Zhoya was not alone in all this mess

LAST week, something important happened in our football when former referees chief, Obert Zvoya, was slapped with a five-year ban by FIFA.

Zvoya’s crime, according to the world football governing body, was that he had sexually harassed a number of our female referees, over a period of time.

H-Metro was one of the local newspapers, which took a leading role in exposing this shocking abuse of our female referees.

We were driven by the outrage, among all of us, that what our female referees had endured, from their heartless leaders, was simply unacceptable.

We were touched by their plight, by their helplessness, and in each of them we saw a sister, a mother and a Zimbabwean who had a passion to fulfil her dreams.

We felt their pain when, as if the football gods were punishing us, they could only watch from a distance as one of them, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda, made history at the AFCON finals in Cameroon in January this year.

Mukansanga became the first female referee to take charge of a match at the Nations Cup Finals when she took charge of our Group B match against Guinea in Cameroon.

She is now set to take part at the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar in November.

Stephanie Frappart (France) and Yoshima Yamashita (Japan) are the other female referees who will be at the World Cup while Neuza Back (Brazil), Karen Diaz Medina (Mexico) and Kathryn Nesbitt (USA) are the assistant referees.

While the other female referees have been given a chance, in their countries, to pursue their dreams, and will grace the World Cup finals, some selfish individuals here were derailing their progress.

They wanted these referees to satisfy their sexual fantasies for them to be given a chance to progress in their field and, when these principled match officials, rejected these advances, they were punished.

Some of them were told that they had failed to pass a mere fitness test, as a brutal reminder for them to know who was in charge, and why they were going to pay heavily, for rebuffing the advances.

When we were reporting these cases, some people criticised us claiming we were just tarnishing the names of individuals, because we wanted to paint the ZIFA brand in a bad way.

Well, the FIFA sanctions have now shown that we were right and while the lengthy punishment, which Zhoya has to serve is welcome, it’s not enough.

The reality is that Zhoya was not alone, in feasting on the innocent women, and making their lives, in pursuit of their dreams, such an adventure made it hell.

He was supported by a system, within our football, which didn’t caution him because, as we are being told, many of the leaders have skeletons in their cupboards.

That is why it is important that it should not end with Zhoya but the investigations should be accelerated so that the others are also punished accordingly.

This is a great opportunity for our football to get rid of all the predators.