FULL AUDIO INTERVIEW LOADING BELOW.

– “…you cannot have people in ZIFA mooting, or muting sanctions against a superior authority, as has happened.”

– It is the ZIFA Secretariat which is guilty.

By Simba Chikanza | The former ZIFA President, Phillip Chiyangwa has responded to an announcement of a lifetime ban from the football body by his successor’s leadership.

The current Cosafa head spoke to ZimEye at length at midnight Wednesday and below is the full transcript of the interview:

“This is a joke and it’ll remain a joke and people here want winners, they don’t want losers. These guys are all losers,” said Chiyangwa.

He continued saying, “and they should brace themselves for the worst in terms of a response that they will get out of all this nonsense. I am a Zimbabwean citizen and I’m entitled to mix and mingle I’ve never been involved with ZIFA or with anything to do with Kamanga (sic). I don’t waste my time. But for them to be concentrating on following through a situation in which they think they have been successful on me yet they have failed on the pitch. I am telling you where they are coming, it’s more dangerous than just looking at the pitch. It’s just looking at the pitch, but they have failed, that’s all. They are running after my shadow what have I done? “

Qu. – If I could ask you, earlier on you said that it is you alone who can fire ZIFA officials…

Chiyangwa: ” ZIFA and COSAFA, one is subordinate to the other, okay?

“COSAFA is the regional body, alright? And you cannot have people in ZIFA mooting, or muting sanctions against a superior authority, as has happened.”

“Especially unsubstantiated claims and making things out of the blues, having… by the way, this guy was assising so and so, was doing this and that. Hey, hey, hey, I am sorry to say but a comprehensive response will follow and when that happens, I am sure they will still be in office to actually stand to answer and defend themselves.

“Those lies are a very big crime it terms of football. You don’t create and cook up lies. Everything you do in football must be viewed by the other person. This is why they have even gone as far as putting machines that can track reality on the pitch, so that you can go and look at it and say oh, this is true. These are damn liars, they’re a bunch of failures that have just decided that I am one of those candidates which they can blackmail in the public on their own performance which is dismal; Personally, domestically here they have just failed. And this is one of those things that defines their failure? talking about Chiyangwa.

“People want to see those success stories, not failure… you know there have been PSL clubs that have been successful in the past week, beating up foreign teams, that is not what is being celebrated. They’re busy wanting people to divert attention, and pay attention to the wrong things.

“What have I to do with the local football scene? In fact I was in PE where they themselves were participating. But look at it this way, I don’t see how myself I get involved in the local scene, what for?

“Once I turn my head and walk away, I walked away from many things in my life. Why so much concentration and making it look like there is something about Zimbabwe football. They are failing in the local scene, they should leave it for those that can handle it.”

Qu. When did you make this submission?… I am referring to the exact charges (against you.) by ZIFA. Do you remmeber the time when you made that submission?

Chiyangwa: “Okay here is the story here: It’s very funny that I am having to respond to it but I think what happens, when they do these kind of things there shall be a follow-up investigation, because it has to be done. Somebody here has to answer for what they are saying, truthfully or wrongly you understand what I’m saying? So, before pre-empting the responses that are inevitable with this thing, you must know that everything which happened with respect to whether it’s COSAFA or anything that I am involved in, when it is coming from ZIFA it is the Secretariat. The very same guys who are being made to write letters to me are the same people who handled this matter, not me.

“There has been no change of chief executive officer, it is Mamutse himself who will have to answer about what happened here and here and here, I mean, I know that this matter was handled even after my presidency, you understand?

“And they went through to a disciplinary hearing when they made their submissions, and failed to explain why they would do that. It has absolutely nothing to do with Phillip Chiyangwa but to the public they want to make it look like Chiyangwa was at the forefront, Chiyangwa did this and that. Simply having been president, was merely to direct how things are done, right or wrong, but I certainly in my period I was very successful.So here we come now with these people: every move is designed to fail. Instead of profering a more plausible response to everything, they simply want to use camouflage, hiding behind the finger over anything, and everything so it doesn’t work that way. Things have got to be answered for and I know that the answers are lying straight with the ZIFA secretariat and one of the other board members is there, he was key to all the things that happened with respect to the COSAFA bid. So today I must be busy chasing after these particular issues. I don’t have time to waste like that. Look at the papers that they have concerning COSAFA. Who is there, its Phillip Chiyangwa writing to and from COSAFA.

“I have to look for matches to be played in Zimbabwe you know we are going for AFCON, before I left there was only one game to play for us to qualify for AFCON. I literally qualified for AFCON 2019. So you do not say to me I don’t plan for my team to continue playing, as if you are busy asking me all those silly questions, like I mean, “what happened to the bid?” You have papers there, look at them and say who was writing up to the time I left office, months months months later after I left office, then you turn around and say by the way Chiyangwa is the one who did this. Aaah, do I have to go to the public and show everything? That is not how I operate.”

Qn: Is it not that they are saying you were the authority?

Chiyangwa: “It doesn’t work like this okay. Everything that happens when you have anything going on is executed by the secretariat working together with one of the board members responsible for that particular competitions and or findings; are you with me? It ends there, it does not have to be the president. This is just a lame excuse. You know. People are being taken for a ride. But the truth of the matter is when all the documents are looked at, remember these people went for a hearing and they lost their case and were fined, and not lightly fined.”

Qn: So are you able to give a hint of what measures you were going to take in response to this?

Chiyangwa: “No no no, I am saying to you that I really… (sic) these people are desperate, and it’s a sign of desperation to do this you cannot have a weekly story on a particular individual, person of Zimbabwe who occupies an international office; you are busy talking about him all the time, that is failure, ok? Vakomana ava vapererwa.

“And unfortunately I am sorry to say they are a bunch of failures of the worst type, in terms of Sport. It’s sad I am having to deal with these people hearing them and wasting my time, they are wasting my time, really seriously I have much more to do. And I don’t care what they do, so they mustn’t bother themselves coming my way, because all I am going to do is going to ask my COSAFA secretariat to tell me the story regarding the bid, and simply make it public.”

Qn: Lastly Sir, what do you think is motivating all this?

Chiyangwa: ” failure failure by themselves. They think the public in Zimbabwe will hate Chiyangwa so much for what he has not done. You see(Waona). This is total failure by themselves. If they were winners they would not do this…”