Troubled ZIFA battle to put house in order

Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter

THE restructuring process currently taking place at the troubled Zimbabwe Football Association is set to take a giant step when the association holds an extraordinary general meeting to extend the life of the current administration and deliberate on some of the recommendations made by the Sports and Recreation-appointed ZIFA Restructuring Committee.

The ZIFA board is facing a dilemma in their efforts to sort out the mess created by their predecessors as their tenure is set to end in two-months’ time, well before they could implement the recommendations from the Restructuring Committee.

Apart from the danger of missing most of the timelines for football reforms, a constitutional crisis is also looming at the association.

As it stands, it is impossible for the current leadership, whose tenure ends in December, to arrange elections in line with their own statutes.

The current board came into office in December 2018 and their office runs until December. The ZIFA Congress is also expected to be out of office by then.

Faced with this puzzle, ZIFA have called an emergency meeting seeking the extension of their mandate so that all the decisions to be carried after December would be legal and binding.

The Congress is the association’s supreme decision-making body.

The ZIFA board led by Gift Banda resolved to call a Congress meeting to look into the various issues affecting administration of the game.

This also comes in the wake of a leaked draft forensic report which exposes a number of irregularities in the manner the executive committee led by former ZIFA president Felton Kamambo conducted their business at 53 Livingstone Avenue. The forensic audit report is also on the agenda.

“The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Executive Committee met on Friday October 14, 2022, in Harare and conversed about various issues impacting the state of Zimbabwean football. Some of the resolutions that were made at the meeting are as follows:

“1. The Executive Committee unanimously resolved that an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) will take place on the 29th of October 2022 in Harare to discuss the following agenda items:

“(a) Executive Committee Report.  (b) ZIFA executive committee and congress tenure. (c)  Forensic Audit Report,” said the ZIFA spokesperson, Xolisani Gwesela, in a statement.

The troubled association is set to map the way forward at this meeting. Both ZIFA and the Sports Commission are looking to have a quick resolution to the problems facing Zimbabwean football, and to expedite the readmission of the country into the FIFA family.

Zimbabwe are currently suspended by FIFA due to the challenges in administration. Recently former referees’ secretary Obert Zhoya was fined and banned five years by FIFA after he was convicted in the charges of sexual harassment of female referees.

Sources also said corruption has bled the association in excess of US$2 million. The exact extent of the prejudice is yet to be established.

But a forensic audit carried out by a local firm, is now complete and the full report will be available in the coming days.

According to a leaked draft report that was conducted by BDO Chartered Accountants, the findings have revealed gross mismanagement in the way financial transactions were done.

The Sports Commission confirmed in a statement that there “are certainly very significant sums of money received by ZIFA that cannot be accounted for during the review period of 1st December, 2018 to 30th November, 2021.”

“The Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) has been made aware, from various media enquiries seeking its comment on the matter, that a DRAFT forensic audit report is circulating in the public domain.

“SRC’s wishes to advise the public that auditors contracted for the undertaking made separate presentations to the Restructuring Committee as well as the Commission of their detailed preliminary findings in respect of the financial affairs of ZIFA.

“There are certainly very significant sums of money received by ZIFA that cannot be accounted for during the review period of 1st December, 2018 to 30th November, 2021.

“The auditors have not signed off the forensic audit report. They will do so shortly. The ZIFA audit report, once formally and procedurally presented to the restructuring committee that commissioned it, is ultimately intended for the benefit of the members of ZIFA to consider during their general meeting slated for the end of October, 2022.

“Accordingly, we advise stakeholders and the public alike to exercise reasonable caution in drawing any conclusions at this point based on an unofficial document,” said Mlotshwa.