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Sports Reporter
THE battle to remove Cuthbert Dube from the ZIFA presidency took an ugly and chilling twist on Sunday when one of his biggest critics, veteran football administrator Francis Zimunya, was manhandled by a group of bouncers at Rufaro.

Zimunya, who heads the Lifelong Footballers Trust, has been leading the fight for Dube to be removed from his post as ZIFA president, and was at Rufaro to support the Young Warriors in their Olympic Games qualifier against Swaziland.

Interestingly, Dube, who has been running the game by remote control from his Groombridge mansion in Harare, and has continued his habit of not watching the national teams in action, was again not at Rufaro on Sunday.

Instead, the Harare business executive flew out of Harare yesterday to attend the FIFA Congress in Zurich this weekend, meaning that he has been to more congresses of the world football governing body than the times he has watched the Zimbabwe national teams in action in the past five years.

Dube was accompanied by his trusted lieutenant Jonathan Mashingaidze, the ZIFA chief executive, who left Harare after circulating a notice that a ZIFA board meeting will be held on June 15 while the joint ZIFA Congress, incorporating an extraordinary and annual general indaba, will be held the following day.

Interestingly, Mashingaidze included an item on the agenda of the ZIFA board indaba, “Dismissal of Members”, where the stage is being set for the expulsion of the association\s vice-president, Omega Sibanda and board member (finance) Ben Gwarada.

Those who have plotted this move believe that, if they can expel Sibanda and Gwarada from the ZIFA board, on the eve of the joint ZIFA Congress, they will frighten the councillors, who are fighting to get Dube out of the leadership of the national game.

FIFA ordered that ZIFA should hold a joint congress, which will incorporate the extraordinary and annual general meetings, by June 16 and Mashingaidze has settled for June 16, which is a Tuesday, gambling that most of the rebellious councillors, who are employed in various sectors, will not be able to attend that meeting.

Instead, ZIFA believe that the other councillors, especially the provincial chairmen who have remained loyal to Dube, will be able to attend the meeting because most of them are not in formal employment.

But it is the way Zimunya was manhandled at Rufaro on Sunday, in a game that was under the management of ZIFA, which has been the talking point with some football stakeholders appealing to FIFA to bring the leadership of the game in this country to account.

“I wish to inform you that I was at Rufaro Stadium on Saturday watching our Young Warriors in their match against Swaziland when, at half-time, I was approached by a group of ZIFA personnel, among them the ZIFA security officer, Lovemore Marange,” Zimunya said in a written statement released yesterday.

“Marange was accompanied by some bouncers and ZRP officers and they asked me to leave the stadium, accusing me of trying to remove Cuthbert Dube from office.

“They also accused me of having distributed flyers to spectators and they threatened violence against me.

“When I told them I had paid $10 to watch the match, they then took away my ticket and ordered that my vehicle be searched and they went ahead and searched it but found nothing.

“I was escorted to the police station (Mbare) where the police found that I had not committed any offence but, instead, that I was the victim who had been manhandled.

“I have since filed a report with the police.” Marange is a former police officer and the Lifelong Footballers Trust yesterday said, after the wild events at Rufaro on Sunday, they now feared that he could be abusing his connections within the force to harass those who are battling to remove Dube.

Some of the flyers that were distributed at Rufaro on Sunday read: “ZIFA councillors, Save Football and vote out Cuthbert Dube on June 20,” “ZIFA Councillors, Save ZIFA and Zim football by (kicking) out Cuthbert Dube”, and “ZIFA Councillors, United to remove Zim football cancer Dube.”

A number of flyers, calling for the ZIFA Councillors to remain strong in their campaign to remove Dube from his position as ZIFA president, are now regularly being distributed at football stadiums in the country.

Recently, some ZIFA Councillors met in Harare and booted out Dube from his post as the leader of national football, just a year after giving him a fresh four-year mandate, but their boardroom coup was quashed by FIFA who ordered that another meeting be held not later than June 16.

The Herald understands that a Harare lawyer, in his capacity as a football fan, is considering taking the matter to the High Court, arguing that the meeting of the Councillors was duly constituted and the resolutions were binding. Although FIFA did not endorse their resolutions, the lawyer believes that the High Court has the authority to make a pronouncement that Dube’s removal was constitutional and he could be barred from holding office in this country.

Yesterday, former Premier Soccer League chief executive, Chris Sambo, who is working as a consultant for the Lifelong Footballers Trust, condemned the manhandling of Zimunya.

“We condemn, in the strongest terms possible, the barbaric conduct of ZIFA officials and the bouncers who manhandled and threatened our chairman, Mr Francis Zimunya, whom they accused of campaigning for the removal of Cuthbert Dube,” Sambo said in a statement.

“No amount of intimidation or name-calling will stop us from calling for Dube’s removal.

“His recent tactics of using thugs to threaten those who are opposed to his continued stay in office are the last kicks of a dying horse.

“Against this background, it is alarming to note that the person they are trying to protect, against the wishes of an entire nation that he leaves office, does not even attend the matches and the people that are being harassed are patriotic in the sense that they support their national teams.”