{"id":1197317,"date":"2022-09-02T15:19:46","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/02\/ex-fa-official-banned-for-sexual-harassment-of-female-referees\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T15:19:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:19:46","slug":"ex-fa-official-banned-for-sexual-harassment-of-female-referees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/02\/ex-fa-official-banned-for-sexual-harassment-of-female-referees\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-FA official banned for sexual harassment of female referees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"463\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/afp_en_9eec275929b68e9864dc925ab2d21580996318d9-696x463.jpg\"   alt=\"FIFA\" title=\"FIFA\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zimbabwe is currently banned from football by world governing body Fifa<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>A former Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) official has been banned from the sport for five years and fined 20,000 Swiss francs for sexually harassing three female referees.<\/p>\n<p>The ethics committee of world governing body Fifa found Obert Zhoya, who was secretary general of Zifa\u2019s referees committee, guilty of \u201cabusing his position\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Zhoya\u2019s suspension starts immediately, and he will be notified of the grounds of the decision within the next 60 days.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>His fine equates to just over $20,300 (\u00a317,600), and he is yet to comment on the decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpon careful analysis of the written statements of the victims as well as the various evidence collected during the investigations conducted, the adjudicatory chamber was comfortably satisfied that Mr Zhoya had breached [three articles of] the code of ethics,\u201d a statement on the Fifa website said.<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe\u00a0was banned from global football\u00a0by Fifa in February because of governmental interference in the running of the game.<\/p>\n<p>That sanction came after\u00a0the Zifa board was suspended\u00a0by the country\u2019s government-appointed Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) in November last year.<\/p>\n<p>Alleged sexual harassment of referees was one of the SRC\u2019s chief reasons for suspending the Zifa board, and the case against Zhoya is the first to be decided.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year\u00a0the Guardian newspaper reported\u00a0that allegations of sexual harassment by Zhoya were first reported in Zimbabwe in September 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the alleged victims, both referees, officially registered their complaints with the Zifa board and the allegations were also sent to Fifa, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa).<\/p>\n<p>It was not until the alleged victims reported the claims to police, in December 2021, that a formal investigation was launched.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFifa has a strict stance against all forms of abuse in football and the ethics committee handles all such cases in line with the code of ethics, taking into account the specificity of each,\u201d\u00a0Fifa\u2019s statement added.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"SPwhg_pZs-8\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GFA President Kurt Okraku lauds Black Stars assistant coach over his Aston Villa exit (1-9-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SPwhg_pZs-8?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zimbabwe is currently banned from football by world governing body Fifa A former Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) official has been banned from the sport for five years and fined 20,000 Swiss francs for sexually harassing three female referees. The ethics committee of world governing body Fifa found Obert Zhoya, who was secretary general of Zifa\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1082225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1915,25055,145,2443,3928,2438,1527],"class_list":["post-1197317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-banned","tag-exfa","tag-female","tag-harassment","tag-official","tag-referees","tag-sexual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}