The Sunday Mail
VETERAN football administrator and Harare City FC chairperson Alois Masepe’s experience and expertise has been channelled to help end the crisis at ZIFA.
The former Dynamos official is now part of the committee that has been mandated to lead proceedings at Saturday’s crunch ZIFA Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Harare.
Masepe spoke to The Sunday Mail Sports Reporter Langton Nyakwenda ahead of the indaba that is set to shape the destiny of the national game, especially after Zimbabwe’s suspension by FIFA
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We have accepted the fact that FIFA have suspended Zimbabwe or ZIFA from international football. That fact stands.
But we also agree that the EGM is the only option because currently, we have a vacuum at ZIFA. So, the EGM is taking place on Saturday in Harare.
ZIFA cannot hold meetings at the moment, the office is dysfunctional and we feel as councillors we need to bring back some normalcy at the association. So we believe the EGM is necessary.
We also feel the EGM will help in a way in our bid to have Zimbabwe readmitted back into FIFA; that is why we are saying this is the only way forward.
But there are realities we must face, that there is no longer a contest between SRC (Sports and Recreation Commission) and FIFA.
FIFA have already endorsed as a Congress the suspension of Zimbabwe and also that of Kenya.
Possibility of FIFA normalisation committee?
Our scenario is different from the Namibian situation where FIFA set up a Normalisation Committee. That committee is set up to avoid a suspension.
This represents a situation where FIFA are involved in the resolution of whatever is the disagreement.
FIFA come in that way particularly when we have football structures fighting each other or where you have a ZIFA executive committee fighting within itself — that is when FIFA are invited to normalise the situation.
In our case, the Government, through the SRC, is at war, not with the ZIFA Congress, but with the ZIFA executive committee (board), and that is very critical to note.
In Namibia, FIFA are not saying there is outside interference, they had internal struggles within their association.
Zimbabwe and Kenya have the same situation … you have a scenario where FIFA are saying there is third-party interference and the two countries have been suspended.
So, the approaches are different.
FIFA are not coming here; we will have to reapply for readmission.
But, we have to normalise the situation first.
We need to do our own house-keeping issues.
There are a lot of areas requiring hygiene processes.
We need to first establish what it is that causes tension and conflict within our process or between ZIFA and the SRC.
There is need to find out why there is always tension between successive ZIFA leadership and the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
What causes that?
We need to look at this and come up with solutions.
I think there are structural deficiencies; there are constitutional deficits that we need to address.
And we need to task this EGM to look into those issues before we go to the elections.
In a way, the SRC are right in their view that we should have a structural review of ZIFA.
Let’s have a review of the constitution itself and see where are the areas of conflict.
You can have your elections tomorrow or at the end of the year but still there will be tension.
So, let’s look at the constitutional processes, the structural framework to see whether we can achieve a cohesive structure.
Background of ZIFA, PSL tension
From the word go, when the PSL was formed, we have had tensions between successive ZIFA leadership and the PSL.
I was part of the formation of the PSL when I was still at Dynamos. We sponsored the creation of the PSL, and ZIFA did not want to see the emergence of an independent PSL.
But we felt that ZIFA should be the mother body and should not be involved in the administration of professional football.
And that was the case in all other associations.
Successive ZIFA leadership have never taken kindly to that divorce and it has confused our game.
And we need to understand why we have those tensions.
So, whenever we go to elections, those who come to ZIFA or those who are in the ZIFA executive are always distrustful of the PSL.
As a result, they are elected not by the PSL but by provinces and regions. And you have permanent tension between the PSL and the provinces.
ZIFA is structured like a political party.
You have got to consider the ethnic standing of the ZIFA president and then try to balance it with other tribes. That’s politics and yet this is football.
Why should we have a tribal or ethnic balance in soccer.
You have the president from Mashonaland and the vice from Matabeleland.
We are also saying why is it that our constitution allows people who are not actively involved in football administration to be in ZIFA.
This creates problems.
Some of these people come to ZIFA as a stepping stone to somewhere else.
Look at Patrice Motsepe, he is a good example of a real football person.
He owns Sundowns and now he is at CAF.
Look at some of the leaders who have been at ZIFA.
Once they are out of ZIFA, they forget about football.
So, we need to depoliticise ZIFA.
This is a football institution, not a political field.
Those who come into football must be true football administrators, not people who want to use ZIFA as a stepping stone.
So, we need to revise our structures so that in future we do not invite aliens.
For instance, I feel that we should have a presidency at ZIFA that represents the PSL, the regions, provinces and women’s soccer.
We can have a president there with four deputies coming from the structures.
As far as I am concerned, the chairperson of the PSL should automatically become the first vice president of ZIFA because the PSL is the flagship league in the land.
Sadly, we have a ZIFA executive committee behaving as if they are the Congress.
In fact, the committee behaves as if it is bigger than Congress.
That’s a constitutional crisis.
Here we are today, suspended as a country as a result of actions of a ZIFA executive committee that was elected by Congress, but the Congress did not give a mandate or permission to the executive committee to refer this case to FIFA.
Instead of crying to Congress and referring this matter of their suspension by SRC to Congress, the executive committee ran to FIFA, and FIFA, for whatever reasons, listened to them and suspended the country.
We should have a structure where if you have a delinquent executive committee of ZIFA, the SRC must go somewhere to say your committee is misbehaving and action will be taken.
And, if the SRC take action against that committee, that committee must go somewhere to report before informing CAF or FIFA.
But here we are, our representatives have reported the issue to FIFA without notifying us and as a country we are suspended.
They have done that as if they were elected into office by FIFA and yet they are there because of the Congress.
Those things must be reviewed.
So, this case is beyond the Felton Kamambo leadership.
It’s about house-keeping issues within the Congress itself.
CAF press release on AFCON draw?
We have got to house-keep but we are not saying we are foregoing anything. If anything is doable within the intervening period, then it’s fine.
We do not want our players to be excluded from international football and if there’s a window of opportunity for us to be re-admitted, then let’s grab it with both hands.
But I am talking about separating the two: That is, suspension of Zimbabwe from FIFA is one thing, and the rift between SRC and the ZIFA executive committee.
And we are saying if there is an opportunity for our national squads to participate, by all means, let them participate.
But we can see there is a problem.
We can see the way we were suspended smacks of constitutional deficiency.
That must be corrected.
The way an elected executive committee runs into conflict with the SRC points to a structural deficit and these are the issues that we should be seized with before we knock on the doors of FIFA to say we are ready for re-admission.
Yes, we are ready in terms of participating in regional and other competitions, but clearly there are hygiene issues that need to be sorted out in terms of our structures.
Why do we have tensions between ZIFA and the SRC?
Why do we have tensions between ZIFA and the PSL?
Now it is between ZIFA and the regions. Between ZIFA and the women’s league.
Why do we have that?
It doesn’t matter who you elect today, you will still have the same problems and we believe there are constitutional issues that need to be addressed.
We must have a cohesive structural set-up. We need to have a constitution that gives clear guidelines and remove these tensions which are in-built.
We need to have a constitution that bars the participation of speculators or aliens in football. We need true football people to administer football.
Why should we be fighting with the SRC all the times?
We had a similar situation with Cuthbert Dube, back then with Leo Mugabe. Why?
We can’t have the ZIFA executive committee going straight to FIFA without authority or the mandate of the Congress, and yet the effects of that action by the executive committee have landed us in this trouble.
EGM charge sheet for the ZIFA executive committee
It has been done but basically we are saying to them why were you suspended by the SRC?
That will be your first charge because you didn’t come to us.
One article in the ZIFA constitution says you need to maintain healthy relationships with affiliates and with governing bodies.
So the question is: How did the ZIFA executive committee end up being suspended by the SRC?
It means the executive committee failed to manage its interface with the SRC.
The result is that we don’t have a ZIFA executive committee now.
That in itself is a charge.
The main charge is that there is nobody at ZIFA and those we elected to represent us at ZIFA are not there.
They did not even come to us to let us know.
They did not even come to us and say we are suspended.
Can suspended executive committee attend EGM?
The ZIFA executive is invited and they should attend this EGM. If there is something that stops them from attending, they should attend to that problem and ensure that they come.
Attending Congress is not involving them in administrative issues at ZIFA. The courts barred them from administering the functions of ZIFA.
They are being summoned to answer charges by the people who elected them into office. We are inviting them to defend themselves.
We are going to ensure that ZIFA operate normally in the interim.
That is the purpose of this meeting. What we know is that the ZIFA office is dysfunctional and we are suspended.
Our representatives did not come to us to report that they were suspended by the SRC and the reasons thereof.
They didn’t brief us that they had gone to FIFA.
They became a superior organ to the Congress.
And we want to understand why.
This is the real issue of the EGM.
Upon suspension, the ZIFA executive committee should have come to the Congress and say what is the way forward?
Congress should have engaged the SRC.
We could have handled this issue internally within our borders if the executive committee had come to us.
In that kind of situation, we need to find out what the constitution says.
The constitution says go to the EGM and sort out the mess.
