admin
Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
FIFA development officer for Southern Africa Ashford Mamelodi flew into the country yesterday to begin a five-day mission during which he will inspect progress on the Zimbabwe Goal Project and assess how best they can help bankrupt Zifa overcome their huge debts.
Zifa are saddled with a crippling debt that has ballooned to nearly US$6 million and has left the association struggling to deal with writs of execution of property from creditors.
The problems haunting Zifa have since gone beyond the country’s borders and attracted Fifa’s attention.
Mamelodi will be in the company of Fifa’s senior development manager Africa, Zelklifi Ngoufonja, during the latest of his visits to Zimbabwe.
Zifa yesterday indicated that the Fifa pair would this afternoon go on a tour of the Zifa Village in Mt Hampden and take a look at the refurbishment being done at the complex including installation of an artificial turf which is being made possible through funds provided by the world body.
The artificial turf had come under serious threat after former Zifa communications manager Nicky Dhlamini-Moyo won a Labour Court case against her dismissal and had attached it together with other equipment as part of efforts to recover the US$88 000 that she is owed by the association.
However, Fifa are keen to see the Goal Project move to another level and Mamelodi and Ngoufonja, who flew in after lunch yesterday are expected to also meet with the Zifa board on Thursday and among other issues impress the significance of safe guarding such property and equipment that the association would have secured through Fifa funding.
The Fifa pair will also outline to the Zifa board members the relationship between the world body and its member association and how best the two parties can forge relations.
Mamelodi has also been very passionate about assisting Zimbabwe and other African associations to capitalise on the resources provided by Fifa through the Goal Bureau to develop the game on the continent.
The move by Fifa to send Mamelodi and Ngoufonja to establish the situation on the ground and find ways in which the world soccer governing body can assist Zifa, is understood to have brought a great degree of optimism on the association’s president Cuthbert Dube and his board as they grapple with staving off the writs.
Mamelodi and Ngoufonja also come just as Dube, made a passionate appeal to Zifa’s creditors to be patient with them as they seek to liquidate the mounting debts that have crippled their operations and left the local soccer mother virtually bankrupt and needing to stem a ballooning debt.
Dube also revealed in his statement that he had been tasked by the board to lead a team that would negotiate with creditors and also pursue the association’s own debtors in their bid to balance their books and pay what they owe.
The Zifa boss is expected to brief Mamelodi on the negotiations which they have already started with creditors and the outline the challenges they are facing to liquidate the debts.
“Much as it is not a secret that Zifa has serious financial problems — with a debt of nearly US$6 million — I would also like to assure all our creditors and suppliers that my board remains committed to servicing all debts assumed under this council’s current tenure, and those inherited in March 2010.
“With this action on course, underpinned by the strategic plan to be commissioned later this month, I must also emphasise that these strategies have the buy-in of key stakeholders in football.
“Crucially, the essence of that on-going dialogue is to hammer out payment plans and stave off the execution of writs, which would have meant the removal of property at Zifa House and Village,” Dube said.
While Fifa have been keen to assist Zifa get out of the woods, the world soccer governing body has also been appealing to the government to chip in and assist the association financially.
Mamelodi is also aware that the rate at which Zifa have to fight of writs of execution could hamper efforts to take the association’s Goal Project to another level.
Zimbabwe is already lagging behind other countries in the region and continent at large in the implementation of the Goal Project which is funded by the world body once a country’s project proposal has been approved.
But with Zifa’s debts far outweighing what they are owed by their affiliates and other institutions, it appears even Fifa have a big task on their hands in trying to help resuscitate their member association.
Dube reckoned that it would need a united front by the game’s stakeholders to assist Zifa to eventually liquidate the debts.
Online Reporter