January 28 – Nqobile Magwizi has been elected as the new Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) President after a landslide victory, and now faces the task of stabilising an association that has been dogged by internal wrangling.
Incessant boardroom fights, mismanagement of funds and corruption have been at the core of Zimbabwean football in recent months.
However, there is renewed hope following the election of a new board led by the Harare businessman who takes over from the FIFA-imposed Normalisation Committee that had been holding fort since July 2023.
Magwizi won with 66 of the 77 votes, beating off four other candidates. He officially replaces Felton Kamambo, whose tenure was cut short after his entire board was suspended and replaced by the Normalisation Committee.
The new incumbent is expected to breathe life into the financially ailing ZIFA, whose integrity needs urgent restoration.
Magwizi said: “Firstly we need to fix our institution to ensure we come up with best practices of how to make ZIFA an efficient institution that will deliver.
“We need to make sure that we rebuild faith and have partners. They are very critical in the growth of football in Zimbabwe.”
Magwizi’s first assignment, after receiving a gushing letter of congratulations from FIFA General Secretary Mattias Grafström, was to attend the draw for the African Cup of Nations.
He added: “We have AFCON coming up, a very important assignment. That’s our primary focus because if we don’t do well there, it means we are failing.
“We have a commitment to make sure that we do well in AFCON because that’s our first litmus test. Of course, there are various other aspects that we need to attend to but that one is a national platform where it could be seen how well we are performing so we are very committed to hit the ground running to ensure that we prepare our Warriors well for AFCON.”
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