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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
CRACK South African glamour side Kaizer Chiefs were shock 1-3 losers to Bloemfontein Celtics in an Absa Premiership match on Wednesday, which saw them failing to extend their lead at the top of the log to nine points, following defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns’ 2-3 loss to Cape Town City on Monday.
In Chiefs’ Wednesday line-up were two Zimbabweans, with Willard Katsande wearing the captain’s armband directing operations in midfield and Warriors’ poster boy Khama Billiat, who has been the subject of talk in both the South African media and hard to please Amakhosi fans.
Billiat has been accused of not reigniting the form that saw him terrorising defenders when he was at Mamelodi Sundowns.
When Amakhosi lured him to Naturena, the move made headlines even outside the South African borders, as Kaizer Chiefs had made their title intentions clear.
Despite producing some excellent performances for Amakhosi, sometimes a below par performance drove his critics to quickly forget the good he did and magnified his negatives.
It has also been sarcastically suggested that perhaps Mamelodi Sundowns gave Amakhosi the wrong Khama Billiat.
Sometimes there is a feeling that perhaps his teammates are not helping him achieve his full potential at Chiefs.
He oftentimes gets strange passes and when he opens up, his teammates choose to pass the ball to someone else.
Sometimes very strange things happen like on Wednesday when Chiefs were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the penalty box.
It’s an incident whose video has gone viral on social and mainstream media.
Billiat quickly laid the ball to Bernard Parker, who stopped it with his right leg, and as Billiat was about to go for goal, Parker unbelievably tapped the ball further out of reach of illicit with his left foot.
Questions have since been asked if Parker was fixing the match, fixing Billiat or both.
It might be possible that it was just a genuine mistake by the veteran former Bafana Bafana striker, but those that have followed the trends in match manipulation issues will tell you that the masterminds’ modus operandi is always to do the unthinkable such that an ordinary person will be convinced that it was a genuine error.
“An unbelievable ‘mistake’ anything is possible,” said one of the six Zimbabweans trained as a Fifa accredited anti-match fixing trainers. Zimbabwe’s six Fifa trained anti-match fixing trainers are Footballers Union of Zimbabwe president Desmond Maringwa, Dynamos chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze, Premier Soccer League chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele, retired referee Brighton Mudzamiri, Highlanders president and former Zifa vice-president Ndumiso Gumede as well as Fifa referees’ instructor Felix Tangawarima.
Parker could have made a genuine error on Wednesday and there could, therefore, be no need to make rushed and emotional conclusions.
However, with the way Billiat has been treated like a villain in South Africa, it might also be possible that he was being fixed by a teammate who, regardless of how strange it might be, could also have been fixing a match.
What is also strange about that incident is that the South African media, including SuperSport TV commentators on the day, chose not to see evil. I just wonder how the same media would have reacted had it been Billiat who did what Parker did.
Online Reporter