Asiagate on spotlight at Cosafa/Fifa and Interpol workshop

the Cosafa/Fifa and Interpol workshop on integrity in football.
The workshop will get underway near the OR Tambo International airport this morning and is expected end late tomorrow. New Fifa head of security, Ralf Mutschke, will lead the world soccer governing body’s panel at the workshop where Cosafa president Suketu Patel will be among the keynote speakers.
Patel is also the Confederation of African Football vice-president and will also be the continental body’s representative. That Nhemachena is heading the Zimbabwe delegation, which also includes the association’s vice-president Ndumiso Gumede, board member finance Elliot Kasu and chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze, is probably an endorsement by the Sports Commission of the measures that Zifa have taken to try and deal with the scourge of match-fixing.
Zifa probed the Warriors’ controversial trips to a number of Asian countries for friendly international matches where they were allegedly paid to lose their games at the instigation of the Sports Commission.
The probe, which has become known as Asiagate, is now in its final phase with the Independent Ethics Committee set by the association indicating that they would have completed their work by early next month.
But, crucially for Zifa, the workshop presents them with their first opportunity to meet with Mutschke since the former Germany policeman took over from Australian Chris Eaton as the Fifa head of security.
By the time Eaton left Fifa in May, his relations with Zifa appear to have been strained amid allegations by the association that the Australian didn’t seem to fully brief them on his findings. Zifa also felt that Eaton did not seem to do enough to mobilise Fifa resources for the association to successfully complete their probe.
It is not a secret that cash-strapped Zifa have had to rely on the personal financial resources of their president Cuthbert Dube to ensure that the Ethics committee, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ahmed Ebrahim, completes the Asiagate probe.
But, with a section of the workshop also reserved for a case study on match-fixing as a global phenomenon and Zimbabwe’s experience, Mutschke, his Fifa delegation, the Cosafa representatives and the Interpol contingent will get a first hand appreciation of the challenges that Zifa have faced ever since they embarked on the Asiagate probe.
Interpol entered into a 10-year initiative with Fifa in May last year to delevelop and implement a training, education and prevention programme with respect to enhancing awareness around match fixing and corruption in football.
The international police body’s director for capacity building and training Dale Sheehan said in a circular to member countries that the workshop will aim to identify gaps and international processes and recommend future best practices.
“This regional workshop aims to foster the relationship between law enforcement, sporting codes, associations, the betting industry and many other actors involved in preventing the infiltration of crime into sport. It will also endeavour to identify current gaps in international processes and recommend future best practices for global integrity in sport initiatives.
“This regional workshop  has been planned in co-operation with and supported by the Councils of Southern Africa (Cosafa) to ensure that it is directly relevant to the current issues faced by football and law enforcement entities within the region,’’ said Sheehan.
Interpol also indicated that that they had designed a programme to hold more workshops to raise awareness of the key “contemporary match-fixing issues and issues and threats in football and to identify good practice and areas for development.
“Interpol will be conducting a series of training workshops which will bring together players referees, betting regulators and law enforcement  to improve individuals’ awareness and understanding of corruption,  and the strategies used by its perpetrators and of the methods to recognise, resist and report them’’.