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Xolisani Gwesela

Lovemore Dube Senior Sports Editor
THE Zimbabwe Football Association is keen on bringing closure to the long-drawn Asiagate scandal by January. A match-fixing and manipulation officer will soon be appointed by Zifa to ensure the local game retains a clean image. Xolisani Gwesela, the Zifa communications manager, confirmed that all outstanding cases in the match-fixing scandal that hit Zimbabwe between 2007 and 2010 would be taken to their disciplinary committee. Zimbabwe administrators, coaches and players were paid to lose matches by convicted Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal.

The Asian who has served a year of two for match-fixing in Finland is holed up in Hungary helping Interpol and Fifa on what happened in the Balkan countries. Two weeks ago, Perumal confirmed that he had found the Warriors willing to co-operate like two hands willing to clap because of the prevailing economic situation in the country.

Gwesela, whose association, like several others in the world, was a beneficiary of Fifa and Interpol funding for workshops in which Kennedy Ndebele of the PSL, Ndumiso Gumede and Felix Tangawarima were among people trained to go on nationwide programmes teaching footballers on how to detect efforts to fix matches.

“We are working on taking all files on match-fixing to our disciplinary committee. We hope to bring closure to Asiagate by December, at the latest January next year,” said Gwesela.
Some found themselves banned for life for their involvement. With Perumal having spoken out recently and willing to co-operate some may find themselves getting even stiffer sentences as despite denials by most locals, the match-fixing kingpin has confirmed their culpability.

Gwesela said as Zifa, they were taking issues to do with match-fixing and manipulation very seriously. In the past he said there was match-fixing but they have since widened their horizons to be on the lookout for manipulated results.
He said they were now on 24-hour survellaince as they sought to restore dignity to the game that had its heart and soul stolen by greed.

“We have undercover details working 24 hours a day to ensure there is no match-fixing, no manipulation at whatever level. As Zifa we are serious about preserving the integrity of the game and competition. We cannot disclose who are working on that and where, when the time comes and we feel there is need for publication we will proceed. But for now we have people on the ground monitoring football at all levels to ensure that there is no single game whose result is manipulated. We have to nip that in the bud and so far we are happy with the people that have been appointed to be on the lookout,” said the Zifa spokesperson.

Shocking revelations came to light two weeks ago when the Singapore match-fixer said he had tried to fix a Zimbabwe game in 1997.
The Warriors’ performances in some previous tournaments have drawn questions as to the credibility of some of the players who have donned the Warriors colours including some coaches.

In June 2004, Chronicle wrote that the biggest threat to the game was match-fixing from cartels in Eastern Europe and Asia but because of the infighting in Zimbabwe football then, no one took note until the paper broke news of the big pickings from tours to Malaysia in August 2007.

Zifa have been facing resistance from some of those implicated in Asiagate with the Zifa chief executive officer’s email address alleged to have been hacked so that information from Fifa falls into the hands of the suspects.