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Senior Sports Reporter

ZIFA says it wants to find out what exactly happened during the World Player of the Year voting process after stunning revelations that former Warriors coach Rahman Gumbo and his captain or vice captains, did not participate in the process.

Only radio and television personality Charles Mabika confirmed casting the ballot on behalf of Zimbabwean journalists.

Zifa technical director Nelson Matongorere’s name appeared on the Fifa list of panelists as the Warriors captain who voted for Real Madrid and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Gerard Pique of Barcelona and Spain and the eventual winner, Barcelona and Argentina’s Messi, while for the Coach of the Year he had Pep  Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson.

The revelation has embarrassed Zifa and the nation at large with questions being thrown around as to who could have clandestinely voted after misrepresenting facts, especially at a time the country is just coming from another damaging scandal, Asiagate.

Zifa vice-president Ndumiso Gumede said the issue is likely to be raised during today’s board meeting in the capital as the national association continues with its quest to clean up local football to make the game more appealing to the corporate world.

“This issue might just be one of the matters that we will discuss as a board in our meeting. You see, such things expose us to machinations of Asiagate masterminds and we don’t want that. If those who were supposed to vote were not there then we should not have participated as a country instead of individuals appointing themselves proxies,” he said.

Sources in Harare last week said they strongly believed that Matongorere did cast his vote as either Warriors captain, or coach or even as both. They argued that Matongorere was probably not aware that Fifa was going to post the votes online.

Fifa sends the ballot papers to the national association which then downloads them and gives the national team coach and his captain, in this case it should have been Gumbo and either of Esrom Nyandoro or Tapuwa Kapini.

Zifa head of secretariat Jonathan Mashingaidze is said to have been out of office at the time the ballot papers were sent.

According to the list of the voting panel, Gumbo is said to have voted for Andres Iniesta for the top prize, Lionel Messi and Manchester United’s Robin van Persie as the runners-up respectively.

For the Coach of the Year Gumbo allegedly had Spain’s Vicente del Bosque as his first choice, former Barcelona coach Guardiola as the first runner-up and Borussia Dortmund’s Jürgen Norbert “Kloppo” Klopp was his third choice.

Gumbo has denied voting saying he does not even have an idea of the shape and colour of the ballot paper.