Rushwaya apologises to Chiyangwa

Sports Reporter
FORMER ZIFA chief executive Henrietta Rushwaya yesterday met the Association president Philip Chiyangwa to offer her unreserved apology for whatever controversy in which her name might have featured which might have dragged the name of the national game into disrepute.

The meeting was brokered by the Zimbabwe National Soccer Supporters Association president Eddie “Mboma” Nyatanga who said they were on a mission to try and shatter some of the barriers which have seen domestic football being divided into warring factions. Some disgruntled former leaders of the game, who found themselves on the sidelines after Chiyangwa and his team swept into power, have grouped to form a coalition in which they have been trying to topple the current ZIFA leadership.

Last year, some of them even petitioned world football governing body FIFA asking for the appointment of either an interim or normalisation committee to run Zimbabwe football arguing that the Harare property mogul had failed in the execution of his mandate. But FIFA, in a massive vote of confidence in the ZIFA leadership led by Chiyangwa, rejected those calls and, instead, said they had the full backing of the current administration whose mandate will only expire next year when fresh elections are held. FIFA said the biggest challenge facing Zimbabwe football was the ZIFA debt, estimated at around $7 million, and not a dysfunctional leadership and urged the Association to find ways of liquidating the debt while working in conjunction with the Government.

“Although there was a strong call for a normalisation process at ZIFA (including a call to put in place an interim leadership by some stakeholders, it is the current view of FIFA that this would not necessarily add value and resolve the challenges facing ZIFA,” FIFA director of Member Associations, Veron Mosengo-Oumba, said in his report. It is the position of FIFA that the ZIFA debt, said to be sitting at about $7 million, is the single biggest challenge facing ZIFA. Some of the major problems that ZIFA has, including failure to pay staff and creditors stems from this situation. As such, we urge you to finalise your discussions with the Zimbabwean Government regarding their assistance in addressing the ZIFA debt. It is our hope that ZIFA will continue to find means and ways of liquidating the ZIFA debt as this is the biggest threat to a well-structured and efficient ZIFA.”

However, the battle to try and topple Chiyangwa and his leadership hasn’t ended and, in recent weeks, a number of foot soldiers have plunged back into the trenches as part of a grand strategy to lay the groundwork that will culminate in their preferred leaders taking over at next year’s elections. Former ZIFA chief executive, Rushwaya, who was handed a ban from all football-related activities by ZIFA, for her alleged role in the Limpopo-gate match-fixing scandal, yesterday met Chiyangwa and said she was no part of those fighting on the other side while also pleading for forgiveness for the way her name kept cropping up in controversy that tainted the image of the Association. She was cleared by the courts and ZIFA gave her alleged accomplice, former Hwange coach Nation Dube, the green-light to work in domestic football.

“What we are doing as a supporters association is that we are trying to build bridges so that we have one family in our football that combines its energy towards ensuring that the game is the ultimate winner at the end of the day and not in these senseless fights that have not taken us anyway in the past. Right now, we should be ashamed as a football community that all we can do is watch other countries fighting for a place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals while we let down our boys by not giving them a chance to play in the same qualifiers when we were disqualified because we could not pay $65 000 to Valinhos. Rather than come together to find ways of raising such an amount, as one united football community, all we did was fight each other, left right and centre and here we are today watching South Africa thrashing Burkina Faso and Zambia giving Nigeria a good run for their money while our boys are not part of the action. The Nigerians have their serious problems but when it comes to what is good for their country, they come together and work as one and that is why they are going to the World Cup finals in Russia while all that we do, which we are specialists in, is fight each other,” Mboma said.

Rushwaya’s lawyers wrote a letter to Chiyangwa yesterday in which they apologised for any controversy, which tainted the image of the Association, in which their client’s name was sucked into.

“Our client has turned over a new leaf and fully supports your initiatives as the football icon who is working hard towards bringing sanity into the game in Zimbabwe, Africa and the world over. We wish to reiterate on the fact that our client sincerely wishes to apologise for the inconvenience (her alleged role in controversial issues could have) caused to you in particular, your board, the Councillors and Zimbabwean football in general. Once again Mr president, accept our apology and thank you for all you are doing for Zimbabwe football,” the lawyers said.

Former Shooting Stars chairman Lewis Matindife, who is part of the ZNSSA leadership, and banker Desmond Ali, also attended the meeting.