With the 2024 soccer season gone, the Zifa elections are dominating headlines everywhere with all sorts of names being thrown around as possible successors to Felton Kamambo.
Since nominations opened on November 22, names such as Walter Magaya, Temba Mliswa, Gilbert Muponda, Marshall Gore, and now Nqobile Magwizi have been on football fans' lips as debate on who should take over the hot seat reigned supreme.
There has been talk of former Caps United partners Farai Jere and Twine Phiri in the same fighting ring as well as Martin Kweza, with Wangu Mazodze proprietor Richard Mazodze, later on declaring he was not interested in the post anymore.
With all that money coming from Caf and Fifa and promised future government funding, it is no wonder that the Zifa polls are dominating football proceedings more than ever before.
Happily, though, those are the names of the wishes of the football public and only when the Zifa normalisation committee tell us who is in after the vetting process, will we speak out loudly on which candidate we would be aligning ourselves with.
Sadly, as has always been the case with the Zifa congress, allegations of bribery have once again surfaced, with word that some of the councillors are demanding as much as US$300 for a signature on the nomination form.
We have always argued that to have credible Zifa elections, and to avoid all these shenanigans, the idea was to have elections for a new Zifa congress first before the Zifa board polls, but the authorities thought otherwise.
Moreso is word doing rounds that wealthy aspiring candidates are fuelling up the corruption by going around and offering huge sums of money to councillors in exchange for votes when election time finally comes.
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In all this, where is the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc)? Or maybe this is not corruption because it is happening in football and football does not matter much even if it is run by a corrupt individual.
Or that Zifa is not important even though it involves millions of dollars from Caf and Fifa as well as funds from the government and the public?
The question is: Was Kamambo a victim of the politics then at play to have an investigation carried out on him on bribery allegations stemming from a previous Zifa election ?
Or that Zacc needs an invitation to investigate matters of such public interest like councillors openly demanding money to vote for, or to nominate a candidate?
Surely, Zacc had a starting point in the form of former Gweru United and Caps United lynchpin Colin Semwayo who had the names of the five councillors who demanded US$300 each from him to be nominated.
And the fact remains that Semwayo is not alone and there are many other aspiring candidates out there who have a similar story to tell, which Zacc can exploit to help football end this bribery scourge.
The nomination papers are also there in the offices of the Zifa normalisation committee for scrutiny and might expose or reveal some matters of interest.
We need a fair election, where Zifa office bearers are elected on the basis of the programmes they are offering and not because they paid councillors for the votes.
We need to get rid of this "dollars-for-my-vote syndrome" and maybe Zacc can help us in this regard.
*For your comments, views and suggestions mkariati@gmail.com or WhatsApp on 071 0774 596
