Story by Lawrence Trusida, Sports Editor
The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) elections roadmap is getting clearer after the local football mother body and the Sport and Recreation Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Harare this Friday.
The agreement is another step towards the holding of the ZIFA elections which will usher in a new executive committee to take over from the Normalisation Committee that has been in office since June last year.
The MOU was one of the conditions from FIFA for the lifting of Zimbabwe’s suspension from international football.
The Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) outline the nature of the agreement.
“This MoU records the framework for the development of an effective, efficient and transparent working relationship. The MoU will not govern the new incoming ZIFA executive for us the important issue was governance from the NC their biggest issue was funding and the MoU talks about how ZIFA can be assisted in national events by the Treasury,” said SRC chairperson, Gerald Mlotshwa.
The MoU was penned in consultation with the world football governing body, FIFA, and will conform to its Statutes, the ZIFA Statutes and more importantly the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
The ZIFA Normalisation Committee indicated that the signing of the MoU is another step towards holding of elections.
“As you all know the MoU was a requirement from FIFA and now that we have got it out of the way we are moving towards the elections that will elect a new executive and this is a big step forward,” noted ZIFA Normalisation Committee chairperson, Lincoln Mutasa.
The two parties agreed to have at least two annual meetings and ZIFA agreed to share its annual report with SRC once adopted by Congress. ZIFA also will provide its activity report once every six months.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Football Association will hold an Extraordinary General Meeting this Saturday with stakeholders expected to deliberate on the new constitution, among other issues.
