ZnO doped with Co2+ has been prepared by a Pechini process and investigated in terms of crystallographic structure and UV-visible properties. We emphasize for the first time a splitting of the ZnO band gap in two "sub-band gaps" (never clearly mentioned until now) which is fully interpreted basing on the iono-covalent nature of the O-Zn bonds. An anticipative approach of the potential structure relaxations was discussed from exchanged effective charge per bond calculated with the purely ionic Brown and Altermatt model. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------