On Wednesday last week, an Accra High Court, while dismissing a defamation suit against the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Mr Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, stated that controversial Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas engages not in investigative journalism, but “investigative terrorism.”“I hold that the plaintiff is a blackmailer who uses blackmail to extort money from his opponents and people he does not like,” Justice Eric Baah delivered in a two-hour thirty minutes ruling, as reported by Joy Online.“What the plaintiff is doing is not investigative journalism but investigative terrorism,” Baah added, in the scathing verdict.It was Anas’ acclaimed, but equally discredited undercover investigation into match-fixing in African football, “Betraying the game”, unleashed close to the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 and aired on the BBC, that saw Aden Marwa’s peaking career as a FIFA Assistant Referee stumble and crash into smithereens just as he prepared to officiate at the biggest football stage of all.##NAJAVA_MECA_7108432##Marwa was not only struck off the World Cup roster for the Russia showpiece, but also handed a life ban from all football activities by the , a few months later, ending a shining career that had put Kenya on the global map when it comes to high level officiating.Cheche challenges football stakeholders to improve sports infrastructureThe once acclaimed, but now disgraced Marwa, was caught on camera receiving an alleged bribe of $600, around Ksh. 70,000 going by the current exchange rates, to compromise a game, allegations Marwa, who is a teacher by profession, and has since transferred from Komotobo Secondary School to Taranganya High School, has for the first time vehemently refuted.”It was a set up. I was set up by someone I called a friend, who did not want me to go to the World Cup,” Marwa told Mozzart Sport in his first media appearance since his refereeing world came crashing down five years ago.”It was at the end of our meeting that he offered me the money, and it was not a bribe, the conversation was something like, ‘why don’t you take this money at least you buy something for your family when you go back home, it’s not good to return home empty handed…’, but in the video they don’t show you what happened before, only that part when money is exchanging hands. I didn’t even know I was being recorded,” he opened up.”As an investigative journalist, why would you entice someone with a ‘soda’ as you record them and claim you have done a good job?” Aden paused.Who is Jerome Paarwater the new Kenya Simbas head coach?The court verdict on Anas’ conduct, he says, is not a surprise. “I know his dealings. He asks for you to pay if you don’t want him to release the videos.” According to Aden, he learned that he was in trouble four months after the meeting with his friend, which took place at a hotel in Morocco during the 2018 CHAN, when he was contacted by the investigators.”I have lived with pain and learnt to accept it,” the Chemistry and Mathematics teacher said.Apart from Marwa several other match officials from Ghana were also nabbed by the Anas’ expose, but he takes exception with how CAF particularly dealt with his case.”What made me very bitter is how CAF treated me. It was clear someone did not want me at CAF. They didn’t like the treatment I was getting from FIFA, “he said.While some of the cases Marwa deemed more severe and with concrete evidence only attracted five-year-bans, he was handed a life ban. “They never wanted me back ever again,” he lamented.Engin Firat delivers hard-hitting reality check on Kenyan footballAt the time of the ban, Marwa was amongst elite FIFA officials, who were pioneering Video Assistant Referees in Africa.Marwa says his effort to appeal the ban was met with rejection from the Football Kenya Federation, FKF.”When I contacted them for help, they told me ‘wewe kwenda huko, umetuhaibisha (go away, you have embarrassed us)’. There’s nothing much I could do as you know you can only reach CAF or FIFA through FKF. I resigned to my fate,” he recalls.The federation’s chief of communications Pharis Kimaru reacted to Marwa’s accusation saying, “FKF does not speak. He should specify who he talked to,” he wrote.The 46-year-old is still sharing his football knowledge, but not a “full scale”, he says, “only when I’m needed,” he concluded.
