the position of president of ZIFA within 30 days of issuance of the order.”
However, questions have emerged in the wake of the CAS application, especially when it comes to Machana.
◆ Machana was part of the ZIFA board which went to bed with Chivayo when he unveiled his US$1 million sponsorship for the association in 2016 and if that was right, what is wrong with the promised US$10 million sponsorship which Chivayo has promised now?
◆ By embracing Chivayo to be part of the football set-up back then, didn’t the ZIFA board then, which had Machana as an executive committee member, clear the path for the businessman to come in and make the promises we are seeing now?
◆ Didn’t the decision by the ZIFA board, of which Machana was an executive member, to accept an arrangement in which Chivayo bought a brand new Toyota D4D in 2016 for the then Warriors coach Kallisto Pasuwa, clear the path for the businessman to come in and promise to buy cars for the Councillors?
◆ Didn’t the decision by the ZIFA board, of which Machana was an executive member, to accept an arrangement in which Chivayo bought a brand new Toyota D4D for then Mighty Warriors coach Shadreck Mlauzi, clear the path for the businessman to come I and promise to buy cars for the Councillors?
◆ This was the same ZIFA board, led by Philip Chiyangwa, which accepted Chivayo’s offer to pay off former Warriors coach Tom Saintfiet at the last minute to avoid the penalty in which the national team would have been barred from the World Cup qualifiers for the second edition in a row.
◆ Saintfiet was owed US$180 000.
Mathew Masinge