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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
FORMER Dynamos captain Memory Mucherahowa has rubbished claims by some supporters and former colleagues that he was paid to deliberately get into a brawl with Asec Mimosas players before kick-off of their Caf Champions League final in 1998.

Dynamos stormed into the Caf Champions League final and gallantly held the fancied Ivorian side to a goalless draw in the first-leg at the National Sports Stadium and hopes were high that DeMbare would hold their own in the reverse fixture and become the first Zimbabwean side to be crowned African club champions.

However, Dynamos crumbled like a deck of cards and lost 2-4 in the second-leg in hostile conditions at the Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan.

But some fans later questioned their skipper’s unnecessary brawl with the Ivorian players before kick-off.

Mucherahowa was left unconscious after being ‘head-butted’ by Asec Mimosas’ players after straying into the home team’s half during warm-up.

“That incident left us traumatised as players and when you look back, one wonders if Memory wasn’t really given some few pieces of silver to sell his soul.

“I mean who in his mind goes into enemy territory for warm up? It was clearly unnecessary and only to cause trouble,” said a former player who was part of the 1998 squad.

However, Mucherahowa told Chronicle Sport from his United Kingdom base that these claims were mere pub talk.

“That is pub talk. I wrote about it in my book and on numerous occasions on television and newspapers.

“We have two teams warming up together using both halves, so what is the purpose of warming up when you are restricted to one half,” said Mucherahohwa.

It was this match that motivated the 1994 Soccer Star of the Year to write the book, Soul of Seven Million Dreams: The Memory Mucherahowa Story.