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Sports Reporter
FIFA have conceded there is a crisis in Zimbabwe football and boosted the cause of the defiant ZIFA councillors, battling to oust Cuthbert Dube, by ordering that their issues be tabled at an Assembly meeting to be held not later than June 16 this year.

This means the councillors, who on Saturday revoked Dube’s authority to lead them, can still conduct the same boardroom coup, in about three weeks time, where they even believe they will get the backing of more members of the Assembly.

It had looked all gloomy for the councillors, when FIFA declared that their indaba on Sunday was null and void, and sparked a possible witch-hunt with chief executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, looking for the people who attended that indaba for possible sanctions.

However, in a spectacular development yesterday, FIFA reached out to the councillors, something which the world football government body rarely does, and communicated directly with them regarding their concerns.

Crucially, FIFA said ZIFA should bring forward their scheduled annual meeting, set for June 27, and combine it with the councillors’ extraordinary meeting and, more significantly, the issues the councillors want addressed should be incorporated on the agenda.

This means that due notice has already been served on the agenda the councillors had for their meeting on Saturday and, if they can remain united and also get the support of others who were bullied out of that meeting, they can revoke Dube’s powers in what would be a delayed execution of what they did on Saturday.

FIFA usually just communicate with either the president or chief executive of the Association and that they bended over, to reach out to the councillors, means that the world football governing body concede the crisis that is now engulfing Zimbabwe football.

Effectively, what this means is that Dube has been reduced to a lame duck ZIFA president, just serving the final days of his leadership of the domestic football, unless, of course, he can persuade councillors to abandon their mission and back his stewardship of the local game.

The councillors remained united, despite the setback they have suffered, and yesterday they met and wrote back to FIFA, saying that the Association’s Constitution, the bible that should guide all their operations, was being violated by Dube’s continued stay as ZIFA president.

They copied their correspondence to the Confederation of African Football and the Sports Commission.

The councillors still feel they acted within the provisions of their Constitution and, although they can get another chance to stage their rebellion, not later than June 16, they believe their rights as members of world football were being violated by the refusal by FIFA to endorse their decision to recall Dube.

Mashingaidze sent a note to councillors on Tuesday that FIFA had declared their meeting, held on Saturday, null and void but, probably, he didn’t read the fine print that was in the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the letter that the world football governing body sent to Dube on Monday.

Those paragraphs, in the letter sent by FIFA Deputy Secretary-General, Markus Kattner, are a huge boost to the campaign being fought by the councillors and shows why the ZIFA official, who circulated a truncated letter to councillors on Monday, deliberately left that wording from the communication.

Kattner’s letter, while buying Dube enough time to go to Zurich and vote in the ZIFA presidency, clearly shows that the councillors have valid complaints and their concerns must be addressed by the Assembly.

“However, and given the fact that the ZIFA executive committee has to convene an extraordinary General Assembly within three months, if one third of its members makes the request, we recommend that, provided the 29 signatories represent one third or more of the ZIFA Members, ZIFA hold the extraordinary Congress by 16 June 2015, at the latest, in order to comply with the ZIFA Constitution,” Kattner wrote in his letter.

“Due to the current financial constraints ZIFA is facing, we advise ZIFA to organise both Congresses on the same day, meaning the extraordinary Congress requested by the so-called ZIFA councillors, with an agenda comprising their items, and the ordinary Congress (AGM) ZIFA was planning to organise at the end of June with an ordinary agenda.” This represents a monumental victory for the councillors who now only need to retain their unity to ensure that their move, as executed on Saturday, will be done not later than June 16 this year.

Even if the ZIFA leadership manage to break their unity, the fact that the Premier League delegates, the majority of whom did not attend the meeting on Saturday, will be available at the next meeting, and with most of them now calling for a change in the way domestic football is being run, could boost the ranks of the rebellion.

Last night, Dube met with a clique of his Board Members as tension rises within his Board after Omega Sibanda, the deputy president, was left out of the ZIFA delegation set to fly to Zurich for the FIFA Congress and replace by Board Member Tavengwa Hara.

Sibanda is being punished for having the support of the councillors, who recalled Dube, and left him to run the Association in an interim capacity.

Dube and Mashingaidze are the other members of the delegation.