Banda disciplinary hearing date set

SUSPENDED ZIFA vice president Gift Banda is set to get an opportunity to argue his case before a disciplinary committee amid revelations the association have now set up the relevant judicial bodies to handle such matters.

Banda was suspended on January 15 by his fellow board members.

But, the former Njube Sundowns director has not yet been brought before any judicial body to answer to the charges he is facing.

The Bulawayo-based administrator was suspended for allegedly reshuffling the Warriors technical team without the blessings of his boss, Felton Kamambo, and other board members.

Banda, was the acting ZIFA president at the time he announced the reshuffle.

ZIFA later sent a letter to Banda advising him that he was also being charged for allegedly convening an unsanctioned meeting of board members on the eve of the January 15 indaba of the board.

The association also claim on their charge sheet that Banda issued threatening messages to some ZIFA board members on January 16 after the pronouncement of his suspension.

But it was his reshuffle of the Warriors technical department which torched the storm.

Banda is accused of having acted beyond the jurisdiction of his authority when he announced that Rahman Gumbo and Lloyd Mutasa had been relieved of their duties as Warriors assistant coaches and replaced by Bongani Mafu and Tonderai Ndiraya.

In arguments presented to his fellow board members on the day of his suspension, Banda said he felt his role as acting president empowered him to make such decisions.

He even suggested that if what he did was out of line with the constitution, then the board had the power to reverse the appointments and stick with the old Warriors technical set-up, which they eventually did.

Kamambo was out of the country in Senegal for the CAF awards at the time that Banda made the Warriors changes.

The appointments of Ndiraya and Mafu still had to be ratified at a ZIFA board meeting but things took a nasty turn when Banda was asked to leave the room while other board members discussed the issue.

Kamambo yesterday declined to comment on the matter referring, The Herald, to a position which his association took on January 29 and communicated through a statement issued via communications manager Xolisani Gwesela. That statement read: “The Zimbabwe Football Association would like to inform the football fraternity that following the suspension and subsequent activation of judicial processes against Hon. Gift Banda, it shall not issue any further comment on the matter.

“The case is now subjudice and we shall not be involved in any discussion about it elsewhere to let the course of justice prevail without putting the association at risk of contempt.

“We thank you for your usual understanding.’’

But The Herald can reveal that a disciplinary committee to deliberate on Banda’s case has been constituted.

Sources close to the goings-on at ZIFA indicated that the association had completed the setting up of judicial bodies which also include the Appeals and the Ethics committees, among a host of sub-committees that have since been put in place.

“The charges have since been sent out to the vice-president and ZIFA are still within the necessary time-frame to conduct a hearing.’’