adminmembers fingered in the referees’ scandal that erupted in the Central Region.
Central Region chairman Patrick Hokonya and Southern Region chairman Gift Banda have been dragged into the scandal in which some referees were allegedly paid to fix the outcome of matches in Division One.
Zimbabwe Women’s Soccer League secretary-general, Samukeliso Silengane, who was the acting Zifa Referees’ Committee chairperson at the time the scandal unfolded, has already been suspended.
Silengane, though, is challenging her suspension and has engaged lawyers to fight her cause.
Top referee Cosmos Nyoni has also been suspended for his alleged role in the scandal and he was the one who dragged Banda and Hokonya into the mud in a hard-hitting letter to Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.
Speculation had been rife in Harare last Friday that Banda and Hokonya were set to be suspended from the Zifa board, during a meeting of the game’s leadership in Harare, but the duo survived the storm.
But ZNSSA leader, Eddie “Mboma” Nyatanga, piled on the pressure for the duo to be suspended after intimate details of the scandal were published exclusively in The Herald yesterday.
Nyatanga said the drama unfolding in the Central Region was slowly turning into a public relations disaster for a Zifa board that had projected itself as a morally-upright organisation.
He said the Zifa board missed a grand opportunity, to take a decisive stance on the scandal, when its members met in the capital last Friday and deferred debate on the controversy to another day.
“This Zifa board took a big stance when it suspended three of its members after they were fingered in the Asiagate scandal and they received widespread support for doing the right thing and sending the correct message,” said Nyatanga.
“Now the very same board somehow decides it is not right to take similar action on two of its board members who have also been fingered in a match-fixing scam similar to the one that led to the suspension of the other three board members.
“The same Zifa board holds a meeting in Harare, (Ndumiso) Gumede, who is leading the investigations into the case reads out his findings, plays an audio recording of some incriminating conversations and avails letters that all point to corruption but, interestingly, no action is taken on the two board members implicated.
“Unless the Zifa leadership has skeletons, in its cupboard, which the two implicated board members could turn into public material and use against other board members, we see no justification for the board not to suspend them at this stage of the investigations.
“When this happens it gives room for speculation and we are hearing some wild stories about what the Zifa board did, when we played Mali, which has compromised them from taking action against these two gentlemen.
“What is very interesting is that the same Zifa board members, who today stand accused of corruption linked to match-fixing, took part in the decision-making process where the three other board members were suspended on similar charges.”
Nyatanga said Solomon Mugavazi, Kenny Marange and Methembe Ndlovu were suspended on the basis of information collected by Gumede and his committee that investigated Asiagate and the same rules should have applied to Banda and Hokonya.
“There is an Independent Committee that is set to bring to closure the Asiagate chapter and chances are that Methembe, Solo and Kenny could either be found guilty or maybe innocent,” said Nyatanga.
“But the bottom line is that they were suspended because of information collected by Gumede and his team and that should also have been applied in this case too.
“The more that these board members continue to participate in Zifa’s administrative issues, the more complications it will create for the association.
“For how do you balance the fact that the two were part of the Zifa board, which came up with the Independent Committee led by Justice Ebrahim to try those implicated in match-fixing, when they were also implicated in a similar scandal?”
Nyatanga hailed Gumede for his unwavering stance to get rid of corruption in domestic football.
“If there is a man in Zifa today that we can salute, as fans, then that man is Gumede because he has been consistent in the way that he has been fighting against corruption in the game,” said Nyatanga.
“He has worked extremely hard and he deserves the support of everyone for what he has done.”
Online Reporter