ZIMBABWE has the fourth highest percentage of football players who have been approached by match-fixers globally, an international study by the global players’ union, the International Federation of Professional Footballers (Fifpro) has revealed.
BY DANIEL NHAKANISO
According to the study, which was based on anonymous feedback from local players plying their trade in the Premier Soccer League, about 19% admitted to have been offered a bribe at one time or another throughout their careers.
Players from Georgia reported the highest number of approaches to fix matches at over 34%, with the Democratic Republic of Congo second at over 31% of players who responded, followed by Kazakhstan with 25,3%.
Zimbabwe, which has been stalked by a match-fixing ghost that defiantly refuses to go away, occupied fourth position ahead of Cyprus (18, 6), while Bolivia has the sixth highest number of match-fixing approaches with 17,3%. Footballers Union of Zimbabwe (FUZ) president Desmond Maringwa said Zimbabwe’s high ranking in match-fixing approaches was a consequence of the haphazard manner in which the local football governing body Zifa had carried out its investigations into match-fixing.
“It’s hardly surprising that we have a high number of players approached by match-fixers if you consider that we have had a number of match-fixing scandals over the last few years. As FUZ, our main concern has always been the manner in which the investigations surrounding the match-fixing have been carried out: everything was not done properly,” he said.
“We even raised our concerns to the then Zifa board during the investigations into the Asiagate scandal and more recently during the latest scandal to rock local football. In both occasions they didn’t follow the proper guidelines. For instance, you would have a situation where players are suspended when no hearing has been done.”
Fifpro, the worldwide representative organisation for professional footballers globally, conducted a global survey of nearly 14 000 professional footballers in 54 countries and 87 leagues in Europe, the Americas and Africa. It is believed to be the world’s largest survey of professional athletes in any sport using direct participant data.
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On the continent, over 3 000 players took part in the survey from 13 countries: Botswana, Cameroon, DR Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean football has been continuously rocked by a string of match-fixing scandals since the highly- publicised Asiagate scandal where 85 players and officials are alleged to have taken bribes to throw friendly matches between 2007 and 2009.
Notorious Singaporean match-fixers Wilson Raj Perumal and Dan Tan were believed to be behind those fixed games. Bans were handed out to a number of players and officials at the end of a long investigation, but were later lifted because they were not ratified by Fifa.
Early this year, former Zifa chief executive Henrietta Rushwaya and former board member Edzai Kasinauyo, together with the former Warriors assistant coach Nation Dube, were accused of being key components of a match-fixing syndicate which targeted players in South Africa, offering them large amounts of money to manipulate results in the lucrative South African Premier League.
The trio were also alleged to be working in tandem with a notorious Singaporean match-fixer and after infiltrating the South African league, were preparing to manipulate the result of the 2017 Afcon qualifier between Zimbabwe and Swaziland when they were exposed by a whistleblower.
However, despite being banned by Zifa, they were recently acquitted by a Harare court, throwing back Zimbabwe football into the glare of the world, including Fifa — which is pulling out all stops to end match-fixing in the sport.
Last month Bulawayo City officials Farai Mujokoro and Gift Mvala were also handed five-year bans from all football-related activities for attempting to fix a Castle Lager Premiership game against Border Strikers this season. — 2016 Fifpro global employment report.