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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter 

A minority shareholder at the Zifa Bulawayo Province Division Two club Sunrise Football Club has been booted out of the team after allegedly embezzling Fifa Covid-19 relief funds.

Mdudizi Cornelious Gumpo is also being accused of fleecing various club directors in funeral donations whereby he feigns bereavement and asks for donations from the directors.

Highly placed sources told Chronicle Sport that Sunrise majority shareholder, Mkhululi Ndimande, who is based in South Africa, stripped Gumpo of his directorship of the team in which he held a 30 percent stake.

“Ndimande was hurt, disappointed and angry after learning that Gumpo had used the relief funds for his own personal use. The team got nothing from the Fifa funds. It’s a huge scandal, which must naturally attract the attention of Zifa andy Fifa,” said a source.

“It was also later discovered that he would tell various club directors now and again that he has lost a family member and those guys will then give him money. It was always a faraway relative that would be deceased. This has been going on for a while now.”

Gumpo did not respond to questions from Chronicle Sport on Saturday, but information at hand is that he acknowledges embezzling the Covid-19 relief funds.

He told one of the directors that he gave the money to a prospective sponsor, who wanted to have his goods transported from Harare to Bulawayo on November 24 last year.

“He did this without the knowledge of the team management. Zifa was very clear on how those funds should be used. This is an offence without any doubt,” the source said.