HARARE - A South African football insider has described Zimbabwe’s Asiagate match-fixing scam as “Sunday picnic” compared to that country’s recent fixing revelations, which claimed the scalp of federation president Kirsten Nematandani and other top officials yesterday.

Nematandani was suspended yesterday alongside incoming Safa CEO Dennis Mumble pending an independent enquiry into their alleged roles into Bafana Bafana pre-World Cup warm up matches, which world-football ruling body Fifa says were fixed.

Interestingly, jailed serial match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal, who has been fingered as the leader of a betting syndicate which corrupted Zimbabwe, has also been exposed as South Africa’s fixing mastermind.

Perumal organised the friendly matches at the request of Safa, before proceeding to appoint the referees, who then fixed the games for the Asian betting syndicate led by Perumal.

A Singapore-based company owned by Perumal and run by Malian-born bookmaker Gaye Allasane, Football 4U, was also reportedly involved in the Bafana fixing activities.

Allasane also featured prominently in Asiagate and was previously reported in this paper as having attempted to fix the Warriors’ pre-World Cup friendly against Japan in South Africa in 2010.