Sports Committee wants FIFA to brief on match-fixing saga

Sibusiso Banda

Parliament’s Committee on Sports is looking at the prospects of requesting the international soccer body FIFA to come and brief them on the progress of their match fixing investigation in which South Africa was implicated. 

This follows Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula briefed the committee regarding the update on the investigation. The committee heard that government is still waiting too on FIFA to give then direction as to how far they are with regards to their investigation in to match fixing.

FIFA’s investigation trails back to two years ago when South Africa was implicated in a global match fixing scandal related to Bafana Bafana World Cup warm-up games. Mbalula stated that there was also no time frame indicating as to when the investigation will conclude.

 “I won’t lie before the committee and say I did get some brief from FIFA and say there are time frames. There are none. It’s an open-ended process.”

The minister told the committee that the matter is entirely on the global football organization’s hands and there is nothing that government can do to speed up the process as it would constitute to government interference.

“The process is in the hands of FIFA to conclude and it's only on the basis of that conclusion we'll make a determination”

The Committee’s chairman Beauty Dlulane said they’ll ask for a go ahead speaker Baleka Mbete if they can request FIFA to come and appear before them.

“We’ll write to the speaker of parliament to requesting to compel FIFA to come report back to us,”

The match-fixing allegations, which first surfaced in 2011, led to the suspension of several SAFA officials, including that of its former president Kirsten Nematandani. The suspensions were later lifted

Mbalula said FIFA had written a letter that notified the government of their intention of instituting a match fixing investigation two years ago. President Jacob Zuma had given them a go ahead.

Mbalula a bit of insight to the content of the president’s letter of reply to FIFA. He said it read: [Okay, you can then undertake this mission… and then we reserve out right to undertake further instigation pending your conclusion of the processes,]

Bafana fixtures against Colombia, Guatemala, Thailand and Bulgaria were all placed under investigation following the revelation that a company linked to Wilson Raj Perumal, Football4U, was contracted to appoint match officials for those games.