PARLIAMENT has been left disappointed by the ZIFA Normalisation Committee’s failure to explain issues around its mandate and what it has done to transform Zimbabwean football.
The committee’s appearance before Parliament started off as a box office movie but in the end, it was more like a one-sided boxing match as it was pushed into a corner and punched to submission.
Despite appearing on ZBC’s Game Plan programme on Wednesday night bullish about Zimbabwe’s chances of qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the committee’s chairperson, Lincoln Mutasa dithered around the simple question: ‘what have you done since you assumed office last year?.’
The Portfolio Committee was grossly disappointed with ZIFA’s submissions.
“As a committee, there is no better way to describe the catastrophe and disaster we saw today coming from ZIFA Normalisation Committee, who are clueless to what is football, not even to run, but they are clueless of what football is, from the secretary-general to legal director in charge. We are very much concerned as a committee that we are in this situation. We all know that Zimbabweans are football-crazy people, they love football and our President is doing massive work to see that our Zimbabweans are happy and we cannot allow people to run down our football or be a sideshow to the progress that is happening towards Vision 2030 in this country,” said one of the committee members.
Another added, “He is not in football, he has never attended a local football match, he said this in front of our committee and he has no idea. He has been in football long back when he was in his playing days and none of the committee members except for Rose Mugadza who was in women football is familiar to what football is.”
“It is sad that people have no clue of what they are supposed to do yet they bave been in office for over a year. There is no plan for the elections, there is no plan to call an EGM,” noted another committee member.
Despite the poor show, the Normalisation Committee still believes they have what it takes to transform Zimbabwean football.
“I was appointed by FIFA and we send monthly reports to them and they are aware of what we are doing and we will achieve our mandate,” said Mutasa.
The Normalisation Committee’s mandate is to run the daily affairs of ZIFA, restructure the administration and to review the ZIFA Statutes and Electoral Code to ensure their compliance with the FIFA Statutes and requirements, and to ensure their adoption by the Congress.
The NC is also mandated to act as an electoral committee in order to organise and conduct elections of a new ZIFA Board based on the newly aligned ZIFA Statutes and Electoral Code and to ensure a proper financial handover to the new ZIFA Board.
With more than a year in office and into their second tenure the NC is yet to audit ZIFA accounts, to provide a new constitution and also yet to call Congress for an Extraordinarily General Meeting (EGM) and yet to call for elections which will bring in a new board.
ZBC News