Asiagate: Coltart meets Dube today

NewsDay

By Henry Mhara

29 August 2012

Education, Sport, Art and Culture minister David Coltart will today meet with Zifa president Cuthbert Dube to discuss the raging Asiagate match-fixing scandal and other issues affecting the soccer mother body.

Coltart has in the past accused Dube of ducking his ministry and the Sports and Recreation Commission to discuss Zifa issues, in particular the match-fixing scandal and the association’s financial status. On the other hand, Dube has also been accusing the ministry of neglecting his financially-incapacitated association. However, addressing journalists at Quill Club in Harare on Monday evening, Coltart confirmed a meeting had been set for today.

“I’m meeting with Cuthbert Dube on Wednesday (today). This has been a long awaited meeting and I see this as a preliminary meeting, a start to try to address the problems which bedevil football in our country,” said Coltart.

Earlier this month, Coltart said: “I have, since (Fifa president) Sepp Blatter came to Zimbabwe last year, been trying to hold a finance indaba for Zifa, but have just come up against a brick wall. The purpose of this proposed indaba was to investigate the financial problems bedevilling football. Every time I have asked the president of Zifa to come for a meeting, he has failed to pitch up and I know that the chair of the SRC has suffered the same (fate). As they say, you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.”

Although Coltart refused to give away the agenda of the meeting, it is believed the minister will likely demand answers as to why the Asiagate scandal has taken so long to conclude, although lack of money is the main reason.

During a private meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday between Fifa director of security Ralf Mutschke and Zifa vice-president Ndumiso Gumede, board member finance Elliot Kasu and chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze, the world football governing body pledged financial support once a formal request had been made.

Also issues on how Zifa have failed to come up with mechanisms to generate their own funds are set to be discussed between Dube and Coltart.

Zifa, after a directive from the SRC, probed the Warriors’ controversial trips to a number of Asian countries for friendly international matches where they were allegedly paid to lose games by betting syndicates linked to football officials in Zimbabwe.

The probe, which has become known as the Asiagate scandal, is now in its final phase with the Independent Ethics Committee saying they would have completed their work by early next month.