The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
FIFA Interpol match-fixing trainer Ndumiso Gumede says the country’s challenging economic fortunes makes it a fertile ground for match fixing.
Addressing journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club, Gumede said the biggest motivation for match-fixing was the monetary incentive, with local clubs facing financial challenges it was easy for match-fixers to pounce.
Match-fixing has become widespread and a multi-billion industry that is threatening not only the football industry but sport in general said Gumede.
The former Zifa vice-president said there was a need to have vigilance over match-fixing adding other measurers could be taken to dissuade those at risk of being recruited into the illicit actions.
“At Highlanders we pay our players $170 winning bonus and imagine if someone approaches (goalkeeper) Ariel (Sibanda) and offers him $5 000 and says ‘just let that penalty in, after all we know that a penalty is already half in’, he might be tempted by the huge amount.
“Look at Hwange, the players were recently in the news for embarking on industrial action and if someone comes with an incentive for them to throw away a match would they hesitate?,” quizzed Gumede.
Zimbabwe was hit by the Asiagate match-fixing scandal in 2010 when the national team was involved in fixed games mainly in Asia. This has been followed by several other misdeeds that include the Centralgate saga, Limpopogate and more recently Bulawayo City assistant coach Farai Mujokoro was accused of bribing Border Strikers goalkeeper, Talent Sande.
Asiagate hogged the limelight attracting worldwide interest after it was revealed that well known match-fixer, Raj Perumal was the instigator.
Fifa and Interpol organised a match-fixing workshop in Zimbabwe that was attended by various stakeholders as Asiagate heated up as a way of trying to prevent the scourge from erupting again.
Several football officials that include Gumede, Premier Soccer League chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele and Zifa Referees Committee vice-chairman Brighton Mudzamiri were certified match-fixing trainers.
Gumede said during his tenure as the vice-chairman of the referees committee he held several workshops to appraise referees on signs of match-fixing and how to avoid it.
“We mainly train those vulnerable such as players, administrators and referees to identify situations that would make them easy targets and how to steer clear of this.
“Sometimes it is inconspicuous, for example a player might be offered assistance in times of need and once he develops a close relationship with this person, he would find it difficult to reject requests to engage in illicit acts from someone who has done him many favours,” he said.
Gumede revealed they had been forced to recruit South African referees for the inaugural edition of the now defunct Mbada Diamonds Cup in 2011 after getting wind of rumours there had been attempts to influence referees to swing the match in favour of a certain team.
He paid tribute to former Motor Action and Chicken Inn coach, Joey Antipas saying the report he wrote for them was critical in their investigations of the Asiagate scandal which, however, ended unceremoniously as Fifa declined to endorse the bans that had been imposed by the Zifa appointed Justice Ahmed Ebrahim Ethics Committee.
Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa decided to give blanket amnesty to those convicted of participating in Asiagate although it came back to haunt the association as Henrietta Rushwaya, who had been given a life ban for her role in Asiagate, was early this year implicated in seeking to fix matches involving the country’s national team.
@rasmthembo
