Suspended Zifa Referees’ Committee vice-chairperson Samukeliso Silengane has dismissed media reports that she attempted to commit suicide over match-fixing allegations saying she was admitted at hospital on Saturday morning after complaining of biliousness.
Silengane yesterday said she attended a party on Friday night and ate spiced trotters that caused the gastric distress and was never detained at the hospital, but was discharged barely two hours after admission.
“I was treated for diarrhoea and vomiting. I was just sick; I was admitted and discharged for less than two hours. I am actually surprised why if my situation was suicide, the case was not handled by the police. I don’t usually eat trotters and that day I ate them spiced and I had an upset stomach. Why would I want to kill myself,” a jovial Silengane asked NewsDay Sport yesterday.
Silengane was a State witness last week in the criminal defamation case against the Zifa’s star witness in the Central Region match-fixing allegations, Cosmas Nyoni, who was also suspended from the referees’ committee. The allegations have claimed the scalps of Zifa Southern and Central Regions’ chairpersons Gift Banda and Patrick Hokonya, who have since been suspended from the football motherbody. Nyoni is on trial at the Bulawayo Magistrates’ Court on allegations of defaming Banda in the media after he fingered him in the match-fixing scam. Last week he however exonerated Hokonya, when he took to the witness stand in his defence. Nyoni has changed his statements several times in the last two weeks, putting his credibility into question.
And if he loses the defamation case, Zifa might then be forced to recall Banda and Hokonya from suspension.
The pair became the fourth and fifth board members to be suspended by Zifa president Cuthbert Dube after Solomon Mugavazi, Methembe Ndlovu and Kenny Marange were suspended for match-fixing.
It turns out though that section (31) that is being used by Zifa is unconstitutional as a member is suspended pending a hearing that is supposed to take place with 14 days.
The trio of Mugavazi, Ndlovu and Marange, however, have not been called for a hearing more than 90 days after their suspension.
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Nyoni has since asserted that what he said in the media is true and denied the allegations of criminal defamation.
The trial continues tomorrow when Nyoni will be call his defence witnesses, one of them being referee Martin Shoko.
