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Petros Kausiyo Harare Bureau
JUST when some critics were questioning the sincerity of his sponsorship deal for Zifa, Harare businessman Wicknell Chivayo yesterday took a giant step towards paying off the Tom Saintfiet debt when he wired the promised first tranche of $50,000 to the Belgian coach. Chivayo this week signed a sponsorship deal with Zifa president Phillip Chiyangwa in which he revealed the would bankroll the broke soccer body with $1 million starting with the pressing Saintfiet debt that was threatening to wreck the Warriors’ 2022 World Cup dream.

Zifa owe Saintfiet $180,000 which the Belgian was granted following a ruling by the Fifa disciplinary committee which ordered that the association needed to compensate the coach for breaching the terms of the agreement they had entered into with him.

Saintfiet coached the Warriors for just one day before being deported for breaching the country’s immigration laws with the mentor being found guilty of executing his duties without a work permit.

But the Belgian took his case to Fifa who awarded him the damages in 2013 and have now threatened to expel Zimbabwe from the qualifying draw for the 2022 World Cup set for Qatar if Saintfiet is not paid.

Faced with a January 4 deadline to pay Saintfiet or risk yet another Warriors expulsion from the Word Cup qualifiers, Chiyangwa turned to Chivayo who, it emerged, had earlier pledged to partner the association if the Harare property mogul had won the Zifa presidency.

Chiyangwa, describing himself as a “financial engineer’’ during his campaign trail, indicated that he would source sponsorship deals for the domestic game when he assumed office as the domestic football’s leader.

Chivayo, in the company of Chiyangwa and his board members — Piraishe Mabhena, Edzai Kasinauyo and Philemon Machana — then unveiled a $1 million package for the soccer mother body at his offices on Monday afternoon and indicated that that he would first expunge the Saintfiet debt before releasing funds upon request from the Zifa boss.

The Zifa boss also told the same function where the sponsorship was unveiled on Monday afternoon that the package from Chivayo “is the start of more to come’’.

But hardly had the inked dried on the agreement that Chivayo and Chiyangwa signed when some critics dismissed the deal as bogus and a ploy to divert the people’s attention from the crisis that Zifa had been facing in the wake of the ill-timed and ill-advised move to fire Warriors coach Callisto Pasuwa.

Pasuwa has since been reinstated with the Warriors now set to begin serious preparations for their record African Nations Championships appearance in Rwanda from January 16 to February 7

Chivayo, who is the managing director of Harare firm Intratrek (Private) Limited, put to shame those doubting his sincerity to help Zifa when he made a bank telegraphic transfer to Saintfiet through the former Namibia and Malawi coach’s lawyer Wouter Lambrecht.

The businessman, however, revealed that he had been disturbed by the criticism he had received despite coming out as a rare individual partner for the troubled people’s game.

Although his intervention is set to be hugely welcomed by the Warriors and their band of fans who had already suffered the heartbreak of being thrown out of the 2018 World Cup over the debt owed to Brazilian Valinhos, Chivayo remained a humble man.

“I hope this small donation will go a long way even though I had almost changed my mind after receiving threats and mixed feelings from too many critics with no credentials. I and Mr Chiyangwa are very happy with the one page document we signed and it’s binding.

“As a patriotic Zimbabwean I encourage other successful young businessmen to emulate this noble gesture and support national programmes,’’ Chivayo said.