A UK newspaper, The Telegraph has accused the Ghana Football Association and its President, Kwesi Nyantakyi of involving in match fixing deals.<\/p>\n
According to the newspaper report, “the President of Ghana\u2019s Football Association agreed for the team to play in international matches that others were prepared to rig. ”<\/p>\n
This was revealed after an\u00a0undercover investigation by The Telegraph and Channel 4\u2019s Dispatches programme.<\/p>\n
The report further stated that it\u00a0cost “$170,000 (\u00a3100,000) for each match organised by the fixers involving the Ghanaian team, and would allow a bogus investment firm \u200bto appoint match officials, in breach of Fifa rules.”<\/p>\n
Find below the full story…<\/strong><\/p>\n Ghana has been exposed as agreeing to take part in international football matches organised by match fixers.<\/p>\n An undercover investigation by The Telegraph and Channel 4\u2019s Dispatches programme found that the President of Ghana\u2019s Football Association agreed for the team to play in international matches that others were prepared to rig.<\/p>\n The team is currently competing in the World Cup finals in Brazil, and on Saturday pulled off a 2-2 draw against Germany, in what was seen as one of the most entertaining games of the tournament so far.<\/p>\n However, it can now be revealed that the African team had been lined up to play in international fixtures whose results would be fixed by corrupted officials.<\/p>\n The Telegraph and Channel 4\u2019s Dispatches launched a six-month investigation into match-fixing after receiving information that some football associations were working with criminal gangs looking to rig scores in international games.<\/p>\n Reporters from The Telegraph and a former Fifa investigator claimed they represented an investment company that wanted to \u201csponsor\u201d games. Christopher Forsythe, a registered Fifa agent, along with Obed Nketiah, a senior figure in the Ghanaian FA, boasted that they could employ corrupt officials who would rig matches played by Ghana.<\/p>\n The president of the country\u2019s football association then met the undercover reporter and investigator, along with Mr Forsythe and Mr Nketiah, and agreed a contract which would see the team play in the rigged matches, in return for payment<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The contract stated that it would cost $170,000 (\u00a3100,000) for each match organised by the fixers involving the Ghanaian team, and would allow a bogus investment firm \u200bto appoint match officials, in breach of Fifa rules.<\/p>\n \u201cYou [the company] will always have to come to us and say how you want it to go\u2026the result,\u201d said Mr Forsythe. \u201cThat\u2019s why we will get the officials that we have greased their palms, so they will do it. If we bring in our own officials to do the match\u2026You\u2019re making your money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to give them [the referees] something\u2026 they are going to do a lot of work for you, so you have to give them something,\u201d said Mr Nketiah, who is also the chief executive of the Ghanaian football club Berekum Chelsea and sits on the management committee of the Ghana U20 national team.<\/p>\n Mr Forsythe said that match fixing was \u201ceverywhere\u201d in football and that he could even arrange rigged matches between Ghana and British teams. \u201cThe referees can change the matches every time. Even in England it does happen,\u201d he said. Following the meeting in London, the representative of the investment firm asked if his company could be sure their approach would work.<\/p>\n Mr Forsythe replied: \u201cWe will always choose associations\/countries that we think we can corrupt their officials for all our matches.\u201d<\/p>\n He listed a number of African and European countries, adding \u201cwe can look for match officials who will sing to our tune\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr Forsythe and Mr Nketiah then introduced the undercover reporters to Kwesi Nyantakyi, the president of the Ghana FA, at a five-star hotel in Miami earlier this month shortly before his team played South Korea in Miami before heading to Brazil.<\/p>\n During the meeting in Florida, the president agreed to a contract that stated each match would cost the investment company $170,000 and that they could appoint the match officials for each game. A contract was drawn up that specified that \u201cThe Company will appoint and pay for the cost of the referees\/match officials in consultation with an agreed Fifa Member association(s),\u201d in direct breach of the rules that prohibit third parties from appointing officials, in order to protect their impartiality. During the meeting, the president suggested that the fictional investment company put on two matches after the World Cup to prove that they were able to organise games.<\/p>\n \u200b\u201cSo why don\u2019t you arrange matches?\u201d said Mr Nyantakyi. \u201cLet\u2019s say there should be an experimental period for us to see how we do your work? There is an opportunity in August, and then in December, but I don\u2019t know about that. But these months appear to be the only time that we can have any opportunity to play friendly games.\u201d<\/p>\n When a reporter asked if the president was happy with the contract, as long as it reflected the experimental period he had requested, he replied, \u201cYeah these are the issues that I\u2019ve got with it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo we can work on that with a trial game?\u201d asked the investigator.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d replied the president.<\/p>\n Premier League stars were due to play in matches which will not now take place.<\/p>\n Ghana\u2019s football stars include the ex-Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien and former Tottenham Hotspur player Kevin-Prince Boateng, although there is no suggestion that either, or any other player, is involved in match-fixing.<\/p>\n Last week saw the first convictions in the modern era of criminals in this country for attempting to rig football matches, following an earlier investigation by this newspaper.<\/p>\n Chann Sankaran and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, businessmen from Singapore, and Michael Boateng, a former professional footballer, were found guilty after a six-week trial.<\/p>\n Sankaran and Ganeshan were sentenced to five years and Boateng 18 months. Sankaran and Ganeshan have links to the notorious international match fixer Wilson Raj Perumal, and were said to be attempting to establish a network of corrupt footballers in Britain.<\/p>\n Last month, The Telegraph revealed police concerns over attempts to fix a game between Nigeria and Scotland that was due to be played in London. Officers from the National Crime Agency, Britain\u2019s equivalent of the FBI which investigates organised crime, are understood to have asked Fifa to issue an alert over attempts to rig the game.<\/p>\n Terry Steans, a former Fifa investigator, said that the World Cup is \u201cvulnerable\u201d to match fixing.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that the World Cup is vulnerable to these criminal gangs because they have existing networks of contacts at all levels inside the game and they will look for any vulnerability they can find to exploit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMatch-fixing is widespread. It is happening at every level and in many countries. Match-fixing syndicates with criminal intent have infiltrated all levels of football and sport from national, regional and onto international. Fifa needs to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n The revelations will heap further pressure on Fifa, which is facing huge controversy over its management of international football. Over the last month, Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, has faced calls to stand down after it emerged the former Qatari executive committee member had made millions of dollars in payments to Fifa officials.<\/p>\n In March, The Telegraph revealed that the same official had paid Jack Warner, one of the people that participated in the decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup, $1.2\u2009million shortly after the vote.<\/p>\n When they were confronted about their operation, both Mr Forsythe and Mr Nketiah denied any involvement in a plot to fix matches. Mr Nketiah said: \u201cThese are false allegations and I will never in my life do such a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of a statement, Mr Forsythe, said: \u201cTo be frank everything I told you about the match fixing was a figment of my own imagination because I am so naive that I don\u2019t even know how matches are done. They were promises just to be able to get something off you.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Nyantakyi said that he had not read the contract and he did not know about the deal to fix games. He said that the proposed match would have been handled by a licensed Fifa match agent and that he was unaware that Mr Forsythe had demanded \u00a330,000 for the football association.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Credit: The Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A UK newspaper, The Telegraph has accused the Ghana Football Association and its President, Kwesi Nyantakyi of involving in match fixing deals. According to the newspaper report, “the President of Ghana\u2019s Football Association agreed for the team to play in international matches that others were prepared to rig. ” This was revealed after an\u00a0undercover investigation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":26531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[43,38,1468,1469,1082,114],"yoast_head":"\n