Who faked Esrom’s vote?

 

papers, are fake identity prints in the latest damaging twist that has exposed the Zifa secretariat.
The long-serving Warrior, who turns 32 on February 6, told The Herald that he never took part in the process to vote for the 2012 World Footballer and Coach of the Year, and the appearance of his name and signature, on the official ballot papers sent from Zifa to Fifa, was possibly a fraudulent act.

Nyandoro, the Warriors’ vice-captain, was sucked into the drama after his name popped up on the official ballot papers, which were retrieved from Fifa and are in the possession of The Herald, as having voted during the 2012 Ballon d’Or voting process.

While a vice-captain of a national team can vote, if the skipper decides not to cast his vote, Nyandoro said it was unfair to try and use his name when he did not take part in the voting process.
Interestingly, a closer look at the official Ballon d’Or ballot papers from Fifa show that the person who voted, masquerading as Nyandoro, even spells the first name of the Mamelodi Sundowns’ midfielder wrongly as Ersom instead of Esrom.

For the World Player of the Year, the person who masqueraded as Nyandoro, and even put a signature to try and dupe Fifa that it was the Warriors’ vice-captain who was voting, chose Robin van Persie in first place, Gerard Pique in second place and Lionel Messi in third place.

Messi, the Barcelona and Argentina ace, won the award. For the World Coach of the Year, the votes went to former Barca coach, Pep Guardiola, Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho and Manchester United gaffer, Sir Alex Ferguson.

Interestingly, he or she didn’t pick out the eventual winner, Spain’s 2012 Euro championship-winning coach, Vicente del Bosque.

Nyandoro, speaking from his base in South Africa, said he was never part of that vote of shame.
“That’s news to me (that I voted) and I did not even know anything about that thing and who was voting and who was not and it’s a big surprise for me that my name is said to be in there,” said Nyandoro.

“I don’t know why and I didn’t speak to anyone to do it for me because noone told me about it and it’s something that doesn’t interest me because, until now, I didn’t even know that players were also allowed to vote.

“Noone contacted me to say that I was supposed to vote for anything and I didn’t write my name on any papers or sign my signature to say that I had voted.

“It’s very surprising right now.”
Nyandoro said he only became interested in the unfolding drama, about the controversy surrounding the Zimbabwean votes for the 2012 Ballon d’Or, when his name appeared in The Herald.

“Surely, I don’t know why it’s like that, I think that’s all that I can say because I can’t understand this,” said Nyandoro.

“I’m busy right now with my team’s preparations and you get a call asking you what is going on, did you vote or not, and it’s rather confusing.

“I had just finished showering, after training, and my phone was ringing, and it’s all about this thing and it’s something that I don’t even know.”

With Nyandoro blowing open the lid on this scandal, the big question remains as to who voted in the process and the embarrassing case has already triggered an internal investigation within Zifa.

The Ballon d’Or is an international award, whose integrity is protected by Fifa, who ensure that the right people — national team coaches, national team captains or vice-captains and selected journalists — have to cast votes.

Revelations that some names could probably have been forged, onto the ballot papers from Zimbabwe to dupe Fifa in terms of those who voted, is certainly an embarrassment, especially for a Zifa board that has been selling its brand as an organisation committed to corporate governance.

The Herald is in possession of all the official ballot papers for the 2012 Ballon d’Or that came from Zimbabwe and were sent to Fifa, on November 15, 2011, the deadline day for the voting exercise.

The official ballot papers clearly show that Rahman Gumbo, who was the Warriors’ coach by the time the votes were cast and was supposed to have voted for the Player and Coach of the Year awards, DID not take part in the process.

Rahman has maintained that while his name appeared on the Fifa list, as having voted in the process, he didn’t cast his vote.

Zifa technical director, Nelson Matongorere’s name appears on the official ballot papers, but the former coach, who also denies casting a vote during the process, appeared to have indicated that he wasn’t the Warriors’ coach.

The official ballot papers show that where Matongorere is said to have cast his vote, on the space reserved for the national coach, an indication was made that the person who was voting wasn’t the Warriors’ coach but someone else.

The ‘coach’ is crossed, on the ballot paper, and the initials TD, as if to indicate Technical Director, are inserted, followed by the name ‘Nelson Matongorere’.

The person who voted as Matongorere, since the Zifa official denies casting his vote, chose Andreas Iniesta for the 2012 Fifa Ballon d’Or, with Lionel Messi and Robin van Persie in second and third places.

For the Coach of the Year, he or she chose Vicente del Bosque, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.
However, the handwriting on all the ballot papers that came from Zimbabwe is strikingly similar, especially the way the person constructed the “a” letter, and all seemed to have been done by the same pen.

Zifa chief executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, has publicly maintained that he was out of office when the ballot papers came from Fifa and were then signed and returned to the world football governing body in Zurich.

But all the four ballot papers from Zimbabwe show that they were authorised by Mashingaidze, whose signature appears on all papers, unless it was also forged just like Nyandoro’s signature, to give the papers the authorisation they needed to be accepted at Fifa.

It is a mandatory requirement that either the chief executive (secretary-general), or the president of the association, have to authorise the votes for them to be accepted by Fifa.

Mashingaidze’s signature, which could be fake depending on the way this drama is unfolding, is followed by a confirmation, of the date he is said to have signed the papers, on November 15, 2011.

The official Zifa date stamp, of the same day, which made everything authoritative enabling the votes to be included for the 2012 Ballon d’Or, is as genuine as they come.

If Mashingaidze is right to publicly say that he wasn’t in office when the voting process was done, then someone forged his signature to give the ballot papers the authoritative seal that was needed for them to become official documents at Fifa?

Who could be that person, if that is true, who expertly copied Mashingaidze’s signature on all four ballot papers without making a mistake?

Mighty Warriors’ coach, Rosemary Mugadza, confirmed to The Herald this week that she took part in the voting process after receiving a call on deadline day.