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Sports Reporter
ZIFA creditors say they were shortchanged in a big way following the decision by the football leadership to dissolve the bankrupt association and replace it with a new organisation called National Football Association of Zimbabwe.

Presenting oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee meeting on Sport and Recreation yesterday, Daisy Rusere, who represented the creditors, said they felt they were hit below the belt by the football leadership whom she accused of running away from their responsibility.

Rusere is the director of Daisy’s Guest House in Harare which has accommodated the Warriors and the Young Warriors for preparatory camps over the years.

She said they felt secure as Zifa had even given some of the creditors commitment letters to settle the debts just before the Congress but the next thing they heard was that the association had been dissolved.

She said the procedure was done without getting them due notice as creditors.

Rusere said they have supported Zifa in good faith over the years as service providers and had received several promises which were not honoured by both the new board led by Philip Chiyangwa and the Cuthbert Dube-led executive committee.

“As creditors we feel shortchanged. For years we have been supporting Zifa through good and bad times in the realisation that this is our country and it’s our football.

“The national team needed the support from the service providers and we couldn’t deny them. We waited on promises and Zifa kept coming back to us for more services.

“But now the next thing we heard, without due notice, was that Zifa no longer exists and there is a new organisation called Nafaz. We were left exposed and as creditors we are very bitter with that,” said Rusere.

Zifa owed a long list of creditors in excess of $6m.

Chiyangwa said the fact that the organisation was not able to meet its obligations, including failure to settle debts, was the reason they decided to dissolve the association and go under sequestration.