The Sunday Mail
Omega Sibanda
As we go into the elections, we are urging the councillors to be vigilant against football hawks.
To be vigilant about our project, to be vigilant about our vision, to be vigilant about what we want to do.
Continuity is the best cure, remember we are finishing Cuthbert Dube’s term so we did not express ourselves in the way we wanted to in these two years.
We managed to achieve a lot of positives in those two years.
When we came into office Zifa had a seven million debt which we have cleared. We had serious challenges, the Messenger of Court was always on the door step. We had properties which were already attached and ready to be sold, all our accounts were garnished and there was no Zifa to talk about.
The Sports and Recreation Committee had compiled a report that stated Zifa must be liquidated, Fifa had meetings with the Cuthbert Dube led executive saying Zifa should apply to Fifa for a stay of operation.
Basically we came into a non-existing organisation, remember the Obadiah Moyo report from SRC which actually confirmed that Zifa was insolvent, it had nothing in its coffers.
When we came in together with Philip Chiyangwa, he confirmed that he was a financial engineer, and it’s the reason I went on board with him.
Some might say I failed to manage my president, my job as defined in the constitution is not managing the president but to deputise the president and I respect my boss and I am very loyal to the system. My job was simple, it was all about doing football things whilst Philip was looking for money and it worked.
True to his words, he engineered the process of finances within Zifa, that is why we are still existing as Zifa.
We had to make some radical decisions considering that Zifa had no money, so implementing austerity measures was the only way to go with the little money we had. This offended our stakeholders and some members along the way and we are saying sorry to those that felt offended, it was never personal.
The testimony to those austerity measures is what we are seeing now as all our national teams are participating in all Fifa and Caf sanctioned tournaments in all age groups. I only implement the decisions of the executive. We are moving strides, we are saying as we get into these elections, we want to continue and get our proper four year mandate so that we will achieve ten times what we have achieved in two years. The real owners of the game in Zimbabwe, who are the councillors, have full facts of how Zifa operates contrary to what you are seeing flying all over the newspapers. We do not respond to newspaper articles from faceless people or social media hawks, the faceless ones, some who pretend to be Fifa agents.
Zifa is the only agent or franchise of Fifa and it’s not owned by anyone in the country, it is owned by Fifa.
Other people are very mistaken, they think Zifa is accountable to certain organisations, no, we are only accountable to three organs, which is our Congress, Caf and our main principal Fifa.
I did the mandate that I was given by the councillors, this why they are happy.
They are people who want to jump onto the ship when it is already in motion, but when we were trying to look for diesel or for wheels to direct the ship, they could not come in because it was difficult.
During that time, nobody wanted to contest because Zifa was rotten, but now that they are seeing light at the end of the tunnel they want to jump in and start mudslinging and spreading falsehoods about other members of Zifa.
I think we should give respect to those who were doing football during the hard times. Our core business is football, our core business is not to bring people who will destroy the reputation of the Fifa brand. Councillors must choose openly a person whom they like without threats of political connotations or actions.
I am not a representative of my party in football, I represent football in football and represent my party outside football.
I do not mix the two, it’s like water and oil. Some have their history which I am not privileged to explain, the councillors know the real football people.
On December 16, those who want to bring politics into football will be vetted by the councillors through the vote and that is not me.
We have men of integrity in the form of councillors and they know what they want and they are going to exercise it on December 16. Together with councillors, we will make Zimbabwe happy.
My history says it all, my former club Highlanders is not defunct, it is one of the biggest clubs in the country, I do not lead a dead thing, I lead a real thing.
My history tells it all that I have never led a thing which goes defunct in terms of football. We left a legacy at Highlanders and we want to leave a legacy at Zifa.
The intention was to achieve what is happening now, we are enjoying the fruits of those radical decisions together.
Omega Sibanda, who will battle with Gift Banda for the Zifa vice presidency post on December 16, spoke to The Sunday Mail Sport Reporter Don Makanyanga in Harare last week.
