Soccer shocker: National football team concedes to match fixing charges

• Sagar Thapa (L.) &  Anjan KC

Online Khabar

Kathmandu, October 16. National football team captain Sagar Thapa and four other members of the team have conceded to allegations of match fixing, a day after they were arrested.

Captain Thapa, goalkeeper Ritesh Thapa, Sandeep Rai, Bikash Singh Chhetri and coach Anjan KC conceded to their involvement in match fixing in course of police investigation, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, SSP Sarbendra Khanal, said. They accepted their misdeeds and repentant, Khanal further said.

In most of the cases, match fixing occurred under captain Thapa’s instructions, Khanal informed. Since 2008, the five fixed eight games for up to Rs 10 million for each game, police found.

During the 2008 Merdeka Cup held in Malaysia, each player of the national side received $5,000 for playing a draw (2-2) with Afghanistan. Again during the 2009 SAFF Championship in Bangladesh, they received a total of $3,061 and split it among themselves, the probe revealed. While in 2011, each player accepted $5,000 for conceding 2-0 to Malaysia.

In a 2011 friendly against the Philippines, each player received $5,000. During the 2012 the Nehru Cup in India, each player was supposed to get $5,000 for engineering a 4-0 defeat against Cameroon. But the players got nothing as Nepal went down 5-0 against the African country with goalkeeper Ritesh Thapa’s substitute conceding one more goal than what was agreed upon earlier, during the dying moments of the match.

The probe has revealed that Anjan KC and Ritesh Thapa received money from Singapore nationals Titani Periyasami and Keshavan Pattan for fixing, through money transfer agencies. If convicted, each of the player may face life-term or up to 10 years imprisonment.