adminThis was confirmed by Zifa Asiagate spokesperson Ndumiso Gumede yesterday morning.
He said the association board had on Wednesday gone through the Independent Ethics Committee recommendations and as a board their role was not just to read through and endorse but to see whether with the given evidence and circumstances, the sentence is justified.
The meeting took five hours and the board adjourned to next week when they will look at the next batch of players whose suspensions will be announced after a similar thorough exercise.
“It is not an easy thing that we are doing. We were in the meeting for five hours. We had to sift through nine boxes with files of evidence and other communication to do with Asiagate. It is a tiring thing to do but we were able to go through the papers and make a final decision on the recommendations of the Independent Ethics Committee led by Justice Ahmed Ebrahim,” said Gumede.
The former Highlanders chairman and Zifa chief executive, who is credited with being part of the two institutions when they bought immovable assets in the 1980s, dismissed rumours doing rounds that the delays in finalising the announcement of all those involved was due to pressure from some powerful quarters.
He and Benedict Moyo have become targets on social network fora, where they are accused of pushing for the announcements of the Asiagate findings and punishments by the Justice Ebrahim committee in order to disrupt other teams to the advantage of their favoured teams as the championship race hots up.
The ethics committee said it took long to conclude investigations because it faced a number of challenges that include among others lack of resources, poor record keeping, lack of relevant records at Zifa and Fifa.
“We have not had pressure from anyone to delay the process. We have other commitments and as I speak the Southern Region chairman Morgan Dubeis already in Victoria Falls, Benedict Moyo was expected at work by 10am this morning. Fungai Chihuri of the Eastern Region could not make it to the Wednesday meeting because of pressure of work.
“Having had a marathon meeting of that sort we were only able to deal with those for 10 years after painstakingly going through all the files with details of what happened. There is no club pressure from anyone, we are doing what we are supposed to do as Zifa,” he said.
Dynamos is one of the teams that was set to be disadvantaged if Zifa had made the announcements for all the players at once. The team’s fans have gone on overdrive with hate language on Facebook alleging tribalism in the whole Asiagate saga.
“We have never been involved in the selection of players who went on the trips, what we did is what we were empowered by the Zifa board to do, which was to investigate and establish what transpired during those trips to Asia or Europe,” said Gumede.
Online Reporter