FORMER Zifa president Leo Mugabe has urged the association's councillors to vote for seasoned football administrators in tomorrow’s election and shun novices.
Mugabe prays that people that have run the Premier League and Regions get voted into the Zifa executive committee.
The councillors will elect the president, two deputies, one of which should be a woman, as well as six ordinary board members.
Among the seasoned administrators vying for posts are Twine Phiri, angling to be president, as well as Kennedy Ndebele, who wants to be vice-president after leaving his post as Zifa chief executive officer.
Mugabe, an honorary Zifa life member, was at the helm of the football mother body in the early 1990s to the turn of the millennium after taking over from Trevor Carelse-Juul.
“My wish is, I hope we will elect the right people, people with the game at heart and not people who are looking for fame, just to be popular. (We want) people who have the game at heart and know what they are doing, because it is not easy to run that association, I can tell you. I ran it for 10 years and it was not easy,” Mugabe said.
“You need to work as a team. Whoever goes into this election must go in as a team and work as a team. Without teamwork, it will not work.”
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Mugabe is disappointed that Farai Jere failed at the vetting stage, but to him, he would have been an ideal candidate.
“It would be very unfair for me to say so and so, but the general feeling is that people who have run the PSL, who have run regional football and those that have run a number of teams, are the best people,” he said.
“It is a pity (that) a person like Jere is not included, because he ran the PSL and obviously people like Kenny Ndebele have a lot of experience of running the PSL.
“Those are the sort of people that you expect to be elected, because they are football people. The likes of Twine Phiri, they have been there all their lives.”
He said the list of aspirants consists of some names that should be nowhere near it.
“But you see, we have people who have been running academies and that is different from a running whole country with so many clubs. It’s a totally different ball game,” Mugabe said.
“Your experience should be in running a number of teams and not one club. That, in my opinion, does not give you enough experience to run Zifa. Don’t vote the wrong people into these positions.”
Ndebele is in the battle for the vice-presidency with Omega Sibanda, Peter Dube, James Takavada and Francis Nyamutsamba.
The other Zifa presidency candidates are Nqobile Magwizi, Twine Phiri, Makwinji Soma-Phiri, Marshall Gore, Philemon Machana and Martin Kweza.
