Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Fake Togo team play friendly against Bahrain

What a great scam, better they pocketed tonnes in expenses :

Togo's football authorities are investigating allegations that a fake national team played a match against Bahrain earlier this month.

Bahrain won the friendly match 3-0, but said they were surprised by the poor quality of the Togolese team.

Togo later said it had never sent its national team to play in the game, staged at the national stadium in Riffa on 7 September.

Togo's sports minister said he would ask Fifa to investigate.

But Fifa says it has not yet received any official complaint and so has not launched its own investigation.

The match took place as Bahrain prepares to play in the West Asian Football Championships, which begin on 24 September.

The Bahrain Football Association (BFA) said it had been arranged under all the usual official procedures, and through an agent they had known for several years.

Togo's Sport Minister Christophe Tchao told the Jeune Afrique magazine nobody in Togo had "ever been informed of such a game".

"We will conduct investigations to uncover all those involved in this case," he said.

Bahrain's head coach, Josef Hickersberger, told the Gulf Daily News the match had been a wasted opportunity for the team to practise before the West Asian championships.

"They were not fit enough to play 90 minutes - the match was very boring," he said.

"Basically it was not good for us because we wanted to get information about the strength of our team, especially playing with many of our professionals."

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