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ALTHOUGH football fans have fatalistically accepted the fact that Zifa is run by corrupt individuals, it is sad that their actions have had no consequences. Zifa officials have been involved in rampant, systematic, and deep-rooted corruption that has sullied domestic football for years, and we urge the Ministry of Sports and Recreation to take concrete action beyond just tough talk.
The deep-rooted culture of impunity that exists at Zifa needs to be punctured for the good of our game and this can only be done by arresting and prosecuting those officials implicated in scandals that have continued to dog the association. Corrupt Zifa officials have not only destroyed local football by misallocating funds and resources, but have also damaged the fans’ confidence and trust in the game, and they must be jailed.
As the governing body of domestic football, fans are forced to stick with Zifa with the hope that they will rehabilitate themselves, but things seem to be getting worse with no solution in sight. Had Zifa been a corporate entity, they would have been liquidated by now, because companies are subject to certain good corporate governance systems, that if ignored, can sink them.
However, Zifa have continued to limp along because they lean on the heavily-flawed Fifa statutes that forbid government intervention in the running of football in any country, thus making football associations some sort of small governments. That mentality seems to be at the core of Zifa’s arrogance as evidenced by their ruinous operations that leave both players and fans unsure which direction local football is headed.
The income and expenditure statement Zifa released in a bid to account for gate takings from the Warriors’ match against Guinea in Harare on Sunday last week, displayed the contempt the association has for Zimbabweans. The income and expenditure statement was such a sham, containing inflated figures and ghost payments in a bid to cover up for outright fraud.
For example, the bus the Warriors used was donated by Herentals College but Zifa still went on to list an exorbitant charge. However, the biggest fraud is that they still claim to have paid $22,000 for players’ allowances from the gate takings, but nothing is mentioned about the $20,000 PHD Ministries leader Walter Magaya gave them on the eve of the match.
This is fraud and law enforcement agencies must be brought in to investigate. If the Ministry of Sport and Recreation is serious about restoring sanity at Zifa, it must launch a forensic audit at the association to get to the bottom of the rot. We can’t have a situation where coaches go for months, and in some cases years, without being paid, yet some Zifa board members gatecrash into a stadium cash office to pay themselves allowances. For what?
Why should they be paid? Why should incompetence be rewarded? Zifa have arrogantly refused to answer pertinent questions on financial issues because they somehow believe they are untouchable as they have been made to feel that way for years.
The Ministry must get tough with Zifa now and stop dealing with them with kid gloves. It’s unacceptable that national teams have to be bailed out by clergymen and other individuals yet there are elected officials sitting and doing nothing, and just waiting for a home game or Fifa grant to dip their hands.
We are tired of increasing episodes of Zifa’s maladministration and misuse of funds, be they gate takings or Fifa grants.
Minister Andrew Langa has started the ball rolling by summoning Zifa to account for every cent from the Guinea match gate takings, but it mustn’t end as just another appraisal. The Minister must go a step further and ensure that those guilty of misusing Zifa funds are brought to book. In fact, we believe a full probe of Zifa finances is urgent and suggest that the Minister considers a judicial inquiry whose findings would be fully implemented if we are to arrest the incessant problems afflicting Zifa.
We should not fear a Fifa ban, because the world governing football body is itself undergoing reform after it was thrown into turmoil when 14 officials and executives, including seven high-profile members, were arrested as part of a £100 million corruption probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Zifa must be reformed to conform to modern corporate governance standards and they are not capable of instituting those reforms without government intervention.
Online Reporter