THERE is a chance that former Zimbabwe Saints player Jethro Hunidzarira, might regret the day he re-associated himself with Zimbabwean football and in particular the Zifa normalisation committee.
Hunidzarira, who is employed as Zifa technical director is planning long term with Zimbabwean football but the question is what happens to him when the term of his appointing authority — the Zifa normalisation committee - comes to an end on June 30 and that term is not renewed by Fifa.
What will also happen to the likes of Simon Marange, Backlyfield Chivenga and others who were employed long term by the NC when the Fifa appointed committee can only employ up to June 30?
Are the contracts of Hunidzarira and others binding after June 30 or they can easily be dismissed by the elected new Zifa leadership without any compensation being paid out at all.
Of course, we all know that Fifa money is at play in these appointments, but bending the rules to the extent of deliberately putting Zimbabwean football in serious future legal battles is cruel to say the least.
All the appointed personnel can take legal action if dismissed by future Zimbabwe football leaders because of the mistake made by the NC of deliberately giving them contracts beyond June 30.
Remember, we had the Tom Saintfiet drama that saw Zimbabwe being thrown out of the 2018 World Cup after Zifa refused to settle Saintfiet's dues for the short period he was in charge of the Warriors.
Surely, what is happening at Zifa is a test case similar to the one at Dynamos where the question is on what will happen to Dembare if let's say, one day Benard Marriot dies?
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What is the story with the families of the other founding fathers? Are they receiving anything at all from Dynamos? What is their future at the club post the Marriot era?
The story for the day, though, is not about Dynamos but educating the Zifa normalisation committee on the correct path to take instead of leading Zimbabwean football astray.
In fact, the normalisation committee was wasting time fighting Zimbabwe Women's Soccer League chairperson Barbara Chikosi because Chikosi's term as women's football supremo expired on the day Felton Kamambo's four year-term expired.
That the NC even appointed an interim committee to run women's football instead of organising elections for a substantive leadership is questionable.
Even right now Farai Jere is not the bona-fide leader of the Premier Soccer League and he along with the other elected regional and provincial leaders are no longer office holders because their terms expired.
They are only holding onto their positions because the normalisation committee is out of focus and doesn’t seem to have the slightest idea on how to normalise the football crisis.
If we are to give some direction to the normalisation committee, as things stand, the only existing office bearers of Zimbabwean football are the office administrators whom the Zifa normalisation committee should have been working with in their attempt to normalise the Zimbabwean football situation.
At the moment, all these office administrators — including Kenny Ndebele at PSL — represent all the Zifa affiliates in what would have been described as an interim Zifa assembly awaiting elections had the NC taken the right path.
The Zifa affiliate offices all over the country have all the information that the NC requires as a foundation to the duty they were tasked to undertake and not the meet-the-people tours they have embarked on.
On that premise, these merry-go-around Zimbabwe that the NC is going about are not necessary and they are also offside in their line of thinking that they need to amend the constitution before holding elections.
Whoever is giving the normalisation committee its direction is offside because the NC do not have the power to change the Zifa constitution and only the Zifa Assembly — when it is finally put in place — can make changes to their constitution.
If there were to be told, the NC right now have two documents to use to fulfill the task they were assigned to do by Fifa and these documents are the existing Zifa constitution and the Fifa template outlining their terms of reference.
Anything outside the Zifa constitution and the Fifa template is a waste of time and money and Mutasa and company should be advised well on that.
Those who follow Zimbabwean football closely claim Mutasa and friends are aware of the route they must be taking but are deliberately delaying to get a term extension.
Others claim that Mutasa is being misled by outside influence by people with interests and intention to also one day run Zimbabwean football.
Whatever the case is, Fifa would have done Zimbabwe a disservice should they decide to extend the term of this normalisation committee beyond June 30.
More problems in football seem to have come up since July 11, 2023, when the NC was put in place than solutions to the Zimbabwean football crisis.
They have even messed up our national teams through their haphazard manner of appointing coaches.
- For your views, comments, and suggestions mkariati@gmail.com or WhatsApp on 0773 266 779.
