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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
WITH the Zifa extraordinary congress set for January 29 now certain, there’s now apprehension on whose mandate will delegates revoke.

The agenda for the EGM is very clear, as it includes revocation of the mandate of one or a number of members of a body of Zifa.

There are seven members of the Zifa executive committee, president Felton Kamambo, committee members Sugar Chagonda, Phillimon Machana, Bryton Malandule, Barbra Chikosi, Stanley Chapeta and Farai Jere.

Farai Jere

Vice-president Gift Banda was controversially sidelined, although he could make a dramatic return to office as acting Zifa president until the next elections.

Of the seven executive committee members, four were elected by the Zifa congress, while Chapeta was co-opted and Chikosi and Jere are deployees. Chikosi represents the Zimbabwe Women Soccer League (ZWSL) and Jere looks after interests of the Premier Soccer League.

A question that arises is do the delegates have constitutional powers to revoke the mandate of a deployee, someone they had no hand in his or her being in the executive committee?

It is true the duo were members of the suspended executive committee, but in the same vein, it can be argued that perhaps they were powerless and whatever strange decisions were made at Zifa House were as a collective, regardless of whether or not Chikosi or Jere objected because it would be two against five.

Gift Banda

So as the delegates meet at the end of the month, they need to come up with a sober analysis of this matter.

If they feel it’s still within their purview to revoke the mandate of people not elected by them, they may as well go ahead, but questions will be asked, why persecute a deployee?

Jere and Chikosi can therefore, only be recalled from the Zifa executive committee by their constituencies, the PSL and ZWSL, the organisations that deployed them to the national association.

If the PSL had issues with Jere’s conduct at Zifa, they could have just recalled him and deployed another representative since it’s not a given that the chairperson of the league is the one who then goes on to represent it in the Zifa board.

The constitution states that the Zifa executive committee shall consist of eight members, president, vice-president and four other members all elected by the congress.

The executive committee shall also have one member representing the PSL and ZWSL. It just states that a member, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be the chairperson, although both organisations have always deployed their chairs.