HARARE - Businessman Wicknell Chivayo is ending his Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) sponsorship deal, for the time being, after it emerged Warriors coach Kalisto Pasuwa has not been paid in two months.
The youthful Harare entrepreneur, who has amassed his wealth in the transport and energy sectors and often boasts on social media that he runs “multimillion-dollar” businesses, was apparently incensed that his good reputation was now being soiled.
In an 853-worded Facebook rant, Chivayo attacked the reporter, who wrote the article, and labelled Pasuwa for being “ungrateful” after leaking details of his salary situation to the press.
“With the greatest respect this foolish and overzealous reporter needs psychiatric attention. I run multimillion-dollar businesses and I don’t work for Zifa so if nothing has been communicated to me I’m not supposed to guess, speculate or conjecture,” Chivayo wrote.
“It must be noted Zifa has no bank account and owes creditors $6 million. So many people have writs of execution to attach property or money identified as belonging to Zifa.
“To ensure players get their money you have to be extremely circumspect and discreet otherwise the money will be intercepted and forfeited.
“My vision was simply to turn around football all in the interest of the nation. I had to reduce my holidays from one every two months to one every four months.
“The basis of this article was to give an impression that I have failed to pay him or I have given Zifa the money and they have not paid him.”
Last December, Chivayo and Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa signed an agreement which was supposed to see the youthful businessman pour $1 million into the association over a period of three years.
However, he claims Zifa has already exhausted close to $600 000 from the grant in the last three months.
“From the $1 million I committed as sponsorship to date I have parted with $478 000 and above that Pasuwa’s car cost me $69 000 (Shadreck) Mlauzi’s $41 000,” he wrote.
“Simple calculations show almost $600 000 used in 3 months as opposed to the agreed three years. If I say I have given players $72 000 and 28 phones you must know that’s nothing but the truth. My reputation in retrospect speaks for itself.”
Turning his venom towards Pasuwa, the generous Chivayo felt let down by the former Dynamos coach.
“Always remember I’m under no obligation whatsoever to support soccer. Pasuwa came to my office last week and I assured him I was unaware he wasn’t being paid but I insisted and showed him evidence of various payments I made on behalf of Zifa not knowing the issue of his salary had not been taken care of,” he wrote.
“I gave him $3 000 for lunch and told him I would open an escrow account with BancABC this week where I would subsequently deposit his salary for one year and he would earn monthly as stipulated by his contract.
Chivayo added: “None of the above is correct and it must further be noted that Pasuwa is not the only headache Zifa has so for him to go to the press and start telling them about his daughter and his rental issues in Greendale before telling me or waiting for me to resolve the issue is gross disrespect.
“Such behaviour displays an ungrateful person and is totally unacceptable in my world. He drives a brand new Toyota that I bought, a car that I see being driven only by executives.
“I can afford to pay him $7 000 everyday for the next 10 years and still not feel it. As soccer supporters, journalists must also all remember I’m doing something no Zimbabwean has ever done since independence so the least I expect is appreciation.”
Chivayo said he was not seeking publicity when he decided to bankroll the Warriors and will now take a back seat from financing the team.
“To cut a long story short this officially marks the end of my sponsorship for the Warriors for 2016. It takes a lot of love to spend $600 000 on people you don’t know or are even related to so you will all appreciate my reasons for reacting this way in the circumstances,” he wrote.
“I can’t tolerate ungrateful people and I will never take this type of rubbish in my life. It’s a different thing if I wasn’t paying their bills and giving them money immediately upon request.”
Chivayo, however, insisted he will honour his pledge of paying the team a $250 000 bonus if they qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals in Gabon.
The Warriors currently sit top of Group L with eight points while Swaziland and Guinea are on five points. Malawi anchor the pool with only two points.
Zimbabwe only need to get four points from their remaining two matches against Malawi and Guinea to qualify for Gabon.