HARARE- Things have fallen apart at No 53 Livingstone Avenue, the headquarters of the Zimbabwe Football Federations, with revelations of stinking corruption that is likely to have serious implications.ZIFA CEO Henrietta Rushwaya has already been suspended to facilitate a probe into allegations of match fixing and a betting scandal involving ZIFA officials during the Warriors’ controversial trips to Asia last year.
At the centre of the scandal is alleged collusion between certain officials at ZIFA and national team players. The tours to countries like Malaysia, Oman, Thailand and Syria have affected the countrys ranking on the FIFA classification. The Warriors are currently ranked 110 in the world.
The Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC), the supreme sports body in the country, has demanded a report on the trips by the Warriors to Asia in December last year. The SRC wants to know who led the delegation, who cleared the team to go to Asia, who organised the match and where did the money go?
The SRC also wants to know what motivated the team to defy a ZIFA council resolution on December 19 last year and make the trip to Asia.
“Sad as it may be, we no longer have a national team right now because these players have been corrupted,” says a ZIFA board member who is part of the task force to investigate the scam. “We inherited this problem. Corruption is stinking at ZIFA but as a new board we will do our best to bring the culprits to book and restore the image of the association.
Rushwaya is being accused of failing to account for US$103 000 that she allegedly borrowed from the SRC on behalf of Zifa without the boards approval. She is also accused of failing to set in motion appropriate disciplinary action to ensure that Zifa programmes officer, Jonathan Musavengana, was brought in for a hearing on acts of misconduct levelled against him. William Ndiraire
Post published in: Football