Zifa leadership defends trip to Brazil Jonathan Mshingaidze
Jonathan Mshingaidze

Jonathan Mshingaidze

Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe football leadership says it was not in Brazil on holiday and, to prove that this was a working trip, they persuaded Fifa to send a marketing expect to help Zifa retire their $5 million debt.The Fifa expert is expected in Harare next month.

Zifa said they will first hold a strategic planning workshop, where they would come up with potential ways of reducing the debt, before Fifa can step in with their helping hand.

Zifa president Cuthbert Dube and chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze were in Brazil where they watched the semi-finals and final of the World Cup.

Questions have been asked here about the wisdom of the two Zifa officials to travel to Brazil, and watch the World Cup matches, when domestic football is in the intensive care unit.

It emerged this week that, contrary to the line that has been pushed in the past two weeks that the trips were wholly funded by Fifa, the flights and accommodation costs were met by the Zifa officials.

Fifa revealed this week that they only provided complimentary match tickets for FA officials, upon request, to watch World Cup matches.

Mashingaidze maintained yesterday that their trip to Brazil wasn’t a joy flight but a working visit where they met Fifa secretary-general Jerome Valcke and Fifa head of development programmes Cyril Loisel.

“We were in Brazil not just to watch the World Cup finals but we held a number of meetings with various people in the global football family,” Mashingaidze said in a statement released by the association yesterday.

“Zifa president (Dube) and I had the opportunity to meet with the Fifa head of development programmes who in turn facilitated a meeting with the Fifa secretary-general (Valcke).

“Fifa assured us of their commitment to help Zifa to find strategies to retire the huge debt that we have and they assured us that they will be sending a marketing expert who will help us with our initiatives.

“As you know we have already planned the Dollar For Football initiative and we now need to drive it through the implementation phase as part of the efforts to erase that debt.”

Zifa’s strategic planning workshop is expected to start on Saturday at the Zifa Village in Mount Hampden.

Mashingaidze added that they met Caf director of development Abdel Moneim Hussein who pledged facilitation of more development courses in Zimbabwe.

 

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