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CONGRATULATIONS to Felton Kamambo and Gift Banda for their election as Zifa president and vice-president respectively.

We also extend our best wishes to those that make up the rest of the new Zifa board Philemon Machana, Sugar Chagonda, Rodrick Chamu Chiwanza and Brighton Malandule.

Kamambo and Banda overcame substantially engineered obstacles, which included arrests, in addition to being barred from contesting domestic football’s two top posts in the weeks leading up to the elections.

Despite these setbacks, the two stemmed the tide and their nominations were grudgingly accepted following intervention by Fifa, which the duo was constantly in touch with throughout their humiliation.

For their resoluteness, we take a bow to both men for helping unshackle Zifa from dangerous efforts to establish a personality cult around its former president, Phillip Chiyangwa.

And that is as far as we are willing to praise Kamambo and Banda for now. Going forward, the two and the board they lead will only get adulation from us on the basis of results because we don’t want to be party to the creation of another cult of personality around Kamambo or Banda.

But we don’t blame Chiyangwa for enjoying and using his personality cult to push through his agenda at Zifa because he was not the architect of its creation.

The media, sports journalists in particular, scrambled to heavily glorify the man and present him as an amazing person, who should be admired, loved and respected in football circles.

For reasons only they can answer, our sports scribes somehow invested great expectations in Chiyangwa based on nothing more than a captivation with his radiant persona.

His showmanship turned him into the saviour of Zifa and our football virtually overnight.

Many unanswered questions and close scrutiny were waived, with so called detractors being blamed for attempting to sabotage the vision he had for Zifa and local football.

With the help of our sports scribes, purges against different undesirables were done with impunity.

Processes were ignored and people were suspended or banned without any hearings.

When questions were asked how this was so, it was our sports scribes that argued collective leadership still existed at Zifa although evidence proved otherwise.

This cult of personality gave a kind of shield to the Zifa board that in as much as some councillors might have disagreed with decisions taken, fear prevented them from speaking out and so they sat out as the football family was fractured.

Councillors knew things were not well, but couldn’t dare to challenge. In fact, so fearful were these men and women that they had to be careful of their very own thoughts just in case the board could read their minds.

Now that this undesirable path has been dissolved, we implore Kamambo and his new board to follow the Zifa constitution and work as a collective with councillors as the local football parliament.

If need be, Zifa must review its constitution and amend whichever sections give unfettered power to the association’s president. For example, it’s against good corporate governance for the general secretary or chief executive officer to be handpicked by the Zifa president.

Why can’t the job be advertised and proper interviews conducted so that the best person for the job is appointed to do away with cronyism.

We want to warn Kamambo and Banda that just as it was in the days of Chiyangwa and his board, so can it be during your reign.

A realignment process by sports scribes has started and soon you will be showered with praises, but please keep your eyes on the ball.

A storm of propaganda is an effective strategy while it prevails and it’s easy to recapture the cult of personality that once buzzed around the previous Zifa board, but that can rapidly dissolve as circumstances change as we witnessed last Sunday.

Just remember that your election doesn’t mean you are the best men for the job. You just happened to be the bravest under the circumstances and it would be negligent not to play it safe.