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NewsDay

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Zifa elections set for December

Sport
The Zifa electoral committee is set to announce at a Press conference today the election roadmap for football leadership positions today.

The Zifa electoral committee is set to announce at a Press conference today the election roadmap for football leadership positions today.

BY Kevin Mapasure

NewsDaySport was, however, told last night that the Zifa executive committee elections will be held on December 1.

This gives the Philip Chiyangwa-led administration a further five months in office, a move that could be challenged by their critics and potential opponents, who have been advocating for the plebiscite to be conducted much earlier.

According to sources, the Premier Soccer League, women’s football, beach soccer and five-a-side, will have their elections on July 15, after which area zones will have theirs on July 22.

Provincial elections will be conducted over two days between August 18 and 19, while regions will conduct theirs on September 15.

There will be an almost a three-month wait before the final round of elections, which will usher in a new Zifa leadership at national level.

The electoral committee will explain today the reasoning of their timing of these elections, but their programme is set to be a subject of debate.

Some lobby groups have been trying to entice Fifa into getting rid of the current administration, arguing that they are there illegally.

Former Zifa president Trevor Carelse-Juul, who contested the election in 2015 and lost to Chiyangwa, has already said that, if the process was to be conducted with Chiyangwa and crew in office, it will not produce a fair outcome.

Carelse-Juul is one of several potential challengers that have since been given life bans by Zifa.

Last month, Fifa directed that the elections be held as soon as possible, but dampened the spirits of the Chiyangwa opponents by declaring that his administration that also includes vice-president Omega Sibanda and Philemon Machana, who heads the finance division, stay in office until the elections are held.

After the resignation of Piraishe Mabhena and Felton Kamambo from the executive committee, there were demands by other interested parties for the administration to be dissolved with the secretariat taking over the running of the show on grounds that the remaining trio no longer formed a quorum.

With elections coming on December 1, this means Chiyangwa’s administration would have stayed in office for a three-year period.

Chiyangwa took over at Zifa following the stepping down of Cuthbert Dube under pressure from the Zifa assembly over a number of irregularities.