Zimbabwean football has been rocked by what is now known as the Asiagate
scandal, where players, coaches, journalists and football officials were
paid huge bribes to cover up for the fact that the country’s national team,
and at times a bogus one, was deliberately losing matches hosted in Asia as
part of a betting scam.
Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Vice President Ndumiso Gumede led a
four member committee which started investigating the matter last year and
later produced an explosive 162 page report. Under investigation were trips
by the senior and junior national teams and Monomotapa between 2007 and
2009.
Gumede, a guest on our Question Time programme, says he stands firmly behind
the findings of his committee despite some of those implicated denying the
allegations. Herald Sports Editor Robson Sharuko for example denied
receiving any money and called into question the number of trips he is
listed as having participated in and claimed it showed the information could
not be relied upon.
A fired up Gumede said ‘there might be a problem here. Mr Sharuko is saying
he went on 14 or 15 trips. We are not worried about how many trips he went
on. Our brief was to find out how many times he benefited. So he might have
gone on one trip where four games were played. In our report it will show
four benefits accrued to him.”
Gumede conceded they might not have investigated as well as they wanted but
this was because there were no records at ZIFA or even the sports
commission. They had to rely on information from newspapers and information
from the civil aviation authority, about who had travelled for example.
Former ZIFA Chief Henrietta Rushwaya has been fingered as the alleged
mastermind and is reported to have pocketed way over US$450 000. Despite her
high profile role she has still not been arrested, despite ZIFA giving the
report to the police, FIFA, the African football body (CAF), the Sports
Commission and the Ministry of Education, Art, Sports and Culture.
“The police have our report and it’s up to them to follow the people. If
there is any criminal component to my report, it is them who should follow
up. I have no arresting powers,” Gumede told us.
Decorated coaches like Sunday Chidzambwa, Luke Masomere, Rodwell Dhlakama,
Methembe Ndlovu and Norman Mapeza have been sucked into the scandal, having
travelled with the teams on different occasions during their spells as
coaches.
Chidzambwa, now coaching newly promoted Black Leopards in South Africa,
threatened to sue over the story. Gumede said he was unfazed by this and
said: ‘The truth is that there are people who went with him (Chidzambwa) who
have been truthful, whose conscience worries them, who have told us the
truth, including that Mr Chidzambwa bought a car in Singapore with the
proceeds he irregularly got.”
Gumede meanwhile told us they have recommended that the players be dealt
with leniently because not all of them knew the games were fixed. He said as
a committee they categorized people by how many trips they took part in.
“Those who went on more than two trips knew what was happening and they were
deriving benefit from it,” he said.
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