Suspended Zifa board member (development) Methembe “Mayor” Ndlovu on Monday said due processes should take course in the Asiagate issue and it is high time the matter was brought to an end.
Ndlovu, Zifa vice-president (technical) Kenny Marange and Northern Region chairman Solomon Mugavazi were last week suspended from all football activities pending appearance before an ethics committee to be set up on Tuesday and commissioned by Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.
Ndlovu said he was only verbally advised by Dube to leave the football mother body meeting last Friday and was yet to get official correspondence on his suspension.
Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze said the suspended trio were expected to get their letters of notification on Monday.
However, Ndlovu, who is also the president of Zifa Southern Region Division One football side Bantu Rovers, said he did not have much to say save to say he had always been available to present his case on the matter.
“I do not have much to say, but let the due process take its course. The matter has just been going on for too long and it should be put to rest. I have always been available to present my side of the story and in any case this will be an opportunity to set the record straight. I was only advised verbally by the president (Dube) on Friday, but I have not received anything in writing,” Ndlovu said.
The three were fingered for having taken part in the match-fixing scandal that rocked the country and prompted Zifa to set up a committee to investigate the matter.
The committee was chaired by Zifa vice-president (administration) Ndumiso Gumede and included board members Benedict Moyo (competitions) and Elliot Kasu (finance) and Eastern Region chairman Fungai Chihuri.
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In July, Ndlovu, a former Highlanders player and coach, told NewsDay Sport some of the statements reproduced about his trips to Asia, where allegations of match-fixing arose, were not factual.
Ndlovu travelled to China with the Under-23 Young Warriors in 2007 as an assistant coach and asserted that he was under pressure from the then Zifa chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya to undertake the trip.
He claimed that he was in Cyprus dealing with a clearance for one of his players who had secured a contract in that country when he phoned Rushwaya to get clarification on the delay in the release of the clearance.
Ndlovu said the former Zifa chief executive officer told him he was supposed to be on the trip to China and he was under immense pressure from Rushwaya since he had previously turned down national team assignments.
Rushwaya, who was relieved of her duties at Zifa, has since challenged anyone with evidence of the allegations levelled against her to come forward.
Ndlovu has previously said former Zifa president Wellington Nyatanga’s board should have checked out the Asia matches before sending the national teams there.
He said it would be a mockery of justice if the innocent in the circumstances would be subjected to the same judgment as orchestrators of the games.
The ethics committee to hear Ndlovu, Marange and Mugavazi will be made up of six members, three from the football fraternity, a judge, a retired police commissioner and a lawyer.
The committee will have to meet with a Fifa security team that is due in the country later this month and the Zifa board reportedly resolved that allegations contained in their report that bordered on criminality would be dealt with by the police and would also be presented to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
