Former Zifa boss Cuthbert Dube and current chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze have been dragged to court over the association’s debt to a travel agency, which the two acted as guarantors.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
Zifa has failed to settle the debt and has been hauled to the courts as the first respondent, with Mashingaidze and Dube cited as second and third respondents respectively.
The football mother body and the two are being sued over a $27 870,00 debt by Arena Travel, which secured tickets for the Young Warriors to travel to Younde, Cameroon, for an Africa Games qualifier against their hosts in April.
The association was supposed to reimburse the travel agency at the end of May.
Travel Arena, through their lawyers Gutu and Chikowero, allege that Dube and Mashingaidze made verbal agreements to act as guarantors, but have failed to make good of their promise.
“In terms of the aforementioned agreement, plaintiff paid airfares for the Zimbabwe national football team on behalf of Zifa, on condition that it was to reimburse plaintiff (Arena Travel). As security for the payment of the debt and in or about April 2015 and at Harare, Dube and Mashingaidze verbally bound themselves as co-principal debtors and guarantors,” part of the summons reads.
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Travel Arena wants the court to grant an order compelling the three defendants to pay the debt with 5% interest per annum from May 26 when the debt was due to be paid.
Pauline Kadembo, the lawyer handling the matter on behalf of Arena Travel, said her clients had suffered prejudice because of the failure of the defendants to pay the debt.
“The three defendants made an undertaking to effect payment by May 26 and they have since failed to do so, thereby prejudicing our clients. So we will be moving to recover that money once an order is granted,” she said.
Dube has already lost a house over a Zifa debt and has since warned the soccer mother body that he will move in to recover money owed to him after he was booted out.
He is owed over $400 000 by the association. His successor Phillip Chiyangwa has promised that once an audit has been carried out, they will start engaging the Zifa debtors to come up with payment plans.
Zifa’s debt is sitting close to $6 million and they have received a number of lawsuits from service providers and former employees.
