Online Reporter
IT has been the most expensive ZIFA poll in history — the high-profile lawyers, and the huge cost that comes with hiring them, the High Court battles and battles at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.
It’s the first time that the battle for the ZIFA presidency has been heard at both High Courts in Harare and Bulawayo in what has been five sittings, at both courts, in which the legal challenges have consumed more than 20 hours.
It’s the first time that the battle for the ZIFA presidency has spilled into the Swiss courts where those seeking redress need to pay as much as US$25 000 just to have their cases heard in Lausanne.
It’s also the first time that a Zimbabwean lawyer, who is based in Europe, has been dragged into the battle for the ZIFA presidency.
Ndabezihle Nyathi, who is based in Helsinki, Finland, has been acting on behalf of former Warriors captain Benjani Mwaruwari, who was challenging his disqualification from the race for the FIFA presidency, at CAS.
He is the man who masterminded Bongani Mafu’s successful challenge at CAS, which earned the coach a cool US$200 000, after the gaffer proved that his dismissal from the club, where he was assistant coach to Benjani, was unfair.
Those who are seeking power have been criss-crossing the country and addressing the electorate and that comes with a considerable financial investment and, for these elections, their case hasn’t been helped by the fact that we have a bigger electorate.
Then, you also have to add the money, which has been splashed on the Councillors, which is conveniently dressed as compensation for the cost of their travel to meetings to hear candidates preach their gospel.
I’m pretty sure that you are getting a good picture of the huge financial outlay that is associated with these elections.
It was Felton Kamambo’s lawyers who dressed these payments as compensation for the travel expenses of the Councillors when the former ZIFA boss was dragged to court accused of bribing the electorate via Ecocash payments.
Once the magistrate sided with Kamambo, and acquitted him on the bribery charges, it has opened the way for those seeking office at ZIFA to pay the Councillors under the pretext that it’s all compensation for their travel costs.
On the surface, there is nothing unusual about that.
The problem is that these payments are made behind closed doors, are not receipted nor published and if a Councillor from Chegutu is paid US$2 000 for coming to Harare to meet a candidate, no one can ask questions about the immorality of such a payment.
It’s the system which has opened a window of opportunity for some people to abuse it and find a way to pay some Councillors the kind of money which will always remind them that they should know where their bread was buttered.
That they should remember where their kids’ First Term school fees came from.
And, instead of voting with their mind, to select the best possible candidate, they should vote with their stomach, for the candidate who improved their bank account.
The only consolation for me in these elections is that they increased the electorate base by more than half, from 58 to 78 councillors.
This means that the masters of manipulating the system, using obscure cash payments, suddenly found themselves with a bigger constituency to try and pay off and that isn’t easy.
And, I think the Kamambo debacle shook a number of the Councillors who know that in today’s world, where recording gadgets can be inserted in hotel rooms, it’s a dangerous thing just going around and taking people’s money, especially money with strings that you have to deliver in return.
Whether the arrival of fresh faces among councillors, who have been brought by the increase in the number of the electorate, will result in a level playing field and produce a credible ZIFA poll, remains to be seen.
I have noted that most of the candidates have spoken kindly of the Councillors, obviously wary of angering someone whose vote might make the difference, but I will be interested to hear the same candidates’ views when the elections are over.
IT CAN’T GET WORSE THAN KAMAMBO
What isn’t in question is that we all want a ZIFA president who will put the interests of our game ahead of his personal interests, one who realises that he is just a public servant and is only there to lead the game on our behalf.
I don’t like this description of the ZIFA boss as a president.
Of course, it’s just a description but I get a feeling that its introduction, when Cuthbert Dube swept to power in 2010, has given the ZIFA boss an impression that he is a very, very important man rather than just a mere public servant.
Dube ended up behaving as if ZIFA was his personal property, and he could do as he pleased.
Kamambo simply could not handle his ascension to become a ‘president.’
Maybe, we should go back to the basics and call the ZIFA boss a chairman.
That was what we called him when Vincent Pamire ended our lengthy wait for a place at the Nations Cup finals in 2003 when he successfully masterminded the Warriors campaign as a caretaker ZIFA chairman.
This was proper qualification, when the AFCON finals only had 16 participating teams, before they expanded it into this 24-team tournament which now appears like an invitational tourney.
Yes, now we have an AFCON tournament where half the members of CAF take part.
Dube, powered by the biggest monthly salary package ever given to a chief executive in this country, peaking at a cool US$500 000, was a very powerful man and, even as this scandal was hitting the headlines, he retained the ZIFA presidency in 2014.
He picked 34 votes in the run-off while Trevor Carelse-Juul could only get 14.
It didn’t matter to the Councillors that Dube was facing all these damaging allegations of getting this obscene salary from an organisation he headed as CEO and they blindly voted for him.
Before the year had ended, many of them saw the error of their ways and they then decided, en-masse, to revoke the mandate they had given Dube to lead ZIFA a few months earlier.
Many of those who participated in all this drama are still with us today and will play a big part in deciding the outcome of this race to choose the new ZIFA president today.
If The Herald was my newspaper, whose shareholders were rich Chakariboys enjoying the riches that God gave us with all the gold found in our hometown, I would have announced the man I believe is the best candidate for the ZIFA presidency.
But, this newspaper isn’t mine and the Editor, my good sister Victoria Ruzvidzo will remind me that it is the grand old newspaper for all the candidates who are in the race, and I respect that.
So, I will not choose a candidate and will let the Councillors choose their best man for the job.
I would have wanted a scenario where everyone, including Benjani, Magaya and Jere, took part in the poll.
The good thing for whoever takes over as ZIFA boss is that the task for him is easier because things can’t get any worse than what was the case when Kamambo was the leader of ZIFA.
For goodness sake, he knows it is wrong for him to fly his entire family, and his church pastor, to the next AFCON finals in Morocco in December.
That is what Kamambo did, just a few months after taking office, when he flew his family and the pastor who had officiated at his wedding ceremony, a few months earlier, to the 2019 AFCON finals in Egypt, at the expense of ZIFA.
That is what you get when you try to force a man’s transition from being a GMB employee to a ‘president’ of a national association.
Whoever wins today cannot tell the world that he has allocated 32 million 500 million Zimbabwe dollars to women’s football.
That is what Kamambo, with a face mask dangling from his chin as Covid-19 swept around the globe, told the world in July 2020.
The real tragedy is that if you ask those involved in women’s football, they will tell you that all these millions, forget about the flawed nature of how they were pronounced, didn’t roll into their constituency and all this was just a show to deceive the public.
And, whoever wins the ZIFA presidency today cannot embarrass all of us, including those who didn’t vote for him and those who don’t care a bit about what football is all about, by saying the new Warriors coach he has hired has coached in “many continents in Zimbabwe.”
In his own words, he said:
“The coach we settled for is a very experienced coach, 20 years of coaching experience, UEFA Pro Licence and a CAF Licence. He has coached in most of the continents in Zimbabwe.’’
This is what Kamambo told the world on the day he unveiled Zdravko Logarusic.
That was in February 2020, I can’t forget because that is my birthday month.
I still remember the moment because I was at that media conference in that hotel room.
There was a brief pause, as the gathered media — possibly paralysed by a combination of both shock and amusement from what they had just heard — digested it and prepared a response.
Then, Kamambo giggled, as if he had not made a big mistake, as if he didn’t care if he did and, after a moment, corrected himself. Surely, we can’t get any worse than that.
To God be the Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldhinoooooooooooooooooo!
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