FIFA Writes NFF On Match Fixing Allegation

The Federation of In­ternational Football (FIFA) has formally written to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to indicate interest in the match-fixing allegation by a Singa­porean convict, Wilson Raj Perumal, who claimed to have helped Nigeria to be at the South Africa 2010 World Cup..

The world soccer governing body had in a letter to the Glass House, which the federation acknowledged the receipt on Tuesday, promised to work with the federation officials to inves­tigate the allegation, disclosing that it had referred the matter to its Ethics Committee for full investigations.

While confirming the receipt of FIFA letter yesterday in Abuja, a top management staff of the federation revealed that FIFA had promised to watch the clips of the tapes of all the Super Eagles matches and other countries in the group in the qualifiers to determine the strength of the allegation before making pronouncement on the issue.

Investigation further revealed that the world soccer governing body had written to the Football Federation of Mozambique, which Perumal allegedly paid the sum of $100,000 to its of­ficials to secure the win over Tu­nisia, a victory that saw Nigeria pick the ticket ahead of Tunisia in the group for the World Cup.

The NFF official noted that the alleged match fixer had been on the watch list of the football governing body for a long time over his past roles in match fixing before he was eventually arrested in Finland through an Interpol tip, stressing that the federation had mandated its Integrity Officer, Mohammed Sanusi, as well as its Match-fixing Investigative Officer, Christian Emeruwa, to be in constant communication with FIFA Security on match fixing matters to ensure that they dig deeper into the claim.

While dismissing the claim, the NFF officer insisted: “It is primarily not our case, since it is a World Cup match that the allegation is all about. I can confirm that we have received a correspondence from FIFA over the allegation and they have de­cided to investigate everything about it.

“We are in full support of the decision because we all know that the unfounded allegation is coming from a drowning man. But the federation has referred the matter to its Integrity and Match Fixing Investigative Of­ficers to be in continuous touch with FIFA until the end of the investigation,” he said.

Source:sunnewsonline.com