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FIFA official Mamelodi confident on Zifa progress

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FIFA Southern and Eastern Region Development officer Ashford Mamelodi says he is leaving Zimbabwe confident the Zifa Board will hit the ground running

FIFA Southern and Eastern Region Development officer Ashford Mamelodi says he is leaving Zimbabwe confident the Zifa Board will hit the ground running in their bid to take the local game forward. SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

Mamelodi, who was in Harare for the past three days in the company of his deputy Patrick Onyango at Zifa’s request for an induction workshop for the new board, told reporters during a Press conference in Harare shortly before he left yesterday that the Cuthbert Dube-led board was determined to take the challenges they faced head on and that he was leaving football in safe hands.

“We have been here at Zifa’s request to induct the new board which is a strategy Fifa uses for a new executive to get to understand the roles and best practice. It was basically governance issues vis-a-vis the role of the secretariat.

“We shared with the board extensively on different programmes Fifa has. This is important to ensure that member associations get to know what Fifa can do and what they cannot do. It’s important for them to know what programmes are on offer. It was a very useful meeting and when the SRC

director-general Charles Nhemachena came to give his presentation, it tied up with what we have. We are leaving Zifa confident they are ready to face the challenges head on and to hit the ground running. Football is in safe hands as we leave,” said Mamelodi.

The Fifa representative said some of the programmes were performance programmes like marketing, communications and finance .

Mamelodi said they would send experts for those programmes which he said were basically 2-4 years and that they should have impact. He also revealed that the world soccer governing body had approved the $500 000 funding for the construction of the Zifa headquarters. Mamelodi, however, said the money would be disbursed as soon as Zifa secured a piece of land so that construction would start.

Zifa is also guaranteed a $250 000 grant by the world soccer governing body — a grant given to all member associations. Mamelodi said they had asked Zifa to employ a technical director before they could get the grant as it was a requirement for all member associations.

Maxwell Takaendesa Jongwe has been proposed as the new technical director.