FIFA has officially lifted its 18-month suspension of the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) ahead of the draw for the African qualification competition for the next World Cup.
"The Bureau of the FIFA Council decided to lift the suspension that was imposed on the Zimbabwe Football Association in February 2022 and appoint a normalization committee with immediate effect," FIFA said in a statement on Monday.
According to the organization, an interim normalization committee has been created to run the affairs of the association until election for a new board is held.
It was noted that the committee is also expected to restructure ZIFA administration and review its statutes and electoral code "to ensure their compliance with the FIFA Statutes and requirements, and to ensure their adoption by the ZIFA Congress."
The committee will be headed by local administrator Lincoln Mutasa, and is requried to complete his mandate by June 2024.
Zimbabwe was suspended by FIFA in February last year following accusations of government interference in the operations of the country's football association. In 2021, the ZIFA executive committee was dissolved by the Sports and Recreation Commission of Zimbabwe in the light of allegations that it misappropriated the money allocated by the government for the country's participation in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations finals.
The country took part in the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but was banned from participating in the preliminaries for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations finals hosted by the Ivory Coast.
The recent development comes just a few days before the draw for the African qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, scheduled to take place on July 13 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. All 54 FIFA-affiliated football associations from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have entered qualification.