Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa and his executive have been
summoned by the parliamentary portfolio committee on Sport, Education, Arts and
Culture, amid disaffection from stakeholders over the management of football in
the country.
Chiyangwa, according to the parliamentary schedule, was
supposed to appear before the committee chaired by Zanu PF Matobo North MP
Never Khanye last Thursday to explain how he was running the association, amid
allegations of plunder and failure to adhere to corporate governance by his
administration.
But the Zifa president did not turn up, forcing the meeting
to be moved to this week. The Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) has also
indicated that all is not well in football administration in the country.
Although Khanye was unavailable for comment yesterday, a
member of the portfolio committee confirmed that the MPs were keen to grill
Chiyangwa and his executive, with key interest on the development of the game,
welfare of players, creditors and the general administration.
“A lot is not well at Zifa and as MPs, we have a duty to
ensure everyone is held accountable, including Zifa, hence we are summoning the
president and his team to tell us what it is that they are doing,” said an MP
who requested anonymity.
In the past two weeks, Standardsport has exposed the rot at
Zifa, with investigations suggesting that Chiyangwa and his executive have
employed unorthodox means of shielding the association from creditors, even to
the extent of using cronies.
The reportage has attracted a threat of litigation from
Chiyangwa after we published that some associates of the Zifa president were
allegedly running Zifa and selling the association’s assets — exposing
creditors and the football community to deprivation of assets and funds.
Of note has been an allegation that Zifa, through its
subsidiary, Zifa (Private) Limited, has been trying to “fraudulently and
corruptly” sell one of its properties in Harare to a questionable company as a
way of avoiding paying its creditors — although the same asset had been sold by
the sheriff of the High Court to pay the association’s creditors.
The sale of the property was being handled by one Marshal
Jonga — who is said to be a worker at Chiyangwa’s company.
The matter is now at the High Court with the person who had
bought the house from the sheriff of the High Court — Max Haivo Electrical and
Hardware (Pvt) Ltd — challenging the move by Zifa to “fraudulently” sell the
house to Olive Touch Investment.
Yesterday, the SRC acting director-general, Joseph
Muchechetere told Standardsport that the country’s supreme sports regulatory
body would soon meet and Zifa was on the agenda.
“What we are trying to do at the moment is to convene a
meeting of the SRC board so that it is able to look at what is happening at
Zifa,” Muchechetere said.
“Currently, what we have are the media reports and we
really appreciate the fact that the media is playing its role by carrying out
such inquiries and investigations.
“We will also try to get to the bottom of the matter and we
are in the process of gathering all the information, both from reports that
have come out in the media recently and other sources. I can assure you that at
the next meeting of the SRC board, all the issues will be deliberated on.”
Muchechetere said the SRC had conducted its own inquiry on
Zifa and presented their findings to the association in July, but were still
waiting for a response from the local football mother body before releasing the
report to the public.
“The SRC also did its own inquiry into the operations of
Zifa and a report was compiled but we are waiting for the football mother body
to come back to us,” he said.
“You will recall that we wanted to release the report to
the public, but at the time the Zifa president was out of the country and they
requested that we give them time to look at the report before they respond. We
have made another follow up with them and we understand they have recently been
busy with Cosafa Women’s Championships. Nevertheless, we are still waiting for
Zifa to play its part as we are very serious about the issue and we want to
release the report to the public.”
According to insiders, the report released in July
condemned the way Chiyangwa was running football in Zimbabwe, especially the
separation of powers between the executive committee and the secretariat.
The commission is believed to have expressed concern at the
fact that all the deliberations and day-to-day running of the association were
being done by the executive committee instead of the secretariat, despite Zifa
having recently appointed Joseph Mamutse as the chief executive.
Already, clubs in the women football league are not happy
with the way soccer is being managed in the country and last week met to
deliberate on the situation. The clubs resolved to boycott kicking the ball
until their complaints are dealt with.
Among their grievances, the women football administrators
were not happy with the number of men who were involved in the organisation of
the just-ended Cosafa Women’s tournament, which was chaired by Zifa
vice-president, Omega Sibanda.
The women football administrators alleged that they were
less-represented and some of their members were “unjustifiably” removed from
the local organising committee on “flimsy charges”.
But Sibanda denied the allegations that women were
side-lined, insisting that all was done according to the constitution and
female sports administrators were involved.
“It’s a lie being peddled by people who have an agenda,
which is not sport development,” Sibanda said. Standard
0 comments:
Post a Comment