The Parade February 2013 | Page 90

Emmanuel Marambe ??? l?n? st?n??n? sag? disgusted at what was to become the biggest football scam to hit local soccer. For those who have been staunch supporters of the much vaunted Look East Policy, this epic football scam was a stark example of a Look East Policy gone wrong, a nation’s premier sport gone to the dogs. The legendary Pele’s beautiful game was at the mercy of a beast called corruption. And as the drawn out match-fixing saga - that has come to be known as Asiagate, derived from the world famous Watergate scandal, or to give a more local example the Willowgate scam – draws to Asiagate a close, The Parade runs the rule on what was, is, and could be: I n the end, what started out as pitchside gossip by some of the country’s so-called outspoken football (or former) footie administrators, turned out to be just the tip of an iceberg, the opening of a pandora’s box that revealed a monumental scam that tore at the heart and soul of Zimbabwe’s esteemed football fibre. What started out as a mere “mentioned in passing- tongue in cheek” jibe at the then Zifa administration turned out to be the murmurings of a football lover “The whys and the wherefores” After decades spent traversing the wretched lands of Africa – from the Sahara to the Kalahari, from Yaounde to Bujumbura, the Warriors decided to cast their net wider. Soon, they became regular travellers to East – Asia that is; they went to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam among a number of Asian nations that they visited. Suddenly – just over a quarter of a