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Sports Reporter
TWO weeks ago, Joshua Khumalo was painted as a football outcast who had no role to play in the Zifa family.
He was one of two high-profile officials disowned by the association and accused of being part of a cartel of individuals, who should be named and shamed for allegedly masquerading as employees of the association.
Tinashe Mapuranga, who has served as a Zifa protocol officer in the past, was the other official.
In a strongly-worded letter sent to all Zifa affiliates, from the Premier Soccer League to the Area Zones, and copied to the association’s president, Cuthbert Dube, Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze not only disowned, but clearly discredited Khumalo.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association hereby advises all affiliate organs of the Association that Mr Joshua Khumalo is not an employee of the Association and has no role to play in Association football,” Mashingaidze wrote on July 30 this year.
“He has, of late, been contacting some affiliates purporting to be doing so on behalf of the Association.
“It has come to the attention of the Association that there are some characters masquerading as employees and such characters should be named and shamed once their identities have been established.”
But is Khumalo really a football outcast who has “no role to play in Association football”?
Images obtained by The Herald show that Khumalo has been a member of the Zifa inner circle and, during the elections for the board members at the Zifa Village in March this year, enjoyed exclusive access to Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.
In one of the pictures, Khumalo can be seen standing at the top table, after Dube had won the polls, with the Zifa president and the Fifa representative to the polls, Ashford Mamelodi of Botswana.
“Surely, you can’t be an outcast and still get into those positions and stand side-by-side with the boss and the Fifa representative, at the top of the table, at such a very important meeting where the leadership of the association is being chosen,” the sources said.
“You can only get that up-close-and-personal with the Zifa bosses and Fifa representatives if you a member of the Zifa inner circle and this is what Josh has always been in the last four years and the sudden turn of events are surprising.
“It’s almost like telling Mamelodi that when you came to supervise the Zifa elections in March, we gave you the company of a rogue official who was masquerading as a member of the Zifa family.”
A number of questions, though, remain unanswered.
Why, if Khumalo is surely a rogue football administrator, was he allowed such exclusive access to the Zifa leaders and Fifa representatives?
If he has “no role to play in Association football”, what was he doing at the Zifa Village during the elections for the association’s leadership this year?
If he is an outcast, who appointed him to be the kit manager of the Warriors, when Klaus Dieter-Pagels was coach of the team?
Khumalo declined to discuss why his close relationship with Zifa leaders appears to have soured dramatically, in recent weeks, saying he was waiting for the right time to also tell the world his side of the story.
Reports, though, indicate that Khumalo fell out with some officials at Zifa when he turned himself into a whistleblower who questioned how some officials at 53 Livingstone Avenue were affording to import cars from Japan when they were going for months without being paid.
Khumalo might also have dug his grave when he questioned the recycling of tickets, a system where one ticket, at a devalued price, can be sold countless of times at the gates with the proceeds being pocketed by officials, during the Nations Cup qualifier against Tanzania at the National Sports Stadium.
Online Reporter