Philemon Machana prides himself as a key part of the ZIFA board which helped erase the association's US$12 million legacy debt in 2019 and he says he has unfinished business to make the football mother-body function efficiently.
The former ZIFA board member (finance) is seeking to lead the association as he is vying for the presidency in next week's watershed elections.
The Harare businessman said he has picked huge lessons during the time he was part of the ZIFA board and he knows what exactly to up the standards of the association.
"Having served under the leadership of two former ZIFA presidents, Philip Chiyangwa and Felton Kamambo as board member responsible for finance, we managed to, among other success stories, clear and settle, in 2019 the US$12 million ZIFA legacy debt which was an albatross to ZIFA operations for more than two decades.
"ZIFA is today debt-free because of such actions and can now afford to operate freely as a going concern with a healthy balance sheet," said Machana.
"We managed to regularly and timeously produce clean audited financial statements, ensuing year budgets and annual activity reports which would also be timeously adopted by ZIFA congress and shared with the SRC and FIFA as dictated upon by the SRC Act and ZIFA constitution.
"We also continuously achieved clean results after regular annual FIFA financial audits. I was part of the board that led to the resumption of annual FIFA grants that had been suspended due to a lack of accountability before our coming into office in 2015 and thereafter ensued we ticked all boxes to continue getting the grants by regular and accurate reporting as well as clean audits."
Machana said during the time he was board member, he played key roles in starting productive projects, now standing aloof and unattended.
"I want to ensure the completion of projects that we had initiated in the previous executive committee including the resuscitation of all-age junior football leagues in all 10 provinces in Zimbabwe for both boys and girls.
"The project was at an advanced stage of implementation when the previous executive left office (in November 2021).
"We need to revitalise the issue of mass participation in football engaging football talents from across the entire country through grassroots initiatives.
"This same project had just started when Covid stopped all football activities in Zimbabwe," added Machana.
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"We had started the acquisition of movable assets for use in ZIFA and all its affiliates. The project had started with the acquisition of a minibus for use in ZIFA outreach programmes and procurement of two association buses having been initiated and paid for by the time the last executive committee left office.
"This will be escalated to include assets that shall also be used and reside with affiliates for ease of administration of football. We also need to continue with the procurement of non-movable assets. While projects to acquire two regional properties in the central and eastern regions as well as construction of the new ZIFA head office had begun, this will be fast tracked to ensure football affiliates have decent administrative offices to operate from."
Machana said there needs to be equal treatment between males and females in the game.
Said Machana; "Women football development and equal treatment of woman football should be a priority.
"The project had started and was aimed at equipping and resourcing provincial, regional and national structures of women football while pushing for equal pay to women footballers.
"Various initiatives will be developed and implemented to ensure the professionalisation of women football to same levels as the male counterparts.
"There is also need to commercialise football and create various revenue streams. This had started with the selling of replica jerseys and the distribution of world cup broadcasting rights through a centralised FIFA pool. More will be done to sustain these streams while finding new means to grow and create new revenue streams."
