Drogba rejected for Ivory Coast Federation polls
THE Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) has been challenged to come up with a roadmap for provincial elections for provinces yet to conduct elections.
The challenge comes from Mkushi United Football Club-sponsored aspiring candidate Bright Mumba who was vying for the position of provincial youth representative for
Central Province.
Mumba said in an interview that there was need for FAZ to come up with elections’ schedule for the sake of progress unlike keeping candidates in the dark for a long time.
Mumba said a clear roadmap as regard elections should be given because people vying for various positions seem not to know what was happening.
Mumba noted that the Covid-19 pandemic and legal suit against FAZ disrupted the elections schedule but all the same the roadmap should be put in place.
"I just want to make an appeal to relevant authorities at FAZ to ensure that a clear roadmap is given in as far as elections are concerned.
"Because people are left languishing. We do not seem to know what is happening at the moment. We need to be given a roadmap so that we know when the elections are expected," Mumba said.
Mumba added that campaigns were costly and aspiring candidates could not continue conducting campaigns without knowing the election schedule.
He said even in politics for general elections, aspiring candidates were given 90 days, a period in which campaigns should be conducted unlike the FAZ situation.
Drogba along with three others submitted their papers to stand in the polls earlier this month.
The FIF’s Electoral Commission ruled that the former Chelsea striker did not fulfil its long list of eligibility criteria.
His bid was rejected as two of the names he had submitted as his sponsors were ruled not to have the necessary authority to do so.
Officials from the Ivorian club African Sport and a body representing referees, AMAF-CI, had also backed the federation’s current 1st vice president Sory Diabate.
Different officials from the same organisation had also signed Drogba’s papers with the FIF’s commission ruling they were not authorised to do so.
It meant that Drogba only had the backing of only two top-flight Ivorian clubs and not the three that FIF statutes demand.
The rejection will come as a bitter blow to football fans in Ivory Coast, thousands of whom had come out to support him earlier this month when he submitted his bid to stand.
Drogba played more than 100 times for the Elephants including at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, as well as Chelsea he played for French giants Marseille, Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua as well as Galatasaray in Turkey.
Drogba and Kouadio both now have five days to appeal against the decision. –