A senior official in football governing body FIFA on Monday urged Zimbabwean players and officials involved in match fixing to tell the truth if they wanted to get less harsh treatment.

“Do it now, while you still can,” FIFA security chief Chris Eaton said.

Ending a three-day visit to Zimbabwe, he told journalists that it was “time for people implicated to come and tell the truth.” While not offering “an amnesty as such,” he said, “that they come now we may assist them in what may occur to them afterwards.”   

Since July, a number of Zimbabwe footballers and officials have been under FIFA investigation over an alleged match-fixing scam in Asia involving the national team. National team members and officials are accused of travelling to Asia to throw games between 2007-10.

Former Zimbabwe national team captain and coach Sunday Chidzambwa and several top players are said to have taken bribes, the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) said in a report, naming London-based Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal, who was arrested in February, as the main contact person in the group for fixing matches in Malaysia, Thailand and Syria.

Eaton said the “extensive” investigations had widened, with Perumal’s past movements around the world being tracked to numerous  countries.

“This is transcontinental, not transnational,” said Eaton.

“Clearly there are some limitations to this case. This is global  conspiracy. There are some enquiries beyond the borders of Zimbabwe, which is the reason why you need to involve Interpol, because you are talking Central America, Eastern Europe and South-East Asia.”   

He revealed that Zimbabwean police chief Augustine Chihuri had indicated that he had alerted Interpol.

Henrietta Rushwaya, a ZIFA official named in the report, was sacked last year for sending teams to Asia without authorisation.

The report did not say how much money was paid in bribes.

Eaton said governments worldwide needed to tighten laws on sports gambling.

“The reason why we have match fixing today is besides popularity  of soccer, we regulate football and not gambling. Governments must regulate gambling,” he said.

“We are talking of a (gambling) business worth between half a trillion and 1 trillion dollars a year. That is twice the size of football.”