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Ricky Zililo Sports Reporter
THE national soccer body Zifa has started the process of formulating a new constitution which should be ready to be passed into law next month. Zifa chief executive officer, Jonathan Mashingaidze said their Constitutional Review Committee will in the next coming two weekends embark on an outreach exercise, engaging all football stakeholders so that they can get their input on the new constitution.
The new constitution will bring many changes to the structure of Zimbabwean football, with the most notable being the composition of the Zifa board which will be reduced from 13 members to seven after abolishing several positions.
The new constitution will also have a provision for a new national first division league.
Unlike in the past where organs like the heads for Premier Soccer League, the four Zifa regions – Southern, Eastern, Northern and Central – and the women’s soccer league got automatic Zifa board positions, should the new constitution be passed, all board members will be voted for by the assembly.
In the new constitution, according to Mashingaidze, for the first time in the history of Zimbabwean soccer, the PSL which is the flagship of local football will have all their 16 clubs getting a seat on the Zifa Assembly.
The regions which in the past had two representatives each will see the number increasing to four per region with area zones and women’s soccer having four delegates each at the Zifa Assembly.
A National Division One League, which will act as a feeder to the Premiership, is also on the cards and should the new constitution be ratified, it will begin next year.
The National First Division will be made up of 16 teams that will come from the four Zifa regions who will each contribute three teams with the four teams relegated from the PSL completing the composition of the league.
Once the National First Division League has been established, the PSL will start to relegate two teams at the end of each season.
“The constitutional outreach programme is on this weekend and we will cover seven provinces on Saturday and Sunday. Our Constitutional Review Committee team will meet all organs of Zifa that include the PSL, the four Zifa regions, the Zimbabwe Women Football, National Association of Primary School Heads (Naph), National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash), Area Zones, Five-A-Side, Zimbabwe Soccer Coaches Association (Zisca), Tertiary Institutions, Junior Football, Football Medicine and District Zones.
“The meetings follow a visit by Fifa officials who were in the country last month and what we are doing is moving closer to meet the requirements that Fifa expects from its affiliates. After this process, we are going to have an Extraordinary General Meeting meant to ratify the constitution,” said Mashingaidze.
Zifa lawyer, Ralph Maganga will team up with Tinofara Hove and will hold their first outreach meeting on Saturday in Gwanda and the following day they will be in the Midlands capital of Gweru.
Bulawayo-based lawyer and Chicken Inn secretary, Tavengwa Hara who is also a PSL board member and Cornelius Bwanya will be in Hwange on Saturday and then move to Bulawayo on Sunday, with Mashingaidze accompanying them.
Another member of the constitutional review committee, Tim Sangarwe, will be in Masvingo on Saturday while Cosmas Mukwesha will meet Mashonaland East affiliates in Marondera on the same day. On Sunday, Mukwesha and Sangarwe travel to Mutare for another meeting.
Hara and Bwanya will meet constituents in Harare on 7 September with Hove and Maganga going to Mashonaland Central’s capital Bindura while Mukwesha and Sangarwe will be in Chinhoyi addressing Mashonaland West participants.
The Zifa constitutional review committee is made up of lawyers Hove, Mukwesha, Sangarwe and Hara, who all have a football background and were appointed in 2011 to lead the exercise.
Online Reporter