A FLURRY of denials and pleas of innocence have greeted the release of a damning ZIFA report into match fixing by the Zimbabwe national football team.
The revelations have threatened to end the careers of over 80 players, coaches, administrators and journalists.
The 160-page report of investigations by ZIFA into the match-fixing on Zimbabwe’s tours to Asia between 2007 and 2009 accused the officials, players and coaches of taking bribes from betting syndicates to fix 15 matches.
Syndicate representatives paid amounts totalling $50,000 for each of the matches that were fixed, the report said.
In the documents, ZIFA investigators accused a "forbidding" number of players of involvement in widespread corruption and said the national association's former chief executive, Henrietta Rushwaya, masterminded the fixing.
She used secret agents connected to the country's longtime ruler, President Robert Mugabe, to maintain control and manipulate players and coaches on the tours, it was alleged.
"She (Rushwaya) wielded so much power in the association to become untouchable and a mini-god and could manipulate players and coaches alike to do her will," the report stated.
"Players were afraid of her and (ZIFA) board members also felt intimidated by her. The sheer number of players involved (in match-fixing) is forbidding."
But Rushwaya, who was fired from ZIFA last year, has been leading the denials. The report said she received no less than US$450,000 from the corruption.
“Culprits must be brought to book and that will be good for Zimbabwean football,” Rushwaya said, insisting that if indeed there was corruption, it would have also involved other associations and match officials.
“I was not getting invitations from betting syndicates, no. I was getting them from colleagues in the football associations and some came through the ZIFA president (Wellington Nyatanga), who could not run the association on a day-to-day basis,” Rushwaya charged in her first response to the publication of the report on Monday.
She added: “If there is anyone who can stand before an open court and testify to say that I did what they say I did, let them come out and speak. What is here is hearsay.”
The probe team, led by ZIFA vice president Ndumiso Gumede, admitted it had been difficult to prove payments because Rushwaya kept no paperwork. The investigators relied mainly on oral and written evidence by some players and coaches who cooperated.
But despite the various accounts by individuals involved, some officials and players implicated in the corruption have moved to save their careers by denying that they took payments to lose.
Herald Sports Editor Robson Sharuko, alleged to have attended 14 matches, is accused of staging a cover up. Former Zimbabwe caretaker coach Luke Masomere claimed Sharuko wrote “glowingly” about a losing team.
But the journalist proclaimed his innocence, stating in a lengthy defence published by the Herald newspaper that his “conscience is clear”.
The country’s most decorated coach Sunday Chidzambwa, now in charge of Black Leopards in South Africa, has threatened legal action. The report said he was in charge of seven matches.
"Never in my life have I instructed a player to throw a game. They (ZIFA) must come to me with evidence,” Chidzambwa charged.
Mamelodi Sundowns striker Nyasha Mushekwi, one of 81 players facing lifetime bans for their part in the scandal, has also sought to distance himself.
"I didn't do anything wrong when we went to represent our country. I heard that some players took bribes but I have no proof, maybe someone spoke to ZIFA and admitted to it, but I don't know anything,” he insisted this week.
FIFA, which is currently involved in its own wide-reaching investigation into match-fixing, has been given the report, ZIFA said.
In many cases, the report said, money was handed out by agents of Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean who is on trial in Finland for fixing games there and who is believed to be a central figure in a swathe of match-fixing scandals that have rocked world football.
Turkey, South Korea, Finland, Greece and Italy have all been hit by recent fixing scandals, while a FIFA anti-corruption team delayed a planned trip to Zimbabwe to allow ZIFA to wrap up its report — which will likely now form a key part of the global investigation.
An international match between Nigeria and Argentina last month was also under investigation, FIFA said, for suspicious betting patterns.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter said on a visit to Zimbabwe a fortnight ago that those found guilty of match-fixing faced life bans.
Gumede recommended that some cases be dealt with by the police, who have also been handed the documents.
Last year, national team captain Method Mwanjali, three teammates and coaching staff members admitted in sworn statements that they had been paid to lose games on a tour to Malaysia and Thailand in 2009.
The team lost 2-0 to Jordan, 3-0 to Thailand and 6-0 to Syria, and players told of how representatives of the betting syndicates were even present in the team's dressing room at halftime of one match to give instructions on how the game should go. Games on tours in 2007 and 2008 were also said to be fixed.
The stunning revelations kicked off the probe by ZIFA, which found widespread corruption throughout Zimbabwe's national body.
In ZIFA's final report, former team manager Ernest Sibanda said Perumal was central to the fixing and met players in Rushwaya's hotel room in Malaysia, where they were paid up to US$6,000 each to throw games.
"Raj (Perumal) was paying the players," Sibanda told investigators. "They were paid, approximately, between US$3,000 and US$4,000 each."
Benedict Moyo, one of the investigators, said ZIFA would now meet to decide on possible punishments.