KATHMANDU: The captain of Nepal’s football team was among five current and former internationals who have been arrested over allegations of match-fixing on Wednesday, in another blow to the country’s embattled football association.

Skipper Sagar Thapa, Sandip Rai, Ritesh Thapa, Bikash Singh Chhetri and Anjan KC were arrested on charges of alleged match-fixing from 2008, SSP Sarbendra Khanal of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division said.

“From preliminary examinations of the players’ accounts, we found connections to known match-fixers in Malaysia and Singapore,” said Khanal.

“It seems that these players were involved in a deep network of brokers and fixers in other countries.”

While charges are still to be finalised, Khanal said prosecutors would seek a severe punishment because it was a crime against the state.

Khanal said investigations were still at a preliminary stage and added he was not in a position to disclose whether officials from the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA), the country’s governing body would also be implicated.

Khanal said the alleged match-fixing included matches played against Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Police said they monitored the players for weeks after they received information about their involvement in match-fixing and contacts with international bookmakers.

Police have seized their financial records and bank statements as evidence.

ANFA said that all of the accused would be suspended pending the outcome of the police investigation, and expressed sadness at the allegations.

“We are surprised and deeply saddened by these arrests and we will be helping the police with their investigations,” Indra Man Tuladhar, the chief executive of the ANFA, said.

“We will also be holding our own internal investigation. In the meantime, the players will be suspended from all football activities, and if proven guilty, we will take the requisite action against them.”

The match-fixing charges emerge with football in the country in turmoil since world governing body FIFA last year launched an investigation into financial irregularities during president Ganesh Thapa’s reign at ANFA.

Long serving president and former national captain Thapa is fighting a court battle against four vice presidents he fired from the organisation earlier this year.

Last year, officials from ANFA asked FIFA to investigate the Nepali governing body.

Thapa, a former Asian Football Confederation vice president, voluntarily stepped down and refrained from all soccer activities for 120 days late last year while FIFA probed accusations of misconduct from his colleagues at ANFA.

The FIFA Ethics Committee is yet to make a judgment on the case.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2015

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