adminHE might have his property back, but last Wednesday morning’s episode was a big, big embarrassment for embattled Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.
As I stood from a distance, watching the Sheriff of the High Court raid Dube’s Groombridge house and tow away five vehicles and clear household property, an old woman who must be my mother’s age, passed by.
Fifty-four my mum is.
She walked past me before coming back and asking rather apologetically: “Nhai mwanangu, chiiko chikuitika pamba apa? (My son, what is going on at this house?)
Of course, I knew very well what was going on. The property was being attached over a Zifa debt which Dube guaranteed.
Zifa owed US$124 000 to Pandhari Lodge and the highly unpopular Zifa president guaranteed the debt as he sought to avert further embarrassment.
This was after the lodge had decided to lock out the visiting Tanzanian national team to push for payment back in 2013.
All this information, I presumed, would have worn down an already weary-looking woman; so, I replied politely: “Ahh, amai, ndezvebhora izvi; zvinonetsa. (Mother, this is a football-related matter; it’s complicated).”
“Maiwee Chihera! Kana bhora racho rakudai raipa (If football is like this then it’s no good,” was her parting shot.
The question I answered is one Dube must have been asked several times by his grandchildren and wife as the court officials went about their business.
Why?
The Zifa president’s answer to that question is everyone’s guess.
However, some of us are asking why Cuthbert Elkana Dube continues to hold onto the post of Zifa president when everything around him is crumbling.
Some disgruntled Zifa councilors might have swung and missed — excuse the cricket term — last Saturday, but the signs are there for Dube and his bootlicker-in-chief Jonathan Mashingaidze.
Fifa have ordered Zifa to convene an Assembly meeting on June 16 where the issues that pushed the disgruntled councillors into trying to revoke Dube’s mandate will once again be discussed.
That meeting is Dube’s Waterloo, but he appears oblivious to that fact.
Once again Dube is being misled by Mashingaidze and the pair of Tawengwa Hara and Fungai Chihuri.
If Dube was a man of honour, as he claims to be, he would have called it a day by now.
The disastrous effects of his catastrophic reign at Zifa are now being felt in his home.
How bad can this get?
Away from being a good-for-nothing Zifa boss, Dube is also a family man and no matter how much one hates Dube for his misdeeds they have to feel for a granddaughter who watched Sponge Bob sitting on the floor because her favourite couch was attached just as she was preparing to leave for school.
Dube began to dig his own grave the day he decided to use his own money to bail out Zifa.
While the move was hailed by praise singers as a sign that the Zifa boss loved the game, observers rightly noted that it was a sign of poor corporate governance at 53 Livingstone Avenue.
Get your house in order, Dube.
Your family needs you, we and our football don’t.
Warriors who dress like orphans
The Warriors’ briefly caught the eye before it went all wrong in the 1-4 defeat to Namibia at the ongoing Cosafa tournament in South Africa.
However, while our play was largely sexy and easy on the eye, our dressing was a shame and an eyesore.
Where did we get that funny-looking kit?
Can’t we source a better kit than that very ugly yellow strip with red numbers on the back?
Did you see how funny Ronald “Rooney” Chitiyo looked in that oversized jersey?
Yes, our football is in a mess, but some things are just too elementary; we have to get them right even when we are broke.
VaShagare exits the scene.
VaShagare is the founder of DeMbare DotComs and can be contacted on that Facebook page as well as on e-mail: [email protected]
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