BULAWAYO – The Andrew Tapela-led Zifa executive has hit back at clubs that showed it the “red card” at an extra-ordinary annual general meeting deemed to be illegal as it was not convened in accordance with the football mother body’s statutes.

Clubs held an EGM on 19 December and fired all the executive members, Andrew Tapela (chairman) Gaylord Madhunguza (vice chairman) and Mehluli Thebe (secretary) while retaining board member finance, Tizirayi Luphahla and co-opted two members, Lloyd Munhanga and Lloyd Mutowa.

While acknowledging they did not receive official correspondence advising them they have been stripped of their posts, in a media statement, the Southern Region executive said they are still in office legitimately adding they are victims of failing to attend Zifa (national) meetings.

Clubs felt since the executive’s mandate had expired in October, they had to endorse the extension of the tenure.

They however failed to rope in other members of the Southern Region Electoral College that includes the Bulawayo Province, Matabeleland North Province and the Area Zones.

The Tapela-led executive said clubs lacked clarity in their request for an EGM and in any event failed to give the executive the mandatory period allowed by the constitution for it to organise the meeting.

“As indicated in our last correspondence, the Executive committee   made it clear that the meeting was unconstitutional and illegal as far as the procedures of convening an EGM were concerned.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Article 28.2 of the ZIFA Constitution allows the Executive Committee to convene an EGM if one third of the membership makes that request. Upon receiving that request, the Executive committee must then hold an EGM within three months of receipt of request.

“Once the date of the EGM is set, the Executive Committee must then notify members of the place, date and Agenda 14 days before the date of the EGM in accordance to Article 28.3 of the ZIFA constitution.

“Should the Executive committee fail to convene the EGM within 3 months, then members can convene the EGM themselves.

“Unfortunately, the Petitioners did not follow these simple procedures. What they did was simply to convene a social gathering after fifteen days of what they deemed was a notice of an EGM.”

“The Southern Region Executive committee still remains the legitimate authority whose fate or mandate can only be decided at a properly constituted meeting of members in good standing.

“Consequently, any decisions arrived at that gathering composed of both relegated teams and non-fully affiliated teams were null and void and of no force.”

“There is no serious authority or body under the sun that can approve and accept the decisions that were taken under a flawed unconstitutional process unless of course the process is its own creature,” reads part of the release.

The executive claimed some clubs revealed they had been coerced to attend the meeting and are aware it was unconstitutional, adding “they realise that they are being used as pawns to fight hidden agendas”.

The executive members claimed they were being “persecuted for not attending meetings it viewed as unconstitutional”.

The executive said there is a belief they are a threat to aspirations of certain people within Zifa hence some are being influenced to remove them through unconstitutional means which will leave the executive with no recourse.

They revealed only five clubs are fully affiliated to the Southern Region hence there are question marks on why the same members were condemning the executive by claiming they have not affiliated to Zifa.

“Of the 17 clubs registered with the League, only five (5) namely Talen Vision, ZPC Hwange, Hwange FC, Arenel Movers and Cassym Mining are fully affiliated while Highlanders FC has religiously stuck to its payment plan. The rest still owe and are therefore not in good standing.

“All the clubs that signed the petition are not in good standing save for Hwange FC who, surprisingly, are still seized with Division 0ne matters despite their promotion to the Premier League,” reads the statement.

They claimed clubs owe them US$11000 leading to their struggles in paying staff and utility bills at the office while paying referees was Zifa’s baby and the national executive wrote to them to halt paying affiliation fees in 2019 and nothing has changed since then.