The Chronicle
Goodwill Zunidza
27 September 2012
ZIFA, stung by mounting public demand for a swift close of the Asiagate chapter, are now at loggerheads with their own Independent Ethics Commission for failing to release findings of their probe a year after they were constituted for the exercise.
The two parties exchanged heated words on Wednesday evening soon after the well-attended football indaba held at the instigation of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart and co-ordinated by the Sport and Recreation Commission at Pandhari Lodge in the capital.
Cuthbert Dube, the Zifa president, clashed with Emmanuel Chimwanda, a key official in the Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) that the football mother body set up in October last year to bring to finality investigations into the suspected match-fixing ring that saw almost 100 players sanctioned from national duty and five elected officials suspended from the Zifa board.
The association’s senior board member (finance), Elliot Kasu, and Morgan Dube, Zifa’s Southern Region chairman, also tore into Chimwanda accusing him of withholding the report to sabotage the probe.
Chimwanda, from the Anti-Corruption Commission, has become the leading figure in the committee tasked to deal with the Asiagate saga following the unexplained departure of Justice Ahmed Ebrahim who had been appointed chairman when the IEC was set up in October last year.
Ebrahim is understood to be now domiciled in the United States of America and Chimwanda has since taken over his duties.
Confronted by Zifa officials, who also included the association’s chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze and Eastern Region chairman Fungai Chihuri, Chimwanda reportedly told the football bosses that the report was now at printing stage.
Dube last night confirmed that Zifa have demanded that the Asiagate report be released without any further delay, not only to pacify a restive nation but also to clear players who might have been found not guilty and are needed for the senior national team’s final 2013 Africa Cup of Nations second leg qualifier against Angola next month.
The Zifa boss said he was concerned with the time it had taken to put a lid on the long-running issue.
“We really don’t know, they are saying it is with the printers but we are wondering how long it takes to print a report. We are getting worried now, we told them that the nation is anxiously waiting, and even the government would like to give a comment.
“We are saying, what is the point of all this delay? And you see some statements that were put out by stakeholders in (Wednesday’s) meeting were that it is probably blackmail, in terms of these people wanting to be paid before they release the report because they have given us so many deadlines and nothing has come out,” said Dube.
According to the Zifa boss, the committee had last promised to hand over their findings at the beginning of this month.
“When I left for the Caf meeting in Seychelles they promised me that by the time I came back the report would be out. But still it’s not there, and now Fifa are saying anything that is done after September 30, they will not pay for. They will only pay up to September 30, which is this weekend.”
Neither Chimwanda nor any of the other members of the IEC, which is comprised mainly of legal practitioners, could be reached for comment at the time of going to print.
The commission has largely operated outside the public view, with their work shrouded in further mystery since Ebrahim left, apparently early last month, for the US and putting the process into likely jeopardy.
Dube highlighted the importance of the upcoming decisive tie in Luanda, saying he wanted at least a hint on which players might have been cleared by the commission.
“(Tapiwa) Kapini is out injured, Chinyengetere is not going to make it so what we are saying is dai vanga vatipa some indication yekuti who of those suspended players has been exonerated, if any.
If they are there, they must be released like what they did with the first lot so that the technical team can see which other players to consider for the game against Angola.”
Warriors coach Rahman Gumbo has since named a squad bereft of the mainstream players still implicated in the seemingly endless Asiagate saga that has left him with a depleted pool of players to select from.