By Hope Chizuzu
Benjani election appeal escalates as…
Zifa elections to choose the new 11 member executive committee yesterday was left perilously hanging on the edge, after Benjani, used the last day of the year and window, to serve papers on the NC, The Page can confirm.
The move that came just hours after the CAS, also confirmed receiving the appeals papers from the former Warriors captain and Zifa president aspirant, in the election set for January 25.
He is challenging his disqualification on the grounds that are as unclear as other qualified members, whose credentials are eternally questionable, given their history and experience in the game or lack thereof, The Page learnt.
Benjani’s fight, whose democratic right, to act as he did, is espoused in the new constitution, that ominously provide for any aggrieved member to approach, not any other football avenue, but the ultimate independent court of international justice port, the CAS.
Such move is absolutely legal, in as far as the process of remedy is concerned.
He is questioning how his papers were deemed inadequate, in circumstances where the ordinary level passes equivalence, is not expressly quantified.
As the countdown to January 25 starts, in this new year, the twists and turns, envisaged the moment the truant Guptas plot to add that clause to statutes, got the command approval at the last Zifa AGM, the elections provokes, all the suspense, leaving the football space, as crowded as the Harare CBD roads, on any rainy day.
With the nature of candidates targeted for disqualification – Walter Magaya, Temba Mliswa, Farai Jere, Benjani, Gift Banda and Bernard Gwarada, it always raised concerns that was a targeted move, meant to remove candidates, largely believed to hold support from the electorate, in view of the collective value they bring to the fore.
Investigations by The Page actually revealed that the NC, never forwarded the nominations for ethical and integrity checks to the Adv Muchadei Masunda Ethics Committee for consideration, as demanded by the statutes.
The NC felt all the nominations received didn’t pose any issues requiring Ethics committee’s trained expertise and examination.
Why that was so, is an explanation only the Lincoln Mutasa chaired NC can explain.
Crucially, FIFA when were presented with all nominations submitted, dutifully decided that all candidates, who expressed interest as submitted, be passed to run in the January 25 plebiscite.
Correct call, that.
But the NC, with instructions from the SRC, decided to disqualify Benjani and the other four from the race and gave variously picked reasons, for the decision.
Hence, this appeal, that could potentially delay the election, that looked set to give the nation the first executive Committee and ultimately the 78 member assembly, whose elections from Area Zones, was going to be organized and run by the Exco, who are crucially, according to the Constitution, not members of the Zifa.
That now looks a delayed meal, for an FA that hasn’t had an assembly legally clothed with power, since the FIFA suspension in 2022.
But what an association that disqualifies Magaya, Banda, Benjani, Gwarada or Jere but accepts Nqobile Magwizi, Makwinji Soma Phiri, Marshall Gore or Morgen “Gaza” Dube and expects the football fraternity to accept such without murmurs of disapproval?
For all that Magaya, Jere, Benjani and Banda did individually and collectively for football, in every request with or without five ordinary levels, eminently qualifies them as “equivalence”.
I hold no brief for any of them, even though they’re clearly people whose contribution to the game is beyond reproach.
We don’t have to like them or follow them on the social media handles, but an attempt to muzzle or sideline these men from football, attracts mirrored questions. It is like dissing Winky D.
Subjecting former footballers like Benjani or Bambo to such disdain surely attracts questions, especially in terms where it is deemed prudent, to accept that their contributions tramps all academic prowess.
The Page has five Os to boot and several other earned papers of measured probity, which are evidence of academic and intellectual quality excesses, but that is all dwarfed by what Benjani (and other ex players) have brought to football.
What was wrong in allowing all those who showed interest in the Exco to have been allowed to contest, as FIFA recommended?
Was Benji such a threat to those who want to capture our football, again, as did the Guptas, whose influence is set for cremation?
Surely can our football be left on the high alert again? For how much longer? Just because the handlers want to force their proxies project on the game? Again?
Ah, varume, hatinavo nyadzi here zvokwadi? Oligarchs? In football, again?
Is this how insatiable quest for control and power can do? And government watch such as SRC bid to drag us back to the proverbial Siberia?
But we know that: anytime a short person gets angry at you, he reacts like you stole his height.
Ko imhosva yedu here kuti pedonevhu chava nendebvu?
It is new year, am just a certified messenger ordained to deliver the mail, like what Dumisani Mtombeni did, making an appeal application, for Benjani.
Musamutaka namahwe. Jah haana mhosva. He is just a lawyer.
Happy New Year Everyone from The Page!
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