Zifa chairman Cuthbert Dube to brief Fifa President Sepp Blater over match fixing
Zifa boss to brief Blatter on scandal
Posted: 2012-02-08 11:54
Zifa chairman Cuthbert Dube is expected to personally brief Fifa President Sepp Blater on the progress made over the match fixing scandal rocking Zimbabwean football.
Dube and his team of Zimbabwe's top football administrators are this week expected to meet Blatter and Fifa Secretary Jerome Valke in Equatorial Guinea on the sidelines of the ongoing 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
Zifa are seeking a significant financial injection from the world football governing body in order to settle debts of close to US$2 million.
Fifa have made it clear that they will only consider bailing out Zifa once the association had put its house in order by bringing to finality a damaging match fixing scandal that allegedly saw national team players, coaches and officials being bribed to throw matches between 2007 and 2009.
"I will take advantage of our meeting (with Fifa) in Equatorial Guinea," says Dube.
"On the sidelines, I will continue to push our case and I am confident that they have confidence in us and they want to see us going forward and once we get funding things should start to smoothen up.
"We have a lot of sponsors waiting in the wings for us to complete the Asiagate scandal probe and they have said once that is out of the way they are willing to come in and fund different projects including the Warriors.
"We need to clean things up first before people can put in their money and we are very close to that," adds Dube.
Meanwhile, former Zifa CEO Henrietta Rushwaya was granted US$500 bail when she appeared before a Harare magistrate early this week.
She is set to appear in court again on February 20 and was ordered to report to a local police station every fortnight, surrender her passport and asked not to interfere with investigations.
Rushwaya was arrested and hauled before the Harare magistrate court on charges of two counts of fraud, 11 counts of corruptly concealing a transaction from a principle and 15 counts of bribery.
The charges are related to claims that Rushwaya played a central role in the Asiagate scandal - a series of fixed matches Zimbabwe played against Asian teams in the Far East between 2007 and 2009.
The damaging scandal has also sucked in 80 players, who have since been banned from playing for the national team unless they are able to prove their innocence.
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