"ZIFA Will Approach FIFA When We Feel Ready To Do So, The Process Might Outlive You"
The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) and Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) have indicated that they are in no hurry to get the country’s FIFA suspension lifted.
Gerald Mlotshwa, who was presenting ZIFA’s forensic audit, Thursday, said the lifting of the suspension was not their priority, adding that they were prepared to face off with FIFA even if it meant extending the fight beyond a lifetime.
Zimbabwe was suspended in February after the Mlotshwa-led SRC sacked the then ZIFA president Felton Kamambo alongside his board members that include Philemon Machana and Joseph Mamutse. Said Mlotshwa:
The lifting of the suspension is not a priority, let us get that out of our heads, our priority is the process to clean up our football,”
We are not in a rush at this point in time to go to FIFA and say lift the suspension. They will ask us whether we have cured all the things we gave as reasons when we suspended the ZIFA board, we are not there yet.
When you restructure or implement reforms, that is not an overnight process, that process has already started and it started when we suspended the executive committee and it is an ongoing one with certain milestones.
I will tell you that the reform process does not stop, you are continuously developing yourself, FIFA itself has already said we are underwriting this. DO not misunderstand this however as an indication that FIFA will then automatically lift the suspension.
ZIFA will approach FIFA and formally ask for lifting of that suspension when we feel that we are ready to do so. This will be an ongoing process and might even outlive you.
Zimbabwe has, since the suspension, missed out on the COSAFA Cup finals, AFCON and World Cup qualifiers while clubs were not included in the 2022 and next year’s African Safaris.
Kenya, which was suspended at around the same time as Zimbabwe has been re-admitted by FIFA after its government withdrew its decision to suspend football federation officials in hopes of ‘cleaning the football mess there.’
Mlotshwa’s sentiments, supported by ZIFA president Gift Banda, come at a time calls for Zimbabwe to be re-admitted into the football mother body’s fold have grown.
Players and administrators have joined in the push for re-admission which, according to FIFA, can only be done when the Kamambo-led ZIFA executive committee has been reappointed.
Banda said they were in agreement with the SRC that the football in Zimbabwe has to be cleaned.
