Chiyangwa’s love for Henrietta
HENRIETTA RUSHWAYA was the first person to wave the idea of being Zifa president in Phillip Chiyangwa’s face.
Chiyangwa shocked many when he ascended to the top post in local football on December 5, 2015 and has now revealed how it all started.
“The person who made me the president of Zifa is Henrietta Rushwaya,” the businessman sensationally claimed in an interview in Harare last week.
“She came and said mukoma please come and lead chinhu ichi. She was in the company of the people who turned WARRIORS’ interim coach Norman Mapeza has been ordered not to consider the quartet of Willard Katsande, Cuthbert Malajila, Nyasha Mushekwi and Mathew Rusike for national team assignments.
The classic case of chickens coming home to roost for players who led the Africa Cup of Nations send-off dinner snub is part of measures aimed at ensuring that “only patriotic players” wear that iconic gold strip.
Zifa were left in a sticky spot when the Warriors pulled the finger on a send off dinner that had then acting President Emmerson Mnangangwa as the guest of honour in January this year.
The players were protesting against the nonpayment of bonuses.
Zifa desperately tried to deregister the ring leaders of that mutiny from the Afcon team list but their efforts were turned down by the Confederation of African Football.
CAF argued it was too late to make changes.
However, The Sunday Mail has exclusively gathered that Katsande, Malajila, Mushekwi and Rusike have now been stuck with persona non grata tags by the Zifa leadership.
Mapeza will soon announce his squad for next month’s 2019 Afcon qualifier at home to Liberia but has been told to ignore the four, even “if they play at the level of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo”
“The message that was delivered to the coach and team manager Wellington Mpandare was clear and you can out to be my campaign managers.
“I said OK but you Henrietta stay far away from me. When I come in I will look at all your problems and I was true to my word; I came in and lifted her Asiagate suspension.
“I said look here, she is a woman. What can she possibly do? But no sooner had I done that did she pop up in the Limpopogate affair.
“There was no other option but to suspend her again.”
Although Rushwaya was cleared by the courts – together with Edzai Kasinauyo and Hwange coach Nation Dube – on charges of trying to fix Warriors as rest be assured that Malajila, Mushekwi, Rusike and Katsande will not be part of the squad that will be announced well as Absa Premiership matches she remains suspended from local football.
However, Chiyangwa hinted that the former Zifa chief executive will soon have her suspension lifted.
“It’s a matter I am actively pursuing, making consultations, and it’s most likely that her ban will be lifted.
“However, she must be very careful after I have done that. I realise where we come from but she must never take my gratitude as being weak. I don’t like that.
“She is the one who started the journey that took me to Zifa, Cosafa, Caf and now possibly Fifa but she must not around May 25,” revealed a plugged -in source.
Zifa president Phillip Chiyangwa was act in the way she does…it is cheap, diabolical and the worst thing is she is sabotaging her own country,” said Chiyangwa.
Kasinauyo has been flying under the radar since the conclusion of the Limpopogate hullabaloo.
He is unlikely to come back and take over his development portfolio in the Zifa board.
It appears a strategic move on the part of the former Warriors midfielder.
“With Edzai we are clear, he came, we talked and he said let me do what I do and will rise when the time comes,” revealed Chiyangwa. initially coy about delving into the matter in a wide ranging interview with this paper last week. * to page 14