Five Nepal football players arrested on match-fixing charges

Nepali police arrested five former and current national football team players, including the captain, on Wednesday on charges of match fixing, in another blow to the country’s embattled governing body.

Nepali police arrested five former and current national football team players, including the captain, on Wednesday on charges of match fixing, in another blow to the country’s embattled governing body.

A member of the Nepal men’s football team (blue) in action during a South Asian Football Confederation Championship match against Pakistan. (PTI Photo)

Captain 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 told Reuters. “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.”

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.

ANFA officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

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.

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