Zifa plunged into fresh chaos

ZIFA was last Friday plunged into fresh problems ahead of a crucial week for the Warriors and the Young Warriors after its official bank account was placed under a garnish order by the High Court and instructed to pay over US$500 000 to its former employee Lazarus Mhurushomana.

According to the garnish order, Zifa have until tomorrow to pay US$518 331,81 owed to the veteran former football administrator, who was employed by the local football association as director of administration.

"You are hereby instructed to deposit US$518 331,81 into the plaintiff's FCA [foreign currency account] from the following account numbers held in the name of Zifa within 48 hours: 0181197610296101; 1811976/029210; 081197610292103; 081197610292104.

"You are instructed to deposit the money within 48 hours," read the garnish order obtained by Standardsport.

Mhurushomana, who was retrenched in 2004, has for the past 15 years been battling unsuccessfully to have his severance package paid by the football controlling body.

After the two parties failed to agree on a suitable retrenchment package, Mhurushomana cited unfair labour practice and the matter was referred for arbitration.

Zifa was ordered to pay the former administrator his salary and benefits from March 2004 until agreement was reached on the retrenchment package.

The dispute spilled into the courts and after previous Zifa administrations failed to honour the debt.

The garnish order on Zifa's bank accounts comes at a time the country's football controlling body has been battling to secure air tickets for the Warriors and Young Warriors ahead of their international engagements this week.

The Warriors and the Young Warriors are set to begin camp tomorrow as they prepare for the Fifa 2022 World Cup preliminary qualifier against Somalia and the U-23 Afcon qualifier against South Africa respectively.

The Warriors play Somalia in Djibouti on Thursday while the Young Warriors face South Africa in Johannesburg on the same day.

Zifa president Felton Kamambo yesterday questioned the timing of the garnish order, which he said was part of a ploy by detractors to destabilise their operations ahead of a crucial week.

"It seems like it's a deliberate ploy to handicap Zifa because we were planning to buy air tickets for the Warriors and the Young Warriors as well as paying the allowances for the Mighty Warriors for their Olympic qualifier against Zambia," Kamambo said.

The Zifa leadership last week received the backing of Fifa after the world football governing body turned down a request from the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) to remove the football association's leadership from office and replace it with a normalisation committee.

The SRC made a request to Fifa to remove the entire Zifa board over allegations of abuse of funds.

Fifa, however, noted that it was happy with the manner in which its funds were being handled by Zifa, saying the allegations made by the SRC against the local football board were not sufficient to warrant Fifa's intervention.

The world football governing body warned the SRC against taking any action, which could violate Fifa statutes that prohibit government interference in the affairs of its member associations.