SC Kiyovu expel goalkeeper over ‘match-fixing’ allegations

TURBO KING National Football League side SC Kiyovu has expelled their goalkeeper Andre Mpazimpaka over alleged match fixing following their 3-0 defeat to Mukura last weekend. Also suspended are the Burundian pair of Yussuf Munyakazi, Christian Mbirizi and Ugandan defender Deogratius Othieno over what club officials called ‘intolerable indiscipline. “Mpazimaka was reported by his teammates to have accepted money from Mukura to throw the match,” SC Kiyovu president Jean Pierre Kayumba told Times Sport yesterday. Kayumba noted that the Club had to act quickly pending investigations into the matter. However, when contacted, Mukura Secretary General Emmanuel Ntakirutimana refuted the allegations. “Those reports are not true. We believe in winning, losing and drawing. We have had poor results in the past but that doesn’t mean that we can’t beat any team genuinely,” Ntakirutimana said when contacted yesterday before adding, “In the matches against Musanze and Kiyovu, we played good football and we deserved to win. So those match fixing allegations are baseless.” Similar claims The reports come a few days after another league club Musanze sacked head coach Barak Hussein, his assistant coach Maurice Nshimiyimana and suspended team captain Hitimana Omar over allegations that they received bribes to throw the Mukura game, which the former also won 3-0. Also early this month, Espoir Football Club management handed their head coach Emmanuel Ruremesha a two-match ban after losing three consecutive games. Club insiders said, the coach was suspected of ‘fixing’ the matches. According to Espoir president Godefroid Kamuzinzi, the club commissioned an investigation into the circumstances of the defeats against Amagaju, Muhanga and Esperance. To date, the outcome of the investigation has not been made public. In 2012, former Rayon Sports and Amavubi Stars coach Jean Marie Ntagwabira was suspended for two years after confessing that, he was involved in match-fixing during his time as SC Kiyovu coach.