Kirsty pleads with ZIFA Restructuring Committee members to stay

Two ZIFA Restructuring Committee members recently requested to quit the underfunded committee but Sports minister Kirsty Coventry begged them to stay.

The ZIFA Restructuring Committee, tasked with finding solutions to Zimbabwe football’s perennial problems, has been facing headwinds due to limited funding from the treasury.

Former Zimbabwe Olympic Committee chief executive Anna Mguni and lawyer Rudo Mugandani handed in their resignations to the chairman of the committee but the minister pleaded that they stay.

“They have reluctantly remained but one can see that their heart is not in it,” an impeccable source told Kukurigo Sport.

The committee’s mandate is to review the ZIFA constitution, ensure a forensic audit of ZIFA finances and where financial misconduct is found, forward the cases to relevant authorities for arrest and prosecution.

The nine-member committee’s term of office will run up to December 2022.

The ZIFA Restructuring Committee is in essence the bullet in the chamber of SRC’s drive to clean Zimbabwe football, a process which began with the suspension of the ZIFA Board.

The SRC has since reinstated a new ZIFA board without board members Felton Kamambo, Philemon Machana and Brighton Malandule whose mandates were revoked during ZIFA’s extraordinary congress in April.

Farai Jere, Barbra Chikosi and Sugar Chagonda were spared the cull while Zifa vice-president Gift Banda was appointed the acting president of the country’s football governing body.

FIFA has insisted it will only lift the country’s suspension upon the reinstatement of all the suspended ZIFA officials.