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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
GIFT Banda, who was installed as Zifa acting president by Zifa councillors during Saturday’s extraordinary general meeting in Harare, says mending relations with key stakeholders is essential towards restoration of Zimbabwean football.

Banda was given the mandate to lead the Zifa executive committee that has Farai Jere, Barbara Chikosi and Sugar Chagonda at Saturday’s meeting, which unanimously voted to recall the association’s president Felton Kamambo, and two other board members Philemon Machana and Bryton Malandule.

The meeting, presided over by Zifa lawyer Chenaimwoyo Gumiro, had 45 out of 58 congress members in attendance.

The Zifa Southern and Central Regions, which contributed four members each to the congress as well as Zifa Matabeleland North, beach soccer and five-aside were absent.

The Zifa board is expected to apprise the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) about Saturday’s meeting and plead for the lifting of Jere, Chagonda and Chikosi’s suspensions as well as that of chief executive officer Joseph Mamutse.

Kamambo, Machana, Malandule and Stanley Chapeta were conspicuous by their absence, but that didn’t stop Zifa members from recalling them.

“The confidence given to us by the councillors, who are the custodians of the game, should be repaid by making sure that we selflessly serve football. What will be key is to bridge differences with key stakeholders, who are the councillors and Government through the SRC. We must make sure that football becomes the winner as we pull towards restoring our football,” said Banda.

“On Monday, we’re notifying the SRC about the outcome of the meeting and ask for lifting of suspensions of the general secretary (Mamutse) and board members who were cleared by the congress.”

Since the quartet is enough to make a quorum, it is expected that should they get cleared by SRC, they will start engaging Fifa so that Zimbabwe is reinstated by the world football governing body.

According to some football experts, Saturday’s meeting sets up a door for Fifa re-engagement and SRC support.

“First of all, the suspension by SRC and Fifa is still active. The first step is to engage SRC to clear the board members and Mamutse. After that, Mamutse should notify Fifa about the developments.

Then, should Fifa approve the decision of the congress, because it is the board members who are suspended not the congress, then everything will move. If they decide not to accept the assembly decision, then that becomes something else.

“In the long run, because we know Fifa has been in communication with SRC, then we hope that they will be invited to give guidance on what needs to be done,” said the expert.

Zifa lawyer Gumiro said: “This was an internal process which does not change much regarding the situation on the ground. The SRC suspension remains in force; the Fifa suspension remains in force.”

He also said the board led by Banda now needs to ensure or convince the SRC to first lift the suspensions of the executive committee members and also convince Fifa.

Zifa Congress spokesperson Martin Kweza said they were happy with the turnout and outcome of the meeting.

“We had 45 councillors out of 58, and that’s a huge statement that congress has decided to take back its football and wants to resolve issues that are facing Zimbabwe football at large.

We want to inform the nation that like we communicated before that some members’ (mandates) were going to revoked and some not. The congress spoke with one voice,” Kweza said. – @ZililoR