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Jonathan Mashingaidze

ZIFA councillors finally did all local football lovers a favour by giving Zifa president Cuthbert Dube and his entire board the boot for destroying domestic football. Hardly a month went by without mention of Zifa bungling during Dube’s tumultuous tenure, but he had somehow survived various attempts and calls to remove him.

The majority of Zifa board members literally behaved as his disciples and the promise that Dube had shown when first voted into office in 2010 quickly vanished like morning dew. He soon usurped all the board’s functions and imposed his non-consultative style on the association, which most board members timidly accepted, largely due to the man’s financial muscle.

Having consolidated his position at Zifa, Dube soon delegated some of his powers and responsibilities to an employee of the association, chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze, thus sidelining his deputy and other elected board members. Suddenly, the board was no longer consulted and decisions were being made by two individuals, Dube and Mashingaidze, as well as a few board members who had sacrificed their integrity for Dube’s good books.

Mashingaidze’s role and influence at Zifa also grew and he soon became Dube’s hatchet man, leading crusades against all his master’s perceived enemies, resulting in a number falling by the wayside.

But as Mashingaidze’s role at Zifa became central, the association was slowly tainted with corruption and lack of global best practice in terms of governance. As the rot grew, so did the councillors’ determination to rid local football of Dube’s chequered leadership.

Although Dube and Mashingaidze tried to use every trick in the book to expel some board members and block some councillors from attending Saturday’s extraordinary meeting using the non-payment of affiliation fees mantra, it didn’t work this time around as they had made up their minds to end this reign of confusion and controversy.

The Zifa councillors ought to be warned though that firing Dube and his entire board is not the easy way out of the quagmire the association finds itself in. It only satisfies the media and fans until their next craving for blood.

It must be noted, however, that the change wasn’t about Dube’s acumen, but his inability to get the entire board to buy into his programme and execute it. Removing Dube and the board means Zifa must implement a strategic rebuilding plan with someone in the driving seat, otherwise this move could spark big mayhem.

Zifa is in deep crisis and they don’t know where they are and don’t have a documented plan of where they are going. That Mashingaidze will take over the running of Zifa in the interim until new elections are held in 60 days puts the association in a state of paralysis. Mashingaidze has been accused of recklessness with Zifa finances and to then give him overall control of the very association whose mismanagement he presided over, is laughable.

The man is so tainted that he too should have been sent packing with Dube. This is the same Mashingaidze who recently gave the Sports and Recreation Commission a doctored income and expenditure statement for an audit following alleged embezzlement of gate takings of the Afcon qualifier between Zimbabwe and Guinea last month. How do you trust such a man? He now has unfettered access and control of all Zifa books for him to doctor some figures or destroy vital information that implicates him.

Mashingaidze must be sent on leave so that a forensic audit of all Zifa accounts, specifically the payment of bonuses, per diem allowances and other payments during Dube’s tenure, is done.

Zifa should fully disclose all their financial details, including the expenditure and costs incurred in putting together all national team matches, payments, allowances and bonuses of service providers, workers, players and the technical staff.

The forensic audit will help identify any illegal, unauthorised or unprocedural use of Zifa funds and assets, and to establish the identity of those responsible for criminal prosecution.

Dube claims Zifa owe him $1 million, but it’s time to do things differently. Only a forensic audit must determine how much he is owed, and not word of mouth. If the $1 million is genuine, then the Zifa books will certainly have captured that loan. There can be no gentlemen’s agreement when dealing with such a large sum.

We demand Zifa strategies that will attract corporate support and the fans. Under Dube, local football went through a very painful period during which the Warriors failed to qualify for three African Cup of Nations tournaments.

National teams were perpetually humiliated, being kicked or locked out of hotels and lodges or refused meals due to non-payment. The national teams were reduced to a joke and it became a matter of how long Zimbabweans were going to continue being subjected to such humiliation.

Zimbabwe was also expelled from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and also looks set to be kicked out of the 2022 qualifiers over failure to pay two foreign coaches for breach of contract. A way must be found to reach out to Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet to avoid the 2022 World Cup ban over the $180,000 Fifa awarded him for breach of contract after he was deported after only a day’s work with the Warriors.