NEWLY-elected Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) president, Philip Chiyangwa has set his sights on a top Confederation of African Football (Caf) post.
BY HENRY MHARA
The Zifa boss was elected unopposed for the post at the regional elective congress on Saturday in South Africa, after Danny Jordan of South Africa pulled out of the race, and long-serving president Suketu Partel of Seychelles decided against re-election.
Chiyangwa flew back into the country yesterday and was met by a group of supporters at Harare International Airport, where he declared his ambitions to seize control of African football and ultimately the world game.
But to have a shot at incumbent Caf president, Issa Hayatou, who has been in power for the past 28 years, Chiyangwa will have to be elected first into the Caf’s executive committee, whose elections are in 2019.
Zambia’s Kalusha Bwalya is the current member of the executive committee representing the Southern zone, together with Molefi Oliphant of South Africa, who is also part of the 15-member committee.
Caf restricts potential candidates for the presidency only to members of the executive committee.
“I spent just one year at Zifa and already I have acquired the regional autonomy and power, I’m now the boss of the region,” Chiyangwa said. “Very soon I will be the boss of the continent, that is in the sight. Don’t be surprised when that happens. Most of you didn’t know that I was working on taking over Cosafa, and now I’m working on Caf and it’s coming soon. We want to control continental football; just like our President Robert Mugabe controlled Africa as the African Union chairperson,” the Zifa boss, who will serve four years as Cosafa president, said.
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“I won’t stop there, I have more ambitions. You know Fifa hasn’t been run by a black person. I have also set my sights on a position in Fifa, that’s my ultimate goal and I have set myself that target. This victory is very important to me and the country. To win, I had to apply my master’s technique. President Mugabe taught me that if you apply the scorched earth approach, you won’t go wrong. He taught me well. It was a tough fight to get the position, but I used the tactics that I was taught by the grandmaster Mugabe, and here I am.”
Chiyangwa said Zimbabwe football has not received fair treatment because of its lack of representation in powerful positions and, thus, he would use his new position to reposition the country at regional and international stages.
The Zifa boss has long complained of mistreatment of the country’s national teams at competitions and he was recently forced to lodge a complaint with Caf over the conduct of Burundi referee, Suavis Iratunga in the Africa Women Cup of Nations group match between Zimbabwe and Egypt held in Cameroon in November.
Iratunga disallowed what seemed a legitimate Felistas Muzongondi equaliser six minutes before full-time, a decision that killed Zimbabwe’s hopes of qualifying to the next stage of the tournament.
“Zimbabwe has been excluded in African and international football for a long time now. We were not in Cosafa [structures], and this is the first time that we control football in the region and we have to make full use of the chance. We are not in Caf and they have not been treating us well, and we have to be in there. We are also not in Fifa and I can tell you that the road is open and I will go for it,” Chiyangwa said.
