THE excesses of the suspended ZIFA board, led by Felton Kamambo, are not going unchecked as yesterday the beleaguered football administrators got a chiding from a senior government official after calling for a FIFA ban on Zimbabwean football.
Kamambo and his colleagues Phillemon Machana and Bryton Malandule have been acting in defiance of authority ever since the suspension of their blundering ZIFA board by the Sports Commission under the SRC Act last year.
The Grain Marketing Board executive, who is also facing bribery allegations at the courts, invited FIFA to sanction Zimbabwe after he was barred from travelling to Cameroon on Friday to attend the closing activities at Africa Cup of Nations finals.
Whilst the government has hitherto stayed away from the nauseating football politics, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana yesterday could not let the desperate petitions by Kamambo go unchecked, while posting on Twitter.
“Good Morning Beloveds; I have never understood people that invite Sanctions which affect everybody so that they can get their way. How selfish can one get? Sanctions are a blunt instrument which affect those not involved in your squabbles,” said Mangwana on his Twitter page.
The tweet drew mixed responses. Kamambo was slammed as a selfish individual, for trying to hold the game to ransom in pursuance of selfish interests.
“Why advocate for something that will have detrimental impact on the greater number, it puzzles me as well, very selfish,” said Tendai Chipfeko.
“Haaah pakaipa uyu anyadzisa uyu. If I was near I would tell (him) Zimbabwe is for everyone.
“Why is he embarrassing us like this,” concurred another Twitter user by the name TN Chifamba.
“Kamambo disappointed everyone,” added Bla Itso.
“Kamambo and his colleagues should be sued, national interests first then personal interests,” said Richman Makondo.
Kamambo, along with members of his board — Machana, Malandule, Barbra Chikosi, Sugar Chagonda and Farai Jere — were suspended by the Sports and Recreation Commission on November 16 last year.
The pair of Chikosi and Jere later had their suspensions lifted to permit them to execute their mandate as Women’s Soccer League and Premier Soccer League chairpersons, respectively.
Whereas Chagonda insisted he would respect and abide by the SRC resolution, the trio of Kamambo, Malandule and Machana have been pulling all the stops to resist the suspension.
In the latest episode to the ZIFA drama, Kamambo had wished to fly to Cameroon as a show of defiance to the suspension handed on him. However, his bid hit a snag when he was stopped at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport.
Kamambo then instructed the equally suspended ZIFA chief executive officer Joseph Mamutse to write to FIFA pleading with the world soccer governing body to ban Zimbabwe over challenges his board has been facing.
FIFA last year threatened to suspend Zimbabwe from international football, including expulsion from the 2021 AFCON tournament, if the Sports Commission did not reinstate the ZIFA board by January 3.
The Friday letter by Kamambo, was addressed to FIFA secretary-general Fatma Samoura and was copied to CAF and members of the suspended ZIFA board.
“We wish to inform you that our FA president Mr Felton Kamambo was today barred from travelling to Cameroon for a football event he had been officially invited to attend,” Mamutse wrote to FIFA.
“We are informed that this was at the insistence of the SRC and a continuation of their interference in our football. While the FIFA letter has yet not come, our football continues to suffer at the hands of the SRC and we again continue to ask for FIFA intervention.
“The situation in Zimbabwe is such that football is now being run by the government and this latest act is again proof that the interference continues even long after the expiry of the deadline given by FIFA to the SRC.”
The Sports Commission, nonetheless, denied accusations they were behind Kamambo’s failure to travel to Yaoundé.
The suspended board yesterday sought to retract the damage they have caused when they released a lengthy statement accusing our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, of “misrepresenting” facts. Interestingly, another weekly newspaper carried a similar story and with almost the same contents.
Although the Sports Commission does not have authority over people’s movements, the suspended board yesterday maintained that the sports regulator was responsible for Kamambo’s woes.
“It is a fact that the SRC is now running our football and caused the illegal restriction of our president’s constitutional enshrined rights and freedom to movement.
“By blocking him from traveling at the instigation of the SRC such was a new low and serious level of desperation on the part of the SRC which is now behaving as they are above the law,” said the statement from the suspended ZIFA board.