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Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Football Association president Philip Chiyangwa has vowed to decisively deal with former Zifa board members and PSL officials who recently held a clandestine meeting with Fifa development officer for eastern and southern Africa region Ashford Mamelodi.
A delegation of past Zifa board members and PSL officials is said to have had a gathering with Mamelodi in his native Botswana before his visit to Zimbabwe at the beginning of this month. A document was sent to Mamelodi where they called for an urgent intervention by the world football governing body.
The 10-page document was signed off by Highlanders chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede in his capacity as former Zifa secretary-general (1980-2003) and past vice-president (2010-2014). It was copied to the working committee for the re-establishment of Zifa, Zifa creditors and Zifa staff.
Chiyangwa yesterday said Gumede, when confronted by Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda and association’s southern region chairman Musa Mandaza at the Bosso offices last Thursday allegedly spilled the bins that he had been asked by his former boss Cuthbert Dube to sign off the document. The Zifa president declared that those who were behind the clandestine document had handed themselves to him on a silver platter with necessary steps to be taken against them.
“I am very much aware but I am not bothered at all but will take the necessary steps that are in line with the game of football, when people misfire they must be punished, the person behind all this is Cuthbert Dube, Gumede was confronted and he said it’s Dube who did this, he knew the consequences could be anything. I am overjoyed that people hand themselves to me on a silver platter, they did not contribute anything to football but contributed to the debt.
“I am the answerable authority for anything to do with football in Zimbabwe. I am going to respond, it’s bad news for them.
We will make a proper comprehensive report on the letter, Gumede is the one who signed it. I was phoned by Fifa myself to allow Mamelodi to meet all stakeholders. From the latest developments some of them can face prison, I want to increase my speed so that they can be behind me,’’ declared Chiyangwa.
The document which is possession of Sunday News is dated 26 July 2016 and is entitled: Crisis in Zimbabwean football and urgent need for Fifa intervention.
It focuses on 13 main points, these being transition, makeshift executive committee, respect for Zifa constitution, standing committees, audits, Zifa staff, creditors, accountability, general secretariat, dissolution of Zifa and the birth of Nafaz on 4 June 2016.
On transition, the report states that there was no handover takeover between the previous Zifa executive led by Dube and the new executive committee led by Chiyangwa.
“There was no handover takeover between the former Zifa executive committee led by Cuthbert Dube and the new executive led by Philip Chiyangwa. A handover takeover report prepared by the Cuthbert Dube led executive committee, was submitted to the new executive but no meeting to discuss the contents of the report ever took place. The stakeholders had sight of the contents of the report and it is our belief that the report would have helped in giving the new executive committee a full appreciation of the state of football in Zimbabwe. In the absence of a proper handover, a successor establishment is bound to grope in darkness and will be prone to bleeps and blunders. The new executive committee seems not interested in assuming responsibilities of Zifa, left behind by the previous leadership and this is the height of bad governance,’’ reads parts of the letter to Mamelodi.
At the time when the document was put together before Zifa appointed standing committees, the authors claimed that Sibanda wants to influence who is deployed based on ethnicity and friendship. They stated that of interest was the appointment of Highlanders chairman Peter Dube to lead the referees committee (under Nafaz which failed to take off) and further that Sibanda does not have the requisite technical skills to head the High Performance, Technical Development and Human Resources committees. In response, Sibanda said the claims were mere “hogwash”, coming from people bent on fighting the current Zifa leadership.
A claim is made in the letter to Mamelodi that former players are angry that their colleagues namely Benjani Mwaruwaru, James Takavada, Trevor Juul, Jackson Munyaka and Edzai Kasinauyo have been shut out of football through underhand means.
The grouping went on to call for a special mission to be sent to Zimbabwe as a matter of urgency to meet with all interest groups in order to ascertain the extent of the crisis and the feelings of the owners of the game. They stated that if Fifa were not agreeable to sending a representative, they were willing to travel to the world football governing body’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland at their own expense.
“In conclusion, we appeal to Fifa not to allow the current situation to deteriorate into a football catastrophe to the 209 member Association through a ‘wait and see’ attitude. Zimbabwean football is crying for urgent intervention and HELP from FIFA. Should FIFA find it difficult to send a team to Zimbabwe as requested, the stakeholders are prepared to travel to the FIFA Headquarters in Zurich in early August 2016, using own resources, in a bid to save our game from total collapse,’’ concluded the letter to Mamelodi.
In an interview last night, Gumede pointed out that Mamelodi’s visit to the country was to a certain extent because of the concerns they had raised in the letter to Fifa they penned in July. The Highlanders CEO declared that he has been a casualty of many battles before and was prepared for whatever might be heading his way.
“Mamelodi came here partly because of the concerns written by a conglomerate. I can’t be business people, former employees.
I was asked to stand in for all these people, any war has to have causalities, the point is if any of those points are not true, people should wait and hear what Mamelodi heard from all the stakeholders.
It doesn’t matter, I have been a casuality of many wars, football has been almost my life, they (Sibanda and Mandaza) expressed disappointment with me. They said they take me for a mentor and did not understand why I can be used by other people,’’ said Gumede.
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