Gwindi sentencing further postponed

Senior Sports Reporter
SENTENCING of fireband Harare City chairman Leslie Gwindi has been further postponed. The former Dynamos and PSL secretary-general was supposed to have known his fate yesterday after being found guilty of charges of bringing the game of football into disrepute. “One of the disciplinary committee members, Wilfred Mukuna, is out of the country so the committee did not deliberate. The sentence will now be handed down next week,” said Zifa legal advisor Ralph Maganga yesterday.

Gwindi was charged and found guilty of bringing the game of football into disrepute following alleged punchy comments, which he made at the Bulawayo Press Club early last year.

The fireband administrator, who challenged and lost to Cuthbert Dube for the Zifa presidency in 2010 and is believed to be keen on running for the same post, faced charges of contravening Section 4.1, 4.2(f) and 4.3 of the Zifa rules and regulations 1996 which deals with “misconduct, betting, bribery, bad language and conduct likely to bring the game of football into disrepute.”

According to the charge sheet, on March 8, 2013 at the Bulawayo Press Club meeting at a city hotel, Gwindi unlawfully and with intent to damage the reputation of the Zimbabwe Football Association board in particular and the country’s football in general, committed an act of misconduct likely to bring the game into disrepute by using bad language and insulting the Premier Soccer League sponsors, Delta Beverages (Castle Lager brand), the Zimbabwe Football Association board, the Zimbabwe national senior team coach and the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture.

During the Press Club meeting, Gwindi blasted the PSL sponsorship, saying it was a pittance while also attacking the Zifa leadership for its lack of vision.

The Harare City boss, who had brought in former Zifa president Leo Mugabe and vice-president Vincent Pamire and Motor Action Football Club director Eric Rosen as witnesses, admitted uttering the alleged comments but stressed that they were merely an expression of an opinion given in the spirit of trying to help improve the game.

He argued they should accept criticism. Zifa were represented by PSL chairman Twine Phiri and Zifa vice president Ndumiso Gumede at the hearing.

There has been claims before that the Zifa leadership want to muscle Gwindi out of the race for the forthcoming Zifa elections set for next month, claims which however have been rubbished by the association.

However, it is the alleged involvement of the sponsors, Delta Beverages, who are said to have demanded to know what action would be taken by the league to whip Gwindi into line.

The issue seems not to have been debated by the clubs most of whom want a bigger deal to survive.
“Having gone through the evidence adduced in this matter, I am convinced that (Gwindi) used bad language likely to bring the game of football into disrepute. Accordingly, I find the respondent guilty as charged,” read part of the ruling by Wilbert Mandinde.

Andrew Musengezi, another member of the disciplinary committee concurred; “I wish to add that the statements by the respondent were objectionable.

“They were a direct attack on the current Zifa board to which we heard evidence that the respondent contested in the last elections and lost. The next elections are due in March 2014.

“There is nothing we find in the press releases which was calculated to promote football. It is an insult to publish in a newspaper or newspapers that a coach who Zifa fortuitously found available to assist the national team would be labelled ‘a tourist who had come to Zimbabwe to enjoy the Victoria Falls.”

“That with respect is an insult and cannot qualify as a ‘fair comment’ because Pagels did not come to Zimbabwe as a tourist at all. And to suggest that the Zifa board has ‘no brains’ cannot be a ‘fair comment’.

“That is an insult directed at the mother body of football in this country. And that coming from a football administrator seeking glory through the Press cannot be condoned. I agree that the utterances did or were likely to bring the game of football into disrepute.”
Pagels returned to Germany and found a job at a school.