Rushwaya scoffs at ‘malicious allegations’ as she encourages women

BY GRACE CHIRUMANZU


CONTROVERSY is her middle name and she loves making it, but Zimbabwe Football Association Chief Executive Officer, Henrietta Rushwaya denies all the allegations surrounding it to be true as she declared, “women are the future and the future are women.”
She was designated the first woman C.E.O of Zimbabwe football’s mother board in 2007 and Rushwaya have since been one of the only two African women –the other woman coming from Comoros- to head such a big decision-making position in a male dominated football environment.
She has managed to put the house in order, submitting a 2008 financial audit commended by the world football governing body, FIFA under their Aiding Programme as “the first pleasing report the Zimbabwe Football Association has submitted in a long time.”
Rushwaya takes pride in the changes she had made with ZIFA telling Women Can she believes, “I have the potential to do more and this is just the beginning.”
“When I came here in 2007, this place (ZIFA House) was just a dilapidated number 43 Livingstone Avenue; the workers here did not really know their purpose of coming to work and their job descriptions because there wasn’t much to do. There was not even an accounts department, marketing and technical but I have since managed to come up with a set up that improves that,”
Rushwaya grew up in Shurugwi in a colonial Zimbabwe. She has been an athlete since primary school and she recalls impressing Ian Smith, with her high jumping.
“I was a student at Charles Wraits; it was only for the blacks while a nearby school, Ian Douglas Smith was for the coloreds. Then one day I was watching the students from Ian Douglas doing their high jump and it was really bad, I went to Ian Smith and in my broken English I told him “Mr Smith I can jump that,” she reminisce.
“Once I proved it, I became a representative of that school in athletics and ever since then I became a person of scholarships up to university level.”
Rushwaya holds a Masters’ degree in Physical Education and her critics will not agree she is the right person to heard ZIFA, some arguing that “politicians can never run sports well.”
She has a political background with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU Ff party, contesting against Shuvai Mahofa for the Gutu South prior to the 2008 harmonized elections. Since her rise to her post as ZIFA C.E.O, Rushwaya’s critics have been of the feeling that “she has failed in politics and has been compensated by her sympathetic ZANU Pf colleagues with a big position in football, which she will eventually ruin.”
But as she agreed politics and football “are totally different altogether,” she emphasized that “there are rules and regulations in football unlike in politics, once you make the rules your bible, nothing goes wrong.”
“I have a sporting background and sport is sport, one doesn’t need a class four driver’s license to be a C.E.O at ZUPCO, he may not even know how to drive a bus. One doesn’t necessarily need to have kicked a ball to be a ZIFA C.E.O. The challenge is that when you are a woman you just have to go an extra mile and running popular sports like football is a challenge in itself because even a person in the streets believes he has a say in everything, it is also run by a layman,” she argues.
“But I have since learnt that when one is a leader, he or she needs to be strong; I admire (Morgan) Tsvangirai for his courage and I thank the government for realizing the potential in women such as Mai Mujuru and Thokozani Khupe. By contesting against Mai Mahofa, I wanted to show that women can do it and having grown up amongst boys, I have always liked where it is hot and I enjoy the heat.”
As ZIFA C.E.O, Rushwaya may not have made history as yet but she has set the pace for women in the fight for women empowerment. Her courage and firm will inspire many in continuing to stand strong despite the criticism and scandalous media reports, which have poured on her in recent years.
“Success comes with criticism and it is always entangled with scandals, one can never be successful without being scandalized. It comes with a prize, one pays somehow,” said a down to earth Rushwaya.
She scoffed at her alleged sexual-affair with the former Warriors captain and Manchester City striker, Benjani Mwaruwari, and the Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, saying “it is because I’m a woman and I found it to be jealousy from men who have envied me for achieving something they failed.”
“Benjy and I are related, his uncle married my aunt, and I help him manage his finances here like when he recently bought his mother a house in Bulawayo. I have always looked at Gideon as a very committed and hard-working brother,” she said.
“I encourage women out there to stand firm and strong in whatever position they hold, there is need for a little degree of insanity to outdo men in different sectors. Remain steadfast in your decisions and above all be loyal… to God (she smiles). Women are the future and the future is women,” she declared.