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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
THE Sports and Recreation Commission chairman Gerald Mlotshwa yesterday emerged from their engagements with the visiting FIFA delegation confident that solutions to the issues bedeviling Zimbabwean football administration will be found sooner than had been expected.
The FIFA delegation arrived in the country yesterday on a fact-finding tour and immediately kicked off their mission with a meeting with the Sports Commission board led by Mlotshwa.
FIFA senior member associations governance manager Sarah Solemale and FIFA head of development programmes in Africa Solomon Mudege – a Zimbabwean based at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich – yesterday convened a lengthy roundtable with the sports regulator at their National Sports Stadium offices.
The duo, which was reluctant to comment on their visit yesterday, is expected to have more meetings with football stakeholders to gather more information on the football crisis in Zimbabwe.
Later in the week, a CAF delegation is also expected in the country on a similar mission, as authorities seek to chart the way out from the current quagmire that has seen the country getting suspended from international football by FIFA for over a year.
Mlotshwa said the visit was crucial to put the Zimbabwe situation, which is now a complicated subject, into the correct perspective.
The FIFA representatives will later this week be joined by a delegation from CAF. The CAF director of member associations Sarah Mukuna and COSAFA president Artur de Almeida de Silva are due to land in Zimbabwe this week on a similar mission.
“As you know, we have invited FIFA to come through on a fact-finding mission just so they can see things on the ground for themselves, rather than relying on third party reporting and that sort of thing, which (coming to Zimbabwe) they have done and which we are thankful for,” said Mlotshwa.
“They have engaged us. We had a very fruitful meeting. We had a very positive meeting. The CAF delegation unfortunately didn’t manage to make this meeting but we are meeting them on Thursday and there will be further updates coming from that. But everything is quite positive, let’s put it that way.
“I think it means that both sides are committed to finding a solution to the problems bedevilling football in this country.
“It’s always a good thing when people are communicating and are meeting especially physically like this because there’s then a lot of clarity on issues that may not have been clear before,” said Mlotshwa.
The FIFA representatives are today set to meet the Premier Soccer League and the Zimbabwe Women’s Soccer League.
Although their itinerary was not clear, the visitors are also expected to have an audience with the current ZIFA executive committee as well as the ousted board members led by ex-ZIFA president Felton Kamambo.
The ZIFA Congress, the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe and the supporters’ bodies are also interested in giving their input. Mlotshwa indicated the visitors will reach out to as many people as they could during their short stay in Zimbabwe.
“(They will have more engagements) and we encourage them to do so. We have said, look, meet whoever you need to meet in Zimbabwe – the stakeholders in football.
“I am sure they will be meeting the PSL tomorrow (today), they have indicated that, and they will be meeting one or two football administrators.
“I know that they are meeting the (ZIFA) executive committee as well and whoever else they choose to engage. I think it’s important,” said Mlotshwa.
Zimbabwe’s membership rights at FIFA were suspended last year in February after the world football governing body ruled that the intervention by the Sports Commission to suspend the ZIFA board pending investigations into various allegations of corruption and mismanagement constituted third party interference.
The ZIFA board was suspended in November 2021 and three months later FIFA descended on Zimbabwe. Currently, a lot of toxicity currently permeates the landscape. The visit by FIFA representatives has put paid to the narrative being peddled by ousted ZIFA executives that include Kamambo, Philemon Machana, Bryton Malandule and ex-chief executive officer Joseph Mamutse, that FIFA were not prepared to engage with anyone other than the quartet.
The quartet was kicked out of football by the ZIFA Congress via a vote of no confidence last year and have been fighting tooth and nail to find their way back, despite the serious allegations of corruption and sexual abuse of female referees hanging on their necks.
All the same, the four-year term of Kamambo’s presidency expired on December 17, 2022. But they will get their opportunity with the visiting FIFA representative, to tell their side of the story.
Online Reporter