The Nigerian FA has dismissed suggestions that last Wednesday’s match against Argentina was fixed and insists they are ready to assist football’s world governing body FIFA in its quest to investigate the matter.

FIFA had earlier stated that it was investigating unusual betting patterns relating to the Super Eagles’ 4-1 win over the Argentines in Abuja. This was mostly because when the score was 4-0, a large number of bets were placed on there being a fifth goal which eventually arrived after Mauro Boselli scored a contentious penalty.

Although only five minutes of injury time was shown by the fourth official, eight minutes had elapsed before the Nigerien referee Ibrahim Chaibou pointed to the penalty spot.

The Nigerian FA, through a statement signed by its acting secretary general, Musa Amadu, however expressed concern at the development which it feels are moves by “unscrupulous elements” aimed at downplaying Nigeria’s historic win over the South Americans.

Unaware

“We are unaware of any suspicious motives in this game. The game was competitive enough, and our team showed resolve,” the statement read in part.

“We also believe that the Argentina team came in and showed a clear intention to win that game, and we are therefore disturbed by the allegations of match-fixing that is seen by us as a calculated attempt at ruining our moment of triumph.

“We won this match fair and square, against an Argentina team that also came to play and win, and there remains, to the best of our knowledge, no untoward motives to this game than to play it fairly and win it fairly.”

The statement added: “We will do everything we can to assist FIFA in their investigations into this matter, and we would also set up an internal enquiry to look into this match. We will put all these measures in place in the spirit of fair play and transparency,” the Nigeria FA disclosed.

Referee Chaibou awarded Argentina a penalty for handball but television replays showed that the ball had hit Joseph Yobo’s shin and diverted to Ambrose Efe, whom it hit in the stomach. However, the whistle appeared to had been blown right after the ball hit Yobo.

FIFA is assembling as much data as it can about the game and confirmed that it “will be working closely with colleagues at the Fifa Early Warning System” to see the unusual fluctuations in betting patterns and how they tally with its wider investigation.

It will be recalled that Chaibou was in charge of the September 7 friendly between Bahrain and a ‘fake’ Togo team, another game under FIFA investigation.

 

Posted by admin on Jun 8 2011. Filed under Headlines, Soccer, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry