Government pins Zifa on Asiagate

Daily News

By Enock Muchinjo

8 September 2011

Harare - Pressure has mounted on the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) to wrap up investigation into the Asiagate match-fixing scam, the biggest scandal ever to rock Zimbabwean football.
Concerned by the slow pace of action following the leakage of a damning Asiagate final report in July, the Daily News can reveal that government, through the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC), last week wrote to Zifa urging the association to take all necessary measures to bring the culprits to book.

The Asiagate dossier, put together by a Zifa inquiry team, fingered several players and officials as having taken bribes from a huge underground network of illegal Asian betting syndicates to lose matches on several trips to the Far East between 2007 and 2009.

Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze yesterday confirmed receipt of the letter, written by Sports minister David Coltart.

“Yes, government wrote to us saying they want to see finality to the issue,” Mashingaidze said yesterday. “We are now working flat out on that. Pressure is now on us and the police to act.”

Coltart has previously vowed to protect the Asiagate document from “gathering dust.”

“I will certainly raise the matter with the Attorney General’s office and the Ministry of Home Affairs to make sure that appropriate action is taken,” Coltart told the Daily News in July.

SRC director general Charles Nhemachena yesterday detailed contents of Coltart’s letter.

“The minister wrote to us last week asking us to update him on developments,” said Nhemachena. “The letter was clear and straightforward. So we simply forwarded the letter to Zifa to respond. We are still waiting to hear from Zifa. (In the letter) He was acknowledging receipt of the (Asiagate) report and he wanted to know if the matter had been reported to the police, and if it was reported, what kind of action has been taken. He wanted us to check on progress.”

Nhemachena said the SRC, the country’s sports regulatory body, was equally disturbed about the delay in wrapping up the investigation.

“As the SRC we are obviously concerned by the delay,” he said. “We don’t want this matter to drag on longer than necessary. As they say, just delayed is justice denied….We don’t want this issue to distract us from real issues like the development of our game. Right now the Warriors have just revived people’s hopes by beating Liberia. We don’t want this Asiagate issue to keep distracting us from these positive developments.”

He said government has also called for an all-stakeholders meeting on factors affecting the game.

“The minister has called for an all-stakeholders indaba to iron out all issues which are hampering our development,” he said.

“As SRC we don’t want to be dragged back. It is our outmost desire to see Zifa finalise this issue. I agree with the recommendations of the Zifa probe team that criminality be reported to the police and that a disciplinary tribune be set up. As SRC we agreed on these recommendations, but since then there has been no report on progress.”

The Daily News is also reliably informed that police has quizzed several people implicated in the report.

A copy of the Asiagate report was already in procession of the police six weeks before it was leaked to the media.

Zifa employees, players and coaches fingered in the scandal were recently interviewed by the Central Investigation Department (CID) officers, a highly-placed source said.

In another development, the Fifa anti-corruption team, which has twice delayed its visit to Zimbabwe, is now set to arrive in Harare next week to help wrap up the investigations.

The team, led by Fifa’s head of security Chris Eaton, postponed the visit to “guarantee a thorough and far-reaching investigation” by Zifa.

Nhemachena welcomed the visit, saying: “I’m hoping that the visit by the Fifa officials will give a clear-cut direction on how Zifa should progress.”