Highlanders challenge Zifa

IT looks like controversy will continue to dog the BancABC Sup8r tournament as just days before the final, Highlanders have written to Zifa challenging them to stamp their authority in the local game, lest a wrong precedence is set.

Following the impasse that bedevilled the semi-final clash between Bosso and DeMbare, the Premier Soccer League approached Zifa, as the motherbody for recourse. A replay was ordered, initially set for Bagdhad Stadium in Kwekwe before being moved to the capital, at the request of the Harare side.
Following the non-appearance of the Glamour Boys for the match, after Zifa had ordered a replay and with both clubs having concurred to it, the Zifa board then asked the Premier Soccer League (PSL) to look at the issue.

PSL set up a new ad-hoc committee to deal with the issue of a replay that never took place.
Eastern Region vice-chairman Saidi Sangula chaired that committee.

However the ad-hoc committee rubbished the decision by Zifa, who are the supreme policy-making board, to order a replay and questioned its involvement in the chaos. The committee actually endorsed the decision of the first ad-hoc committee led by Don Moyo in which the game was awarded to Dynamos on a 3-0 scoreline.

"The decision to order a replay, although made with the best of intentions and in the interest of football, was ultra vires the rules of the competition and therefore of no force or effect. No legal consequences should, in our view, flow from it. It follows therefore that the match organised for the 27th of October 2010 was not organised in terms of the rules. The Zifa Board purported to act as an Appeal authority thereby clothing itself with robes that did not exist. We therefore are at large to disregard the order of the Zifa board as we hereby do.

"The decision of the Ad-hoc Committee of the 3rd of September be and is hereby held to be binding upon the clubs and the organising committee. Dynamos be and are awarded the match on a scoreline of 3-0," wrote the Sangula committee in its judgment.

While not challenging the verdict, Bosso have now challenged Zifa to be visible.

"We want to state that as Highlanders FC we have resolved not to contest the decision to award the match to Dynamos FC. It is clear that the ad-hoc committees from Harare have an agenda against Highlanders and as such will stop at nothing to ensure that Dynamos will proceed to the final at all costs. It is not clear what motivates the said ad-hoc committee to favour Dynamos in the manner they do when all the evidence points otherwise. It is clear that they have a hidden agenda.

"That having been said, Highlanders FC wants to register its dismay at the statements made by and recorded in the ruling of the ad- hoc committee which sought to undermine the authority of the Zifa board indicating that the same had no authority to make the order for a replay of the match and as such the ad- hoc committee did not recognise the Zifa decision.

"To suggest that the Zifa Board order for a replay was no force or effect and consequently to proceed to state that the ad hoc committee will proceed to ignore it, is a huge, humiliating slap on the face of the mother body. It is shocking and indeed in fact amazing to realise that the mother body has gone silent and lame in the face of such an onslaught on its authority. One wonders whether Zifa has decided to be in collusion with the said committee in coming up with a decision that flies in the face of all the elementary aspects of natural justice," said Highlanders in a letter in possession of Chronicle Sport.

In what might leave an indelible mark in local football, Highlanders have also called for the exoneration of Dynamos of any wrong-doing after failing to show up for the Zifa ordered replay.

Despite the move to discredit the order by Zifa, the committee still had the wisdom to find Dynamos guilty, and Highlanders have rubbished that as a mere useless move.

The Harare side was fined a third of their prizemoney in the tournament, among other charges.
Highlanders argue that Dynamos should not be punished for refusing to follow an "unlawful" order.

"It sounds so hollow that the same Committee finds fault with Dynamos' failure to turn up at the NSS when they hold that Zifa had no authority to order a replay. If Zifa's order was a nullity then surely anything arising out of nullity is a nullity. Why should Dynamos be punished for not following an instruction that was unlawful? This is a decision that is riddled with inconsistencies. The decision has neither legal precedence nor sense. It is an attempt at appeasing Highlanders by, in fact, patronising it," said Highlanders in a letter to the board.

The club called upon the soccer motherbody to act decisively so as to avoid setting a wrong precedent.

"We however call upon Zifa to act in the face of such assault on its reputation and authority; to restore and stamp its authority in the management of soccer in the country. Zifa certainly has to take leadership in this regard if it is to salvage its name and respect. Otherwise it is open to ridicule and Highlanders will be left with no option other than to also ignore its authority in future in the same way that Dynamos and the creature calling itself the Ad-hoc Committee have done.

"What we have here is voodoo justice brewed in a voodoo pot in Harare disparaging Zifa for having ordered a replay of the match. And Zifa remains mum about such conduct, clearly, it will be recalled that it is the PSL management committee (and not Highlanders) that went to Zifa asking the same to break the stalemate in the BancABC Cup. And Zifa, perhaps, one will want to assume, in its wisdom, then ordered a replay. And when the replay failed to materialise owing to the arrogance of Dynamos, Zifa referred, properly, the matter to the Management Committee for resolution," read the letter.
The club reaffirmed its earlier decision not to contest the ruling.