ZIFA has bowed down to pressure from PSL and has announced they are mulling paying the bailout package from FIFA and CAF to PSL clubs in hard currency, The Standard reports. ZIFA is set to receive $1.8 million from CAF and FIFA to help clubs mitigate the effects of the devastating coronavirus.
This came after it had headlined that ZIFA was planning to pay local clubs in local currency much to the astonishment of the clubs and the general populace since the government lifted the ban on forex payments on local transactions in April.
Speaking after yesterday’s crunch meeting between ZIFA and PSL teams ZIFA president Felton Kamambo said:
We have always received funding from Fifa in US dollars and the norm is that we have to change that at the prevailing exchange rate. That is why we had made a decision to do with the Covid-19 relief fund.
Now that our affiliate has come up with some recommendations, the board is going to look at those recommendations.
What’s on the ground is that the Covid relief money is not yet in our account, so we have room to make a decision in a week or so on how we are then going to pay.
Their recommendations to us made some sense and we just want the board to sit down and come up with something.
ZIFA’s honesty in the disbursement of the COVID-19 fund was questioned as a Chronicle reporter said there was a disparity between the amounts announced by ZIFA against the exchange rate of the week.
According to Chamu Chiwanza, ZIFA is engaged in unscrupulous dealings of withdrawing USD from their accounts and selling it at the black market at a higher rate and then using a lower rate to pay creditors.
More: The Standard