Zifa president Cuthbert Dube has finally received the second part of the Asiagate match fixing scandal report.
The report was completed last week by a four-man team chaired by vice-president Ndumiso Gumede, board member (finance) Elliot Kasu, board member (competitions) Benedict Moyo and Eastern Region chairman Fungai Chihuri.
Dube has been in South Africa where he attended Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s campaign meeting over the weekend.
Last night Dube said he was in a meeting and referred all questions to chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze.
Said Mashingaidze last night: “I can confirm that the report was handed over to the president at 11am today (yesterday) by Benedict Moyo on behalf of his committee and in my presence and Zifa lawyer Ralph Maganga.
“It has already been handed over to the Sports Commission and copies made available to Caf, Fifa (Zurich) and Fifa (Botswana) for their consumption. It is a thick volume that has been produced in time for the Fifa Congress seeing that the issue of match fixing is a topical issue.
“As Zifa we have done our part to see that the Asiagate match fixing scandal is fully probed and we will await further guidance from Fifa. Once the SRC is done with the report, it should be made public. The police might also need it for their own investigations.”
NewsDay Sport has it on good authority that the thick volume of about 200 pages, covers all aspects of the Asia trips. Information was obtained from players locally and abroad, including a then schoolboy who travelled with the team once, coaches and included airport documents.
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“The document includes information on who travelled where and when, although some of it is very sketchy as we relied on newspaper reports for some games played in Asia,” a source said.
The second phase of the investigations, commissioned in October 2010 covered the following matches:
Monomotapa’s trip to Malaysia, Monomotapa’s Caf Champions league games, the Merdeka Cup — Malaysia, Oman vs Zimbabwe, Bahran vs Zimbabwe, Yemen v Zimbabwe, Bulgaria v Zimbabwe, Yemen v Zimbabwe, China v Zimbabwe and the Cecafa tournament.
The corruption involving Asian betting syndicates surfacing in July 2009 when a Monomotapa team went to Malaysia without Premier Soccer League approval and passed themselves off as the Zimbabwe national team.
Monomotapa, after clearance from Zifa then chaired by Wellington Nyatanga, played and lost two matches 4-0 and 1-0.
The two friendlies were later removed from “A” international status, meaning the defeats did not affect Zimbabwe’s Fifa ranking.
The Zifa probe team looked at the Thailand and Malaysia trips in December 2009. On the trip, a second-string Zimbabwe team lost 3-0 to Thailand, beat the Malaysian champions Selangor 3-0 before suffering a 6-0 drubbing by Syria.
Some of the stars who were asked questions over the Asian trips include Washington Arubi, David Kutyauripo, Nyasha Mushekwi, Daniel Veremu, Cuthbert Malajila, Benjamin Marere, Mthulisi Maphosa, Phillip Marufu, Willard Manyatera, Method Mwanjali and Zephaniah Ngodzo. Coaches Sunday Chidzambwa, Joey Antipas, Emmanuel Nyahuma, Luke Masomere and Methembe Ndlovu, former Highlanders chairman and Warriors manager Ernest “Mapepa” Sibanda and former PSL fixtures secretary Godfrey Japajapa, also made some of the trips.
Last week, Fifa head of security Chris Eaton cleared the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) of any wrongdoing in their probe into a suspected global network in match-fixing.
“As far as the FAM are concerned, they are completely innocent in our investigations. We have no information implicating the association and concerned parties of corruption,” said Eaton.
