Zifa has cleared its arrears to POTRAZ which had been weighing heavily on the football body for the past three years.

The association owed over US$ 1m to the telecoms company after it took loans to fund the national team’s 2017 Afcon campaign in Gabon. The debt was supposed to be cleared by January 1 last year but they failed, and this pushed POTRAZ to approach the court.

The issue has now been resolved after Zifa paid their dues in full this week.

POTRAZ director-general, Gift Machengete, confirmed the news to The Herald.

“They settled the debt in full, it had been a long story and at one stage we even engaged lawyers to get them to pay and our lawyers tried to attach any property, which belonged to ZIFA, but could not find any,’’ said Machengete.

“Remember, we helped ZIFA at a time of need but it was a loan and had to be paid back. Now, they have settled that debt.”

A source of the publication has also claimed the ZIFA board has been quietly settling some of their big debts in the past few weeks after they held a meeting and agreed they were not going to make any progress, as long as they were carrying huge debts.

Zifa’s overall debt stood at over US$ 8m at the start of this year.