ZIFA CEO Henrietta Rushwaya has been suspended as a probe into an alleged match fixing and betting scandal involving the Zimbabwe national soccer team intensifies.
Rushwaya’s suspension followed a marathon meeting of an emergency ZIFA board meeting on Sunday night.
At the centre of the scandal is alleged collusion between certain officials at ZIFA and national team players to lose matches on dubious Asian tours said to be funded by big-money betting syndicates.
The tours to countries like Malaysia, Oman, Thailand, Syria – where Zimbabwe lost heavily – have affected the country’s ranking on the FIFA classification.
A three-man investigating committee chaired by ZIFA vice president Ndumiso Gumede -- who is working alongside former national team coach Benedict Moyo and ZIFA board member for finance Elliot Kasu -- presented its preliminary findings on Sunday, worrying enough to warrant Rushwaya’s immediate suspension.
A senior ZIFA official told the Herald: “The investigating committee presented their findings to the board and all the evidence was pointing at Rushwaya, and it was unanimously decided that she be suspended while the committee finalises its report.”
The official added that the investigating committee was getting little or no co-operation at all from players who took part in the tours, amid fears their silence has been bought or they were coached on what to say.
“What I can say, sad as it may be, is that we don’t have a national team because the majority of players who took part in the Asian trips have been corrupted,” he said.
On Sunday, Gumede warned that players refusing to co-operate may be suspended from all forms of football.
“We seem to have resistance from the players. They have failed to come before us despite being invited to do so. All we want to know is how much they earned and how much the association got out of the trip,” said Gumede.
“We have invited them by phone and in the form of letters. The last step is to give them an opportunity of time, failing which we will have no option but invoke sections of the SRC Act and have them expelled or suspended from football. We’re not resting until we get the facts which we were tasked to come up with by the Sports and Recreation Commission.
“Our role is not to suspend or arrest anyone, but if someone is impeding progress by making us fail in achieving our goal that person is liable to different treatment.”
Moyo claimed they had received threats over the last few weeks after the probe committee was set up in response to a story published by the Sunday Mail.
“We have been threatened, and at one stage my car was tampered with. This will not divert our attention from the real issues. The truth will out,” Moyo said.