By Ezra ‘Tshisa’ Sibanda
It’s reported that for one to stand as a candidate in next year’s Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) elections scheduled for March 29 you have to pay a $10 000 nomination fee. According to Zifa they say they want to separate “the corn from chaff” that is “separate chancers from people who want to serve football”. What a load of rubbish!
Football in Zimbabwe is in a chaotic state, it is marred by corruption, match fixing and surprisingly the current Zifa executive believes it is doing a great job. What and who is this Zifa serving when they have failed to run properly the sport we all so love?
Why is corruption so rife in football in this country and matching fixing scandals the order of the day while the standard of football continues to sink low down? Just because Zifa elections are around the corner they want to deter would be candidates in contesting to run the association by pegging ridiculous nomination fees.
They want to prevent former football players and people who know the game from contesting knowing they wont afford those staggering fees and allowing some greedy clueless anti football businessmen to run the sport which they don’t even understand.
The nomination fees for presidential candidates, the highest office in Zimbabwe, the office which runs the government and the country were far less than that, so whats so special about Zifa? They can’t even justify the amount and how they reached that fee.
Why don’t Zifa follow the Zambian model of selecting the football president? They selected Kalusha Bwalya, former Zambian international footballer to lead their association and look where Zambia is today. It is miles better than Zimbabwe in terms of football standard, discipline and organisation.
They are developing as a country, they have gone on to win the Africa Nations Cup under the leadership of Kalusha but meanwhile Zimbabwe football is agonisingly going down in the hands of business people who are so naive about the game.
I believe this call by Zifa is clearly not a case of preventing chancers, but a blatant approach to block challengers. I think all they want to do is to get rich people running ZIFA based on the fallacy that they will not be corrupt because they are rich.
Factually they might be rich because they are corrupt and all you will be doing is like dumping these rich guys in a diamond mine once you elect them. Zifa should revise their policies to include able administrators and former footballers who understand the game.
Give them a chance and allow them to run this sham football association and bring it back to normality!
