BY SPORTSCAST WRITER
HARARE – Nqobile Magwizi has been elected new president of the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) at an elective AGM in Harare on Saturday, ending the 17-month interim term of a normalisation committee appointed by Fifa in July 2023 after the country’s return from an international ban.
45-year-old Magwizi, a Harare business executive, doesn’t possess a strong footballing background, but scored a landslide victory on the back of an impressive business-oriented campaign in which he pledged to turn around the fortunes of Zimbabwean football through sound corporate governance.
He also promised to oversee the refurbishment of football infrastructure, with Zimbabwe having been forced to play its home games outside the country following an initial Fifa-ban of local stadia nearly give years ago.
Zimbabwe was then suspended by Fifa in 2022 for government interference in the sport, only to be reinstated in July 2023 after 17 months. Magwizi said under his leadership, he would steer Zimbabwe to the top of African football, following up on the men’s national team’s qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco at the end of the year.
