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Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
THE Sports Commission’s acting board chairperson, Edward Siwela, said the ZIFA Assembly has taken their rightful position in dictating how football should be run in this country following the decision to fire its president Cuthbert Dube on Saturday.

Siwela said the councillors have been taking a back-seat while the crisis at ZIFA House escalated into a mess, leading to the Sports Commission to set up a panel of inquiry when the assembly was supposed to be seen acting as a regulatory body.

The Sports Commission was worried by reports of lack of governance and mismanagement at ZIFA but their hands were tied as they are not supposed to be seen to be directly meddling in the running of football affairs by the association under the FIFA statutes.

The ZIFA Assembly on Saturday booted out Dube and his entire ZIFA board.

The Assembly, which was attended by 54 councillors, gave a vote of no confidence to the leadership of Dube which they felt was killing the country’s most loved sport.

Yesterday, Siwela said the ZIFA council had done what is required of them that is being seized with the football matters.

“Firstly, I should acknowledge that it was an important development, the ZIFA council reasserted itself as the supreme council of football in this country.

“Ordinarily, this should be the case. The Sports Commission act as an advisory and regulatory body but things had gotten out of hand, so we had to chip in with a Commission of Inquiry,” he said.

Siwela said the weekend’s development would not affect the recommendations they had made to ZIFA as this will still apply to the new ZIFA board as they (the recommendations) were for football at large.

“We are going to assist them till a new board has been put in place.

“With respect to our inquiry, it is an important development because the recommendations were not on the ZIFA board only but unearthed the findings related to the state of football and administration in Zimbabwe and will feed to the football development and we will also offer recommendations to the incoming board.

“Clearly, we would not want a recurrence of the current situation but we should see this as the ushering in of a new era and hopefully a positive and a successful one,” Siwela said.

Meanwhile, the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe yesterday said Dube had become synonymous with the problems at ZIFA and his ouster was a giant step in the restoration of the lost confidence by the Government and the corporate world.

FUZ secretary-general Paul Gundani said the ZIFA brand needed cleansing in the post-Dube era but believes it will take the new leadership time to get the game back on its feet again.

He said it will not be easy to liquidate the association’s debts that had ballooned to over US$6m under the leadership of Dube.

“We welcome this development because this is something that will kick-start the long processes of restoring the lost confidence with the Government and the corporate world.

“Now that Dube is gone, we need to see the indicators that our football is now in capable hands. Things should be done differently with whoever is coming in, that’s what the corporate world wants to see. Let’s bring in a reputable board comprising people of integrity so that we revamp the whole processes at the association.

“I believe we learnt some good lessons as a nation from the election of Cuthbert Dube and his tenure which was riddled with many problems.

“One thing for sure is that we shouldn’t always look to select people who are well resourced yet lacking the passion to take the game to higher levels. I believe people with football at heart should be involved; we need people who are capable to take charge. From here, the secretariat should be the next port of call,” said Gundani.