The Standard
By Albert Marufu
5 February 2012
Where to Zimbabwe football? This is the question hovering in many soccer fans’ minds following Zifa’s decision to suspend 82 players who allegedly accepted bribes to lose matches in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia between 2007 and 2009.
The 82 players include senior players such as Thomas Sweswe, Nyasha Mushekwi, Method Mwanjali, Ovidy Karuru, Edward Sadomba, Zhaimu Jambo, Washington Arubi, Daniel Vheremu, Khama Billiat and Willard Katsande.
The players will only return to national duty after being cleared by the independent Ethics Committee headed by retired judge Justice Ahmed Ebrahim and that rules them out of the February 29 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Burundi.
The scandal has already claimed the scalp of former Zifa chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya who has already been arrested while the mastermind, Wilson Raj Perumal, is languishing in a Finland jail. Questions have been asked about the impact of the decision to suspend the players or the ultimate ban that may be instituted if the offenders are found guilty.
Veteran soccer journalist Charles “CNN” Mabika believes that when the worst comes to the worst and most of the players are found guilty by the commission, then the nation should draw lessons from the Zambians who built a winning team after the demise of their best in the 1993 airplane crash.
“I am not hoping for the worst, but if such a thing happens we have to draw lessons from the Zambian experience. They lost an entire team in the middle of a World Cup qualifying process, but in two months, they had assembled a team good enough to reach the Africa Cup of Nations finals.
“We will have to do with what we have and the right thing to do is to give the national team coaches all the help they require,” he said.
Mabika said the game against Burundi should be fulfilled as the association risks being fined heavily by Confederation of African Football if they pull out.
Former national team midfielder Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa concurred with Mabika. “If most of the players are found guilty, then that will be a disaster for the sport in the country. We would have to start afresh as a nation and maybe focus on the 2018 qualifiers. Moreover, our image as a nation would be tainted,” he said.
Soccer administrator Nelson Matongorere sees it from a different angle and said this would avenues to a better future.
“A scandal has happened in our football and whoever has been fingered should come forward and clear their name and that applies to players as well. It is bad for our football, but these guys are facing serious allegations. My major concern is with Zifa as they are taking too long to solve the issue,” he said.
“I have confidence that justice will prevail as we have a retired Supreme Court judge presiding over the matter. However, if our biggest fear happens, then we will have to look to the future and maybe use our junior teams in major tournaments. What use will it be for us to qualify for a tournament with tainted players and then have problems four years later?”
However, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart’s view is that it is not all doom and gloom for Zimbabwean football. He praised Zifa for the attempts to weed out corruption from football.
“I think the best thing to do is to avoid speculation on this issue. Zifa has set up an independent Ethics Committee to investigate the alleged match-fixing so let us give the committee time,” Coltart said.
“I believe that something positive will come out of this and Zifa must act swiftly so that the innocent players will be cleared. I do not think every player implicated is guilty. My hope is that we can still put together a strong team for the game against Burundi later this month,” he said.
“I understand we still have players such as (Knowledge) Musona, Tinashe Nengomasha, Lincoln Zvasiya and Tapiwa Kapini who can form the backbone of the team,” he said.
Former Zifa chairman Rafiq Khan said while it would be a major setback if the players were to be banned, the Zimbabwean league is still good enough to provide players for the national team.
“It takes many years to develop a player. However, I have always been a firm believer in home-based talent. Remember I insisted on the use of local players while I was still the (Zifa) chairman and we won the Cosafa Cup, beating Zambia and Angola in the process.
“I am looking at countries at the nations cup and most of them would have never competed with us six years ago. Something is going terribly wrong in our football. The team has to be assembled now and we should help it mentally and physically,” he said from his South African base.