Constitutional poser for Zifa congress Felton Kamambo

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
A constitution is there to regulate operations of an organisation, and is a Bible that should be followed by those who swear to uphold the dictates of that organisation.

Checks and balances on the adherence of an organisation’s constitution are usually the baby of the electorate, which must make office bearers accountable and ensure there are no breaches or amendments aimed at benefiting individuals instead of the organisation.

Enter the Zifa board led by its president Felton Kamambo and the entire members of the congress, 58 of them.

According to Article 10 of the constitution, members of Zifa constitute the congress.

Each of the Premier Soccer League clubs sends one delegate, the four regional leagues are represented by four delegates each, with the 10 provinces sending one delegate each.

One delegate represents the four Area Zones, the same as Beach and Futsal.

The National Association of Primary Schools Heads, National Association of Secondary Schools Heads and tertiary institutions each have two delegates, while women’s football soccer provides four delegates.

Delegates from these organs are the ones that vote for the Zifa executive committee to run domestic football for a four-year tenure.

To an ordinary and uninformed eye, it all looks good.

Before going for congress, all delegates must first be elected by their constituency members, beginning from Area Zones. After Area Zones there will be provincial elections, regional elections then finally the national executive committee poll.

Where the current Zifa constitution is found wanting; where the then Cuthbert Dube led executive created an electoral monster is the roadmap to the national executive committee elections.

The 2013 constitution empowered members of Area Zones to have an incredible three votes throughout the electoral process. No other Zifa affiliate enjoys such powers.

The Area Zones’ delegates vote for the provincial leadership, regional leadership and national leadership.

No one paid attention to this anomaly in 2013, simply because this was a deliberate move to panel beat the constitution for office bearers and not the office of the bearers.

A candidate for the national executive committee can easily create his line-up by simply dealing with an individual that perhaps few people take seriously because there’s hardly any one that thinks about Area Zones in the running of football.

But these are the people, who probably determine the outcome of Zifa national elections.
Ideally, Area Zones should cast their votes for provincial leadership and their story must end there.

They must not be anywhere near polls for regional leagues, which should be elected by provincial delegates and Division One clubs only.

After casting their vote for regional leaders, provincial delegates should also go back to their provinces and not set foot at the national executive committee elections.

So instead of having 62 or 58 delegates at the congress, there must actually be 47 after taking out 10 provincial representatives and one Area Zone delegate.

Zifa has constantly been talking of synchronising the constitution with that of Caf and Fifa, and now is the time to do that.

We have seen only Kamambo or one selected delegate from the Zifa executive                                                     committee voting at the Caf or Fifa elective congress. We have never seen Zifa councillors going to vote for the Caf or Fifa president, yet they elected Kamambo.

By electing Kamambo and his committee, it means they have entrusted them to make whatever decision or choice on behalf of domestic football.

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