adminRay Bande Senior Sports Reporter
BESIEGED Zifa president Cuthbert Dube, who appears to be living on borrowed time at the helm of the country’s soccer mother body, blamed the Eastern Region administration for turning its back on him when he counted on their support. Dube survived a coup last Saturday by the association’s councillors, who were pushing for his ouster during a combined Annual General Meeting and Extraordinary General Meeting.
The councillors failed to amend the agenda of the meeting and include an item to revoke Dube’s mandate.
Troubled Dube could, however, be given his marching orders on October 3, when the Zifa assembly convene for yet another Extraordinary General Meeting.
A Zifa councillor, who declined to be named, confided in this newspaper that during proceedings of last Saturday’s meeting, Dube expressed utmost shock that the Eastern Region — a body that he once headed — had opted to disown him.
“The Eastern Region administration was quite clear in its stance. Through the chairman Piraishe Mabhena, we openly told them that Dube has failed and it is high time he leaves office.
“Dube was openly told that the recent developments in our football, including the World Cup ban, were more than enough reasons for him to leave. As a result, Dube actually fell short of labelling the Eastern Region representatives a bunch of traitors.
In his introductory remarks, he expressed the fact he did not expect the Eastern Region to dump him.
“But as usual Dube refused to take heed. He remains adamant that he has not failed at all,” said the source.
Despite the clear show of no confidence from the councillors who voted him in as well as the nation at large, Dube said he was willing to continue heading Zifa.
“I cannot resign now because I have a legacy to leave in Zimbabwean football. I have done a lot to football because I love my country,” Dube said.
“I have worked hard for football, but at the end of the day I am now a sacrificial lamb,” Dube was recently quoted in local media.
Nonetheless, Post Sports understands that the only item now on the agenda for the October 3 meeting is revoking Dube’s mandate as Zifa president.
A total of 43 councillors voted for the next meeting, while seven were against the October 3 congress, with one member, understood to be Mutare’s Cecilia Gambe, refusing to vote.
Calls from various stakeholders for the disbandment of the current Zifa leadership have grown louder.
This comes after Zimbabwe was not part of the 2018 Fifa World Cup draw last Saturday as the country was excluded due to failure to pay former coach Valinhos his salary.
Dube is in his second term as Zifa president and it lasts until 2018.
Apparently, the Zifa Eastern Region boss Mabhena has not made his disapproval for the Dube administration a secret for some time now.
He was among the two board members and a dozen councillors who were recently suspended by Dube and a clique of sympathisers aligned to the Zifa president.
However, in a major blow to the clique that had been trying to push fellow leaders out of the leadership of domestic football, world football governing body Fifa refused to endorse the suspensions.
Mabhena once told Post Sport in one of his interviews with this newspaper that the ongoing madness at Zifa was a result of sheer lack of corporate governance that abounds in the country’s soccer mother body.
The Chiredzi-based football administrator cited the investigations and subsequent hearings on the Asiagate scam as one blunder that the Dube-led administration committed.
He argued that it seems to have been initiated to settle personal vendettas other than to cleanse the game of alleged rot.
Online Reporter