For a long time Zimbabweans have allowed you, Zifa councillors, the mandate to choose people who lead football.
DISGRUNTLED FAN
Yes, they believed you were impartial and apolitical, devoid of any corrupt tendencies. They had every reason to trust you because you had established yourselves into an electoral college of repute that voted into office candidates that excelled.
Of course, some of the candidates would go on to mess up things for themselves after winning your trust.
However,your conduct came under scrutiny when-against the expectations of many-you re-elected Cuthbert Dube and his board for another five-year term in 2013.
This was after the majority of soccer-loving Zimbabweans had lost faith in Dube’s leadership. Many people expected you to vote in unison with the wishes of the masses, but you showed them that the colour of money was more important by endorsing Dube.
Still, they respected your mandate as vested in you by the Zifa constitution.
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Allegations of bribery and vote-buying accompanied Dube’s victory, but once more the neutrals gave you the benefit of doubt and you got away with treason. People chose to respect your mandate as they felt you believed Dube deserved another chance.
Two years into his reign with Zimbabwean football continuing on a free-fall, pressure started mounting on Dube.
Zimbabwe had been banished from participating in the World Cup and Zifa was confronted with lawsuit after lawsuit.
Sensing danger and probably trying to cover up for your error, you started to put pressure on Dube to resign.
This was despite the fact that you did not have any contingent plan in place after Dube had left.
I still believe you were too obsessed with removing Dube from office so much that you did not have a grand plan to manage life after his departure. This is the reason why you are prepared to elect even a frog to replace Dube. Now that is not my story.
I think you are the cancer that has killed Zimbabwe football because of your incapacity to elect people with the right attributes to lead football.
It is time people put you to account for your actions because we cannot watch while you continue to hold us to ransom by accepting bribes from people that want to be elected to lead football. Are you so poor that you allow your stomachs to decide for you at the expense of common sense?
We do not have a problem with your choice, but when you move to endorse a candidate before they even unveil their manifesto, then we have a problem. We respect your mandate, but when you abuse it for your material gain and at the expense of football, then we have a problem. It is high time you were reminded that you are not immune to scrutiny and that time shall come when you will be held accountable for your tendencies, the same tendencies which gave prominence to the Asiagate match-fixing scandal.
It will be a dark period in Zimbabwean football if a candidate wins because of material manipulation. We hope you will sit down and take stock of the whole voting process so that you take a closer look at all the candidates and see who is best suited to extricate Zimbabwean football from the murky waters of degradation.
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