Asiagate to haunt Zim: Mahere

that there was need for an urgent completion of investigations into the scandal for the country to move on.
He was giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture yesterday on the administration of football and issues surrounding match-fixing and the Asiagate scandal.
Zifa recently suspended all the players and technical officials fingered in the Asiagate report from taking part in football issues until the conclusion of the probe by the Independent Ethics committee set up by the FA.
Mahere was accompanied by representatives from the Sport and Recreation Commission and Zifa.
“The impact of the scandal is set to be felt for the next five years through poor performance, indiscipline, lack of patriotism and mercenary conduct,” he said.
“A record 88 players took part in the fixed games in the Far East and East Africa. The Asian betting syndicate was working in cahoots with locals namely the former chief executive officer, Ms Henrietta Rushwaya, Kudzi Shaba, Jonathan Musavengana and Mr Tafirenyika Chitsungo.”
During yesterday’s hearing, legislators castigated the SRC for failing to detect the vice early despite the fact that several trips and matches were played, including one by Monomotapa, which went abroad purporting to be a national team.
Legislators felt it was inconceivable for the SRC to have failed to pick up the scandal and wanted to know if the Government would prefer charges against the Commission for dereliction of duty.
Magwegwe MP, Felix Mafa (MDC-T), said it was surprising that the Ministry and SRC, whose role, by their own admission, was to supervise, facilitate and regulate national association,s allowed the soccer national team to make several trips in and out of the country without securing their clearance as required by the relevant legal statutes.
Masvingo Central MP, Jefferyson Chitando (MDC-T) asked how Zimbabwe’s foreign missions dealt with a team like Monomotapa that purported to represent the national team when it was a mere club.
Mutasa Central MP, Trevor Saruwaka (MDC-T) wanted to know if the Ministry would prefer charges against the SRC for dereliction of duty as procedures were flouted right under their nose and why it took long for them to pick it.
The committee chaired by Gokwe MP, Dorothy Mangami (Zanu-PF), also wanted to know how visas were secured in the absence of SRC and Government involvement.
SRC director general, Charles Nhema-chena, said there was very little they could do to intervene, in the absence of an application by Zifa to go abroad for the matches.
Even, when they cleared teams to play outside, Nhemachena said the SRC did not have the mechanisms to pick if there was any match-fixing involved.
“According to Section 28 of the SRC Act, national associations are required to seek clearance from the association to undertake tours outside the country.
“Section 29B highlights the issues required i.e passport number, proof of invitations, duration of the sports tours, declaration of currency among others,” said Nhemachena.
“In this particular case there was a tour and we picked it up from the press and we wrote to Zifa, to say there was no clearance and this triggered the investigations.
“Usually where people do certain things with criminal intent, they will try to conceal it as much as possible and that accounts for the long time it took.”
The SRC, said Nhemachena, was not satisfied with Zifa’s response as they attributed the decision to proceed with the tour to the work of a junior officer.
“The decision was attributable to a junior officer, and we then got documents where the officer was owning up and apologised. We still felt that there had to be an investigation, as it was inconceivable that a junior officer can take a whole national team,” he said.
The commencement of investigations coincided with a new Zifa board, a development he said helped a lot in unraveling the scandal.
Zifa acting president, Ndumiso Gumede said Rushwaya would generate invitation letters purporting to be coming from national associations of countries they intended to visit and would use them to apply for visas.
He said there was a possibility of money changing hands between the Zifa culprits and embassy officials of the countries the matches were to be played in.
“But our investigations did not pick that. All these things were done clandestinely and visas were processed a day before they were departing.
“We are happy that the Kingpin or Queenpin of Asia scandal (Rushwaya) has appeared in court which might deter people from participating in such scandals,” he said.
Responding to a question from Mangami on how much damage was caused by the scandal, Gumede said for the 15 fixed matches, the association lost not less than US$150 000 in appearance fees.
He said Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri had guaranteed security to the Asiagate investigation team after initial security threats.