Warriors’ opponents in the 2021 Afcon qualifiers are facing severe sanctions from Fifa after the country’s football authorities violated the governing body’s statutes by approaching ordinary courts.

Football administrators Damiano Mutale and Patson Lusaka approached the court seeking an order to bar the holding of the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) elections due to irregularities.

Mutale and Lusaka are protesting against the electoral rules that have seen some of their preferred candidates like former association’s president Kalusha Bwalya being blocked from participating in the polls.

Fifa has now moved in to quell the disorder and gave FAZ a ten-day ultimatum to resolve their disputes out of the ordinary courts or face sanctions.

The ultimatum started on July 1, 2020.

FAZ’s incumbent president Andrew Kamanga confirmed the development, saying:

“I must report here that is a consequence of these court cases, FIFA has given us ten days to normalize the election process and be compliant because, for the last three and half months, we have been in breach of the FIFA statutes by having matters in court.

“So if we do not have these cases out of court in the next ten days, we are going to be sanctioned by FIFA. Hopefully, we can go past the ten days, normalize then we can have the elections.”