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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
QUESTIONS abound on who among the 17 Zimbabwe B national team players, which drew 2-2 with Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1997 Dunhill Cup, had agreed to share the $100,000 promised by convicted match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal.Zimbabwe B, under Gibson Homela and the late Jimmy Finch as manager, were supposed to lose the Group B second match, played in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4-0 and the six players would then have shared the promised amount.

The squad that travelled to Malaysia had one Blackpool player, three Zimbabwe Saints, five Caps United and eight Dynamos players.

Coincidentally, the composition almost resembles the 2007 scenario where Caps United and Dynamos had the highest number of players travelling to the shamed trips.

However, the match ended 2-2 with former DeMbare star player Masimba Dinyero opening the scoring with a 24th minute goal before Asim Hrnjic equalised for the opponents. Bosnia-Herzegovina then took the lead through Dzelaludin Muharemovic in the 65th minute but by then the applecart had already been upset, apparently by Dinyero’s goal.

Former Warriors coach Ian Gorowa scored the other goal for Zimbabwe B in the 75th minute.

Gorowa at the beginning of the year denied any knowledge that the game should have been lost.

Said Dinyero: “I don’t know whether someone got angry with me but I was just playing for my nation. I did not even know that there were things happening behind our backs but what I know is that I had gone there to play for my country.”

His goal denied six “Judas Iscariots” a share of the $100,000, which would have seen each of them getting slightly over $16,000.

“We gave them a result that was difficult to accomplish and what happened during the game was that one player accidentally kicked the ball into the net,” Perumal is quoted saying in an interview with CNN this week.

Dinyero denies that his goal was accidental.

According to the match report carried by Chronicle on February 25, 1997, former Zimbabwe Saints defender Matambanashe Sibanda contributed to one of the two goals as he stood in between goalkeeper Muzondiwa Mugadza and the opposition’s striker resulting in the ball going through Mugadza’s legs.

Their teammate Ronald Sibanda was given his marching orders in the 40th minute for a second bookable offence. “To be honest I still don’t know why that referee gave me the red card. He claimed that I had insulted him but the person who did that was Kaitano Tembo, not me,” said the former midfield star Sibanda in an interview yesterday.

He denied being approached by Perumal or any knowledge of the match being fixed.

Homela said he had no knowledge that some of his players had agreed to sell the game.

As a result of the “mistake” by the Zimbabwean players not to lose 4-0, the deal fell through but Perumal was to return to haunt Zimbabwean football a decade later, in what became widely known as Asiagate.

Many players and officials received bribes to fix matches between 2007 and 2010.

List of players that travelled to Malaysia in 1997 for the Dunhill Cup

Muzondiwa Mugadza, Ronald Sibanda, Matambanashe Sibanda (Zimbabwe Saints), Moses Milanzi (Blackpool), Steward Murisa, Alois Bunjira, George Mudiwa, Morgan Nkathazo, Farai Mbidzo (Caps United), Kaitano Tembo, Chamu Musanhu, Callisto Pasuwa, Memory Mucherahowa, Masimba Dinyero, Claudius Zviripayi, Ian Gorowa, Gilbert Mushangazhike (Dynamos)

Coach: Gibson Homela

Team manager: Jimmy Finch.