THREE Dynamos stars were quizzed by detectives on Wednesday as police began a major investigation into match fixing allegations against Zimbabwe players, coaches and top ZIFA officials.
Washington Arubi, David Kutyauripo and Guthrie Zhokinyi were the first players to face investigators from the CID Serious Fraud Squad.
The police probe came as FIFA declared that it had three weeks to “clean up football” in a major international investigation into corruption in the game.
Dynamos assistant coach Masimba Dinyero told reporters that the three players, who were part of the Zimbabwe team which played in unsanctioned matches in Thailand and Malaysia in 2009, were picked up from the club’s training at Raylton Sports Club in Harare.
The trio were taken to the CID headquarters at Ahmed House where statements were recorded, Dinyero added.
The corruption involving Asian betting syndicates blew up in July 2009 when a Monomotapa team went to Malaysia without Premier Soccer League approval and passed themselves off as the Zimbabwe national team.
It later emerged former ZIFA CEO Henrietta Rushwaya and the association’s programmes officer, Jonathan Musavengana, had falsely communicated to the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) that the club side, which played and lost two matches 4-0 and 1-0 while wearing the Zimbabwe strip, was the national team. Questions over the funding of Monomotapa's travel costs remain.
The two friendlies were later stripped of their "A" international status, meaning the defeats did not affect Zimbabwe’s FIFA ranking.
Rushwaya, who was fired by ZIFA after a new executive led by Cuthbert Dube swept into office, has been fingered as the nexus of the corruption involving Asian betting syndicates.
Monomotapa coach, Rodwell Dhlakama, who was involved in the Malaysia con, lost his job after players said they had been paid bungs to lose matches against TP Mazembe and Etoile De Sahel in the African Champions League. Rushwaya, it was alleged, was on the phone to Dhlakama through-out the match.
Rushwaya also faced allegations of trying to introduce a member of an Asian betting syndicate, Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean national now in jail in Finland, to Malawian football authorities.
But the corruption which may yet end the careers of some of Zimbabwe’s top football stars, managers, journalists and football administrators involves the Asian trips which are now officially being investigated by FIFA.
A ZIFA probe team led by vice president Ndumiso Gumede looked at the Thailand and Malaysia trips in December 2009. On the trip, a second-string Zimbabwe team lost 3-0 to Thailand; beat the Malaysian champions Selangor 3-0 before suffering a 6-0 drubbing by Syria.
In sensational revelations, the ZIFA Board of Enquiry found:
- Wilson Raj Peruma paid Zimbabwe players US$1,500 each to lose by a pre-agreed score-line.
- A member of the syndicate sat on the Zimbabwe bench and gave instructions when to concede goals.
- ZIFA programmes officer Musavengana received “a bunch of US dollars” from a representative of the syndicate.
- Players feared for their lives when a representative of the betting syndicate claimed they had cost him US$1 million after losing the first game 3-0 instead of 1-0.
- Rushwaya was in on the fraud.
- The match-fixing may have been going on for three years, starting with the 2007 Merdeka Cup held to commemorate Malaysian National Day.
- Skipper Method Mwanjali negotiated payments with the betting syndicate.
- An agent of the syndicate was at the Warriors’ camp ahead of a friendly match with Japan just before the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa in June.
- Most of the players involved in the corruption “now pose a big problem” for the national team.
Some of the stars set to face questions over the Asian trips include Nyasha Mushekwi, Daniel Veremu, Cuthbert Malajila, Benjamin Marere, Mthulisi Maphosa, Phillip Marufu, Willard Manyatera and Zephaniah Ngodzo.
Coaches facing investigation include Sunday Chidzambwa, Joey Antipas, Emmanuel Nyahuma, Luke Masomere and Methembe Ndlovu.
FIFA announced this week it was sending its head of security to look into several matches hosted by the Asian country, including the friendlies against Zimbabwe and the Monomotapa impostors.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, stung by new allegations that members of the FIFA executive committee demanded bungs in order to back England’s 2018 World Cup bid, demanded a “clean up” before he stands for re-election on June 1.
Blatter said his organisation "would lose all credibility" if fans lost faith in the honesty of matches.
"Let's take some time to do it but we have to do it very fast, because we have a congress to come and we have to deal with this matter before the congress," Blatter told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
"We cannot just say to kick it out of the mind of FIFA and we will deal after... No, we have to do it now, immediately, we have exactly three weeks to do so, so we must accelerate the movement in the good or in the bad."
Blatter announced on Monday that soccer's world governing body would be donating US$28 million to Interpol to fund a dedicated anti-corruption unit in Singapore to help fight match-fixing.
Interpol will host a FIFA anti-corruption programme to train players, referees and officials how to identify fixing attempts. The football governing body is also tightening rules on how to plan international matches, aimed to change the game's culture.
Blatter is dispatching Chris Eaton, FIFA’s security chief, to Malaysia next week to begin enquiries on more than a dozen matches, including the meetings with Zimbabwe.
Eaton promised an “aggressive” investigation.
"Match-fixing is not particularly sexy as an investigation, but I hope now that Interpol and others make national law enforcement more aware of the scope and size and the criminality involved, that they will take more interest," he said. "It is, in fact, organised crime."
"The syndicates have had a free rein for too long. We've now identified over these last three months the true extent of the criminal activity in match-fixing and now we've put all these resources and focused them at it," Eaton said.
"I think they're in for a fight and they know it. I have every support from the FIFA president and the secretary general to go about this most aggressively."
Ahead of Eaton’s visit, the Malaysians have been insisting their hands are clean.
"As far as the games against Zimbabwe, we are very clear in our minds. We got a notification from the Zimbabwean FA itself," said Azzudin Ahmad, FAM’s secretary general.
"As you are aware when another national body sends a letter, it's really unethical to question them. When they committed that they would be sending the international squad, we weren't going to question them."
Football security experts say Asia is a hot-bed for match fixing. Syndicates bribe top officials, mainly from third world countries, to organise friendlies in Asian countries with pre-determined outcomes.
But the corruption is also in Europe, with German authorities saying they are reviewing more than 300 matches.
In Finland, where match fixing mastermind Wilson Raj Perumal is facing prison, Zambian striker Christopher Musonda, who represented the African country at Under-23 level, and five other players were arrested on charges that they were manipulating the results of matches.
FIFA believes Perumal organised a notorious match last September, sending a fake Togo team to Bahrain for a friendly that the unwitting host easily won 3-0.
In February, FIFA opened disciplinary proceedings against six match officials involved in two highly suspicious international friendlies in the Turkish resort of Antalya.
All seven goals in the games between Bolivia and Latvia, and Estonia and Bulgaria, were penalties, and betting records are understood to reveal surges of activity in legitimate markets before each goal. Three Hungarian officials and three from Bosnia have been banned for life by their respective football federations.