Chiyangwa laughs off 'perennial losers'

Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa has scoffed at the collection of former Zifa presidents and football stakeholders who met in Harare yesterday to map a way of getting rid of the current football leadership whom they were arguing it was occupying their seats illegally.

Chiyangwa said that he has no time for people who had caused all the problems that he is trying to sort out at Zifa.

He said that yesterday's meeting and any other moves that the group will try to effect, will not yield anything.

"I do not know what their meeting was about or what its meant to achieve," Chiyangwa said. "I have no time for these people; Fifa know that the Zifa president is Chiyangwa and so does Caf. Those people who met are just a bunch of embarrassing gangsters."

Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda described the group as a bunch of failed administrators, who were bitter about perennially losing elections.

"This is just a group of failed administrators who are bitter about perennially losing elections," Sibanda said. "It's not our fault that they are old and unpopular. When they were running football, we respected them. They should also respect us as we do our job. They are not recognised anywhere in the structures of football and no one will listen to them. Congress passed its resolution and it cannot be changed by this group. Elections are coming; they are free to contest and get another thorough hiding."
Zifa lawyer, Itai Ndudzo, said that the people who met yesterday were the sum total of those that plunged football in the mess that Chiyanga was retrieving it from.

"The constitution of Zimbabwe protects the fundamental rights of association. People can meet and discuss issues of common interest. However, it is outright madness for people in Zimbabwe to purport to sit and discuss issues relating to Zifa outside the congress. Congress last met of February 17 this year, where an electoral committee was put in place and mandated to run the Zifa elections. This bunch of failures and rubble-rousers wants to masquerade as a group of concerned people in football, yet they are wolves in sheep skin. Cuthbert Dube created the $7 million debt that has been slashed by Chiyangwa to $2 million. Rafiq Khan left Zifa due to his criminal conduct. Trevor Caresle-Juul is a perennial loser who is irrelevant."

Former Zifa president Leo Mugabe and Dube were said to be part of the grouping, although they were not part of yesterday's proceedings.

The alliance want to push for the ouster of the Chiyangwa-led board who they say their term of office has expired.