FOOTBALL administrators have spoken and the Nchanga Rangers and Afrisports proposals to restrict people eyeing the top two positions in the association were thrown out.
Rangers and Afrisports proposed changes to Article 26.7(i) of the FAZ statutes regarding the qualification of people intending to be president or vice-president.
According to the submissions from Rangers and Afrisports, only people who had served in the FAZ executive before should be eligible to contest the top two positions.
The current FAZ constitution demands that anyone interested in the two positions should be Zambians with at least five years experience in football administration at club or association level.
FAZ had hinted that the decision on these proposals including the other of introducing nomination fees for candidates vying for various executive positions will be through a secret ballot.
However, the FAZ council at Mulungushi University in Kabwe yesterday declined to have the proposals go through a vote and this meant the motions by the two clubs were defeated.
By the FAZ council resolutions, the status quo remains and all those administrators who meet the current qualifications will be free to contest next year’s elections.
The local football fraternity can now breath some fresh air after generating a lot of debate.
In fact, football development was bound to suffer because of this fierce debate which even overshadowed our national teams’ poor performance this year in various African competitions.
Many football stakeholders including 12-time league champions, Nkana strongly rejected the these proposals describing them as not necessary, urgent or critical.
When Rangers chairperson, Yoram Kapai issued a statement on Thursday saying his deputy Blackwell Siwale and secretary Emmanuel Simbeye delivered the proposal without blessings of the club, I foresaw cracks in the whole issue.
“The club would like to clarify that there was no consensus in coming up with such a decision – for NRFC to float the proposal for the amendments to the FAZ constitution. The club held an emergency executive committee meeting chaired by the Chairman Yoram Kapai with Mr Siwale and Mr Emmanuel Simbeye, the Hon. Secretary, in attendance.
Both officials have accepted that they erred to author and sign such a proposal without full approval of the executive committee,” read part of the Rangers statement.
Kapai went on to say: “However, for purposes of serenity within the football family, NRFC will leave the proposal to be decided by the FAZ AGM. Meanwhile, internal corrective measures have been instituted to avoid a repeat of similar situations in future.”
This clearly showed that Rangers were heading to Kabwe as a divided family.
I hope administrators have learnt something from the Rangers story.
Football administrators should endevour to always seek consensus within their families before informing the nation. Let’s continue interacting on malungaf@gmail.com