SRC IN CASH COLLECTION STORM
DESPITE threats by the Sports Commission to dissolve ZIFA, football remains the body’s cash cow, with the association and its affiliates religiously paying huge sums in levies, including cash collected on match days, whose destination has torched a storm.
With clubs and ZIFA already crying foul and seeking a reduction on the statutory levies which they blame for bleeding the game, questions have been raised on the Sports Commission’s move to deploy representatives at cash rooms at various venues on match days to collect their six percent share of the gross gate revenue in cash.
There have also been questions on whether the move to send officials to collect cash from clubs and ZIFA is not in contravention with the Bank Use Promotion and Suppression of Money Laundering Act.
However, confirmation by the Sports Commission, ZIFA and the clubs show that the regulatory body’s officers make off from the stadiums with bags of cash.
The amounts average around $5 000 each from big match days on the domestic scene, which include the Harare Derby between CAPS United and Dynamos, the Battle of Zimbabwe featuring Highlanders and DeMbare and the Warriors’ African Cup of Nations home assignments at the National Sports Stadium.
An income and expenditure statement from the Warriors’ last biggest home game — the Nations Cup qualifier against Liberia on June 11 last year — shows that the Sports Commission were paid $3 533 in cash after the encounter.
Sources at Premiership giants CAPS United also spoke of the practice in which they said the Sports Commission and other statutory levy collectors were getting preference in terms of payments ahead of the clubs.
The Commission, however, also receive banks or ecocash transfers from low-profile Premiership games.
“At every home match there is always a representative who comes to collect the SRC levies and actually attends the matches to oversee the attendance figures, immediately issues a receipt and collects the cash from the cash room.
“So, if a CAPS United versus Dynamos match grosses $75 000, six percent of that figure is immediately paid out to the SRC and another levy is paid out to ZIFA while the PSL get their levy after deductions of the ground rentals.
“Of course, this scenario is not helping clubs but leaving them poorer but that is the situation prevailing. Clubs generate money but they must wait for the statutory deductions to be done for them to see how best they can survive,’’ the sources said.
Dynamos treasurer Moses Chikwariro also confirmed that the Glamour Boys were not only regular but big contributors of cash from gate revenue to the Commission.
“The SRC levy is a statutory deduction which we are obliged to pay as a direct expenditure and we have been honouring that obligation religiously and SRC is one of our esteemed stakeholders.
“We always have a SRC person at our matches and he comes to the cash room after the games. The ZIFA statutory deduction is collected by the PSL and then they forward it to ZIFA.
“On match days the PSL are in charge through their appointed chief cashiers but I authorise payments on behalf of my club,’’ Chikwariro said.
Sports Commission communications officer, Tirivashe Nheweyembwa, insisted there was nothing amiss about the practice and said the cash was eventually banked.
Nheweyembwa said the PSL had initiated the move to have the Commission officers coming to personally collect their levies from their games.
“Our Finance Officers collect the money at source because that’s the agreement we have with PSL that we collect from source.
“PSL were of the opinion that the arrangement works out to be better if our officers are on the ground and we had no challenges in implementing it.
“In some cases they transfer via ecocash biller code and banking system,’’ Nheweyembwa said.
The Sports Commission spokesman said they resorted to cash collections after encountering problems with the previous mode of payment when the PSL handled the transactions on behalf of clubs.
“It was creating challenges in that some time back the money ended up not being remitted and as a result it was amicably agreed that the SRC has to be there and agree on what’s due to it and it’s transferred to its account.
“It is the same with ZIFA and we are working well with them,’’ said Nheweyembwa.
However, it could not be established how much the Sports Commission’s bosses have banked in cash they have been collecting from the gates.
The onus is on the SRC chiefs to prove that they have been banking their cash in an environment where there are fears some of the cash could be finding itself on the black markets.