July 25 – The 16-member Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) has suspended Zimbabwe from participating in next year’s Cosafa Cup, the region’s biggest tournament, and slapped the Zimbabwe FA (ZIFA) with a $200,000 fine.
Zimbabwe have already been fined $50,000 for their failure to honour an agreement to host this year’s edition of the COSAFA Cup and have now received a further sanction after refusing to comply with a June 30 deadline to commit to staging the 2020 competition.
In a letter of suspension from its general secretary Sue Destombes, Cosafa said the $200,000 fine must be paid by August 15. Failure to do so will mean all representative national Zimbabwe sides being barred from contesting all Cosafa tournaments.
Zimbabwe are the most successful side in the COSAFA Cup with six titles but Zimbabwe government officials insist the deal to host 2019 was a bad one from the outset since it would have made a hefty loss.
ZIFA executive committee member in charge of finance Phillimon Machana said they were going to discuss the Cosafa sanction before issuing an appropriate response to the ban.
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