LAST Sunday saw winds of change sweep through the Zimbabwe Football Association corridors when new leaders were elected. The changes saw former Southern Region chairman Gift Banda replacing Omega Sibanda as Zifa vice president.
Senior Sports Reporter Mehluli Sibanda (MS) tracked down the Bulawayo businessman to find out what he is offering on the Zifa board for the next four years. Below is how the conversation went with Banda (GB).
MS: Congratulations on your election, how does it feel to hold the second most powerful position in Zimbabwean football?
GB: I still feel the same, nothing has changed only that we need to get down to business.
MS: What can we expect from the new office bearers?
GB: There are people outside football that were never afforded a disciplinary hearing, they were just suspended and left for dead. I’ve been a victim of that and I know how it really feels. That’s why you will find that those same people when a new dispensation comes in they would be supporting, they want to take revenge, they are now saying it’s our time, those ones who have been in the office, the persecutors, the hunter becomes the hunted, which is unfortunate.
It’s a cycle that we want to eliminate, because at the moment there are cycles, the tormentors as soon as they get out of office, they get to be tormented, and the ones who were being tormented become the tormentors. We want to be the ones who will end that vicious cycle because we will never talk about the issue of suspensions again. We are really hoping that we will look at all the cases of suspensions, all those that were done unconstitutionally we are going to reverse them and allow people to come in and participate and be a big family.
We will not again persecute those who were in office, even though there were quite a lot of things that were not done properly. Ours is to unite the football family and give it a fresh start. No one should feel threatened by this new dispensation because it’s a dispensation that’s coming in to do football things.
MS: Why did you not go for the Zifa presidency?
GB: If you saw the first story that came out, it was that I wanted to be the president of the association because I felt that I had gained the experience to become so but after a lot of consultation with colleagues, the footballing family, I settled for the second position, not because it’s an inferior position but because I also thought even if I was in that position I could contribute even though I was in the deputy position.
MS: Why challenge for a position that was held by someone from the Southern Region?
GB: It was nothing personal. My thought was Omega (Sibanda), having participated as a vice-president, he had knowledge of football, he was supposed to be the one challenging Philip Chiyangwa for the top post. Omega had taken time being the vice-president, understudied someone, he was the one who was supposed to aspire for the high office so that we can come in and occupy the lower office, the entry level office.
MS: What can the Southern Region look forward to while you are the Zifa vp?
GB: It has always been a great development that the national team position is being occupied in a non-regional basis that we are also getting our share in terms of representation. It will continue in the same vein, I don’t think when we are dealing with national teams we should look at issues from a regional point of view. But this particular region what it must expect from me as the vice-president of the association is to do football things, to make sure that football is played in all corners of the region and country, and to make sure that the support that comes from Fifa filters down to those particular areas zones, the province and the region. It’s achievable, if you look at support that Fifa offers, there is great optimism about football moving in the right direction.
MS: What are you going to do about the seeming divisions in the Southern Region?
GB: My coming in should put a lot of people at ease. I think it’s the first election that you have seen people erupting in joy, with the removal of the people who have been running football. Why so? Because there was quite lot of what I can call “unfootballing” things that were starting to happen like the suspension of quite a lot of people without really following due process.
MS: Are we going to see people being suspended while you are in office?
GB: What we promise in the new dispensation, we are going to follow our bible, if people transgress, be guaranteed that you are going to be tried fairly so that you be given an opportunity to defend yourself in a proper forum.
MS: What tasks have you given yourself that you want to have achieved at the end of your term?
GB: If you read on my manifesto, there are quite a lot of things that you will find there, chief among them is I want to engage the local authorities to make a consideration in terms of the high percentage for the hiring of city council stadiums, because it leaves quite a lot of clubs without anything in their pockets. It’s one of the areas that I think is a low hanging fruit that can benefit the clubs so that they continue grooming our youngsters.
Another low hanging fruit that I think we will try to tackle is engaging the Government which is willing in order for us to access even the allocation that the fiscus has given to the Ministry of Sport. Once we access that, it’s going to assist the association in running a proper way.
The other issue is the engagement with the ZRP so that whenever they are coming cover the games they don’t get paid by clubs because we believe that the ZRP is getting paid from the fiscus. It’s unfair for them to double deep while they will be doing the police duties which they get paid for.
State Media