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accused the probe team of plotting to persecute everyone they suspected to be close to ex-chief executive Henrietta Rushwaya.

Taruva was fired by Zifa last year for allegedly misappropriating the association’s funds and for bringing the game into disrepute by publicly attacking the Zifa board.
The former marketing and communications officer, who had joined Zifa in March 2008, was implicated in the Asiagate scam with the second and final report produced by the Ndumiso Gumede committee alleging that he played a part in receiving the funds that were accrued from the alleged fixed matches.

In their findings, the Gumede committee claimed that Rushwaya often used Taruva, who travelled to Bulgaria with the national Under-20 team, in arranging the matches.
“The former chief executive officer of Zifa Ms Henrietta Rushwaya, the former programmes officer Jonathan Musavengana and the Fifa match gent Kudzi Shaba are implicated in these games and benefited financially amounts that the committee could not establish.

“A Zifa junior staffer Harry Taruva was also used by the CEO,” read part of the report.
But Taruva yesterday questioned the accuracy of the findings and pleaded his innocence to the accusations of match fixing.

ASIAGATE

“Under normal circumstances, one would not want to respond but when you see the magnitude of the allegation you feel that the nation needs to be told the truth and that the truth is not a preserve of a few people. The statement that I played a part in the pay outs or the arranging of the games is not only ambiguous but also very dangerous.

“When I joined Zifa on 1 March 2008, those games had started in 2007 so how could I have been arranging the matches.
“I appeared before that committee and they told me that they wanted to clean up the game and said I should not tell them what I had been coached to say and they would in turn protect me.

“I also challenged that statement and questioned the legality of their inquiry and told them that I was not happy by the sense of intimidation in the methods they were using.
“I also told them to be wary of a lot of rumours and allegations that would spoil their work if they were not careful.

“Things may have gone wrong in our football but the exercise should seek to find out the culprits and not victimise some Zifa staffers perceived to be close to Rushwaya or tarnish other people’s names and images. Strangely for me, two weeks after appearing before the committee, I was suspended on the basis that I had embezzled Zifa funds and that I had attacked the board through the Press when I was quoted as saying

Zifa did not have funds for the Under-15 team that was going to the Youth Olympics in Singapore.