daniel chigunwe
THE nation was left dumbfounded this week following the grim confessions by former Zimbabwe national cricket team captain Brendan Taylor that he was into an evil web of hard drugs and match-fixing.
Taylor alleged that an Indian businessman tricked him into it by inviting him to India on a business trip to “discuss sponsorship and a possible launch of a T20 competition in Zimbabwe” and investing in a cricket academy.
The retired cricketer claimed he was promised US$15 000 by his hosts for the trip. The jaunt ended in a “farewell party” where the retired cricketer found himself joining his associates in indulging in cocaine, apart from other drinks.
And before he knew it, his hosts had turned against him and were demanding that he be complicit in their match-fixing schemes.
He said he was blackmailed and was given two options – either he had to deliver or videos of him taking cocaine that were clandestinely captured the previous evening would be made viral. The incident took place in October 2019.
Whether the narration by Taylor is true or false, nobody else really knows, except himself. But what is certain is that Taylor has betrayed the trust bestowed upon him. He acted dishonestly and has continued to do so by trying to pre-empt the investigations by the International Cricket Council by issuing out a public confession, posing himself as a victim.
His four-page confession statement was designed exactly for that purpose and to try and win sympathy from the cricket world as well as from the neutrals. But there are also a lot of gray areas in that ill-fated attempt.
How can he tell the nation that he was not a cheat when everything that transpired between 2019 and now points to a man who had given himself to the cricket underworld? By his own admission, Taylor has attended numerous anti-corruption seminars organised by the International Cricket Council. So he could not be ignorant of what he was getting himself into when he was contacted by his alleged corruptors. Time and again, cricketers are drilled during these seminars to recognise and report potential threats to the integrity of the game. The ICC have safe whistle-blowing structures in place, which any player could make use of in case of approaches by these shadowy figures.
But that Taylor would go all the way to India without clearances from Zimbabwe Cricket and other local authorities, ostensibly to discuss the setting up of a T20 tournament in Zimbabwe, all the more fuels the suspicions that this was a well calculated treachery.
He waited for four months before reporting this matter, something the ICC are also not taking lightly. But this is not the first time that Zimbabwean cricket officials and players have been caught on the wrong side of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code.
Last year, ex-Zimbabwe captain and former national team coach, Heath Streak, was slapped with an eight-year ban after he was caught up in almost similar circumstances as Taylor.
Streak admitted to five breaches of the ICC’s anti-corruption code, including accepting a payment in bitcoins from a potential corruptor. In return, Streak acted as a facilitator of approaches by a corruptor to people within teams he was a part of for the purposes of betting.
Then in 2019, former Zimbabwe Cricket Director, Enock Ikope, was also banned from all cricket for 10 years after the ICC Anti-Corruption Tribunal found him guilty of breaching three counts of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code.
Now, after all these exposés, many big questions linger in our minds. For how long has the corruption been going on in cricket in Zimbabwe? Who else is involved in these shenanigans? What is the potential damage to the sport in Zimbabwe? Which other sport codes besides cricket are also corrupted?
This brings us to the need to establish local solutions, in the form of legislation, to eradicate the cancer. The move by the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in coming up with the Zimbabwe Sport Integrity Bill has been viewed as a giant step. This Bill, once it is passed into law, will go a long way as a deterrent measure to those who might want to involve themselves in illegal practices.
The Bill seeks to provide for the elimination of sport corruption, doping, competition manipulation and illegal betting among other vices. It will also allow Zimbabwe to, inter alia, work with other governments, regionally and internationally, to combat doping, competition manipulation and corruption in sport by complying with the Olympic Charter, UNESCO Convention on the Elimination of Doping in Sport, Statute of the African Union Sports Council, among other global integrity guidelines in sport to which Zimbabwe is a signatory to.
The last time we heard that Cabinet had approved Principles on the Proposed Zimbabwe Sport Integrity Bill and that was in August 2020. It is our sincere hope that by now the Bill should have gone through the necessary processes and is now at some advanced stage. It is key to uphold a culture of honesty and integrity in domestic sport.
Online Reporter