Zimpapers Logo

MEN ON A MISSION . . . FIFA delegates (from left) Ashford Mamelodi and Primo Corvaro, Molife Oliphant of CAF (second from right) and another FIFA officer Luca Nichola pose for a photo soon after checking in at a Harare hotel yesterday ahead of today’s ZIFA extraordinary general assembly. — (Picture by Tawanda Mudimu)

1. FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT
(i). The ZIFA Board has failed to provide audited Financial Statements since 2011, where there have been audited, a qualified report was issued for both 2012 and 2013 financial accounts. The 2014 accounts have not been audited to date.(ii). The Board failed to present to the Congress budget for 2015 financial year meaning that the Association is operating in the dark.

(iii) ZIFA Finance Committee and Audit Committee which are the watchdogs of the Assembly have failed to meet.
(iv) The Association failed to provide the aged analysis of the ZIFA debt as requested. A list of creditors provided consists of fictitious figures without and supporting documents
(v) The ZIFA Board has failed to arrest the ballooning ZIFA debt with no evidence of clear strategies on how the Board intends to turn around the current situation.
(vi) The Congress is in the dark on how the FIFA funds availed to ZIFA have been used.
(vii) The alleged money borrowed by the ZIFA Board from the ZIFA President has not been sanctioned by the Congress and there is no documentary evidence of the borrowings to date.

2. DYSFUNCTIONAL BOARD
(i) The Board has failed to work together as a team leading to a number of squabbles between the members.
(ii) Suspension of Board members has been the order of the day at the expense of important ZIFA business.
(iii) This has led to bad publicity thereby bringing the game of football into disrepute.

3. FAILURE TO FULFIL ELECTION MANDATE 
(i) The ZIFA Board has failed to fulfil its election mandate since voted into
office.
(ii) Not a single promise has been fulfilled to date.

4. BAN FROM THE 2018 FIFA WORLD CUP COMPETITION
(i) The board has failed to pay US$81 000 owed to Valinhos for the past six years despite several warnings from FIFA and threats of a possible ban.
(ii) The Board lied to Congress when they made the whole nation believe that the Association was engaged in task with the coach’s lawyers and FIFA and that the debt will be paid to allow Zimbabwe to take part in the World Cup.
(iii) The Board decided to use the money paid by the Premier Soccer League to pay the Valinhos debt on paying Pandhari debt because the President wanted to recover his attached property.
(iv) The President and his board showed no remorse when they told the Congress that “participation of the Warriors in the 2018 World Cup was not important than the President’s attached property.” The statement showed an irresponsible board which is not fit to continue running the office.

5. IMPROPER MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL TEAM ASSIGNMENTS
(i) The Board continued to enter national teams in less glamorous competitions without a budget for such matches.
(ii) This led to the Board failing to adequately prepare for the games and also failing to raise money for national teams.
(iii) The Malawi game preparations were an embarrassment to the Association and the nation at large.
(iv) As this was not enough, your Board failed to send the Mighty Warriors to Ivory Coast.
(v) Your Board made a late entry for the men’s senior team, Warriors, to participate in the CHAN tournament despite clear evidence of lack of financial resources to support the campaign. The Association was fine US$25 000 for late entry.
(vi) The Board has failed to take care of the welfare of our players in all categories resulting in a number of boycotts of camp and training by the players. All these actions received a lot of negative reports from the press thereby  bringing the game of football into disrepute.

6. LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
(i) The Board has been concealing critical and vital information from the Congress and this has led to the ban of the national team from participating in the 2018 World Cup.
(ii) The Board also failed to bring to the attention of the Congress an age analysis of the ZIFA debt and this resulted in a number of the Association’s property being attached.
(iii) If the Board was transparent and sharing these issues with the Congress, affiliates could have helped.

7. INSUBORDINATION TACTICS BY THE BOARD AND THE CEO
(i) The Board and the CEO failed to observe the role of the Congress and resorted to “bullish” tactics to silence any discerning voice.
(ii) The Board refused to call for a properly requested EGM by assembly members in terms of the constitution despite acknowledging receipt of the request.
(iii) In many cases, the board acted as the final authority and deliberately side line the Congress which is the supreme decision making board of the
Association.

8. NATIONAL TEAM CHALLENGES
(a) The Board failed to manage the national teams’ welfare properly leading to the disgraceful trip to Malawi by the men team and failure to travel to Ivory Coast by the Mighty Warriors.

9. LITIGATION CASES
(i) The Board has lost a number of legal cases and most of them a creation of the Board and CEO’s total disrespect of the Country’s legal laws on individual contracts of employment.
(ii) The ZIFA legal team is very weak and has lost most cases through default judgments.
(iii) The ZIFA Board proceeded to engage a second law firm to assist the current legal team and one wonders how under the current financial challenges the Association will pay for two legal firms.
(iv) Human Resources issues have not been addressed with due care and employees are dismissed with clear violation of working contracts which has led the Association to lose property in due to ligations.

10. OVER EMPLOYMENT AND FAILURE TO PAY STAFF
(i) The Board has presided over a blotted secretariat which they failed to pay.
(ii) The Association has failed to pay staff salaries for over ten months despite receiving monies from FIFA and other sources of revenue.

11 NON FUNCTIONAL OF KEY STRUCTURES
(i) Key ZIFA structures have not been functioning and failed to meet to exercise their mandate.
(ii) This has led to a number of issues going without checks and balances as is required by the constitution.

12 . FAILURE TO RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION
(i). The ZIFA board does not respect the constitution which they are custodians of.
(ii) This emanates from the Board’s failure to convene an EGM called for by the congress members in terms of the constitution.
(iii) The Board suspended members and refused or failed to bring the issues before the congress as required by the constitution.
(iv) There is deliberate and blatant disregard of the statutes by the current board.

13 . PHYSICAL ABSENCE BY THE PRESIDENT FROM ZIFA OFFICES
AND ACTIVITIES
(i) The President does not attend important soccer matches in Zimbabwe and has never set foot at 53 Livingstone Avenue, ZIFA Offices.

14. BRINGING FOOTBALL INTO DISREPUTE
(i) The conduct of the then President and his administration has thrown the reputation of ZIFA and FIFA into disrepute because of the negative reports that continue to appear in newspapers.

It is with the above reasons that the Congress raised the motion to revoke the mandate of the President and the ZIFA Board in terms of Article 22 (m) as read with Article 36 of the ZIFA constitution.