Zimpapers Logo

was part of the draw and we will once again take on Egypt and Guinea to try and qualify.
After a tough few weeks for Fifa it was good to see football, instead of the politics of football, on centre stage.

What caught my eye on Saturday was seeing the great Ronaldo, of Brazil, conducting part of the draw.
It’s always good to see football stars being thrust into the spotlight and Ronaldo was a great player.
My thoughts really were not drawn by his greatness but by the fact that his name was drawn into our Asiagate saga last month.

I remember reading The Herald’s first articles on the report prepared by Ndumiso Gumede and his team and it mentioned Ronaldo.
Another local daily newspaper even had a back page devoted to the story, with the headline “Brazilians dragged into Asiagate.”
It all centred on the report where local coach Luke Masomere claimed that he was shown a video by Asian matchfixers where they paid Ronaldo to feign injury ahead of the 1998 World Cup final.

France beat Brazil 3-0 in that final and the illness that affected Ronaldo on the night before the match, has always been a talking point.
But I never expected that Ronaldo could have been bribed by match-fixers to feign injury because the World Cup means so much to all Brazilians.
There was also a part in the report where it was claimed a video was shown by the same match-fixers of Roberto Carlos and other Brazilian players being paid to throw away matches.

That report has been sent to Fifa and lnterpol and they expect Fifa to take action on all those implicated, including the Brazilians.
Now, as l watched Ronaldo conducting the draw on Saturday, a lot of questions came into my mind.
Why would Fifa, if they took the Zifa Asiagate report seriously, invite a man implicated in that report to the draw of the 2014 World Cup?

Why would Fifa give Ronaldo such a prominent role, in the draw of their biggest event, if they believed both Zifa and Masomere? What is clear to me is that Fifa have simply ignored the Zifa Asiagate report, because of the wild accusations it contains, and have moved on.

If Fifa felt the Zifa Asiagate report had substance, they would not have brought in Ronaldo to the draw.
Fifa have a powerful legal team and it must have advised them to ignore Ronaldo, on the basis of the wild accusations contained in the Asiagate report, would be a grave mistake.

Now, given that Fifa ignored all the damaging material, contained in the Asiagate report about Ronaldo, clearly because of the lack of evidence to back it up, why are we crucifying our players mentally?

The Brazilians are hosting the 2014 World Cup, which is Fifa’s biggest event and the last thing Sepp Blatter wants right now is the name of the Brazilians to be pushed into controversy the way Zifa did in their Asiagate report.

On Saturday night Fifa gave us their first response to what they think about the Zifa report by giving Ronaldo such a prominent role at the draw.
The world is moving on, while we remain behind forever stuck in the politics of this Asiagate report.

The Fifa that said would ban our players has already written back to Zifa to say they should take action themselves.
Did they see some big grey areas in the report to take that stance?

I urge Cuthbert Dube, who has appeared the only sober voice in all this, to use the Fifa example that someone is not guilty simply because someone said so. That is why l applaud Norman Mapeza for keeping Method Mwanjali as captain of the national team because no-one has found him guilty of match-fixing yet.

Fifa showed the way on Saturday and Zifa should follow now.
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that includes our players, who gave us a good victory over Mali and can qualify for the Nations Cup.

The World Cup draw has given us hope to qualify because Egypt are in decline and Guinea are no longer a force.
But if we are not careful, we could self destruct while everyone else is moving on.

Let’s pick big lessons fom Fifa and how they handled their World Cup draw, especially given what the Zifa report said about Ronaldo.

• Maxwell Mhandu is a Zimbabwean football fan and can be contacted at [email protected]