Football match in Bahrain featuring fake Togo team creates confusion
Something strange took place in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain recently. An exhibition football match was set up and took place in the country between the national team of Bahrain and the national team of Togo. Well that is where the strange part of it comes to light. It seems that the Togo team that featured in the match was made up of fake players. The players were not official Togo footballers and they may not have even been Togolese nationals. This is a very strange incident that has got both the countries investigating and it has reached the ears of the colossal football giant, FIFA. With FIFA on the trail now, the mystery should be cleared up in a few days.
On the 7th of September, a football match took place between the Bahrain national football team and what was supposed to be the Togo national football team. The match was held in Bahrain at the Riffa stadium and the Bahrainis won the match 3-0. After the match ended a few of the players and some spectators started to become suspicious of the weak playing skills of the Togo team. Questions started to be asked and the whole thing snowballed from there.
When the interim Togo Football Federation was contacted, they stated that no football match had been scheduled for their national team and their players had not travelled to Bahrain. People in both countries started to get worried, and questions about how this could have happened started flying around. The players initially started to get suspicious of the match after they were able to beat the Togo team so easily and a lot of them mentioned that the team had been playing very poorly and lacked basic football skills.
A lot of blame is also being thrown left and right in this matter at the moment. The Bahraini Football Federation is blaming the interim Togo Football Federation saying that because they have recently been appointed, they may not have been aware of the match. The Togo federation, on the other hand, is blaming the Bahraini federation for using unregulated match agents. The Bahraini side is saying that they used the same agent that they have always used when setting up exhibition matches and that the agent is one that has been approved by FIFA.
Now with FIFA getting involved, records of the match and booking fees paid to agents will have to be unearthed and FIFA will have to follow the paper trail to get to the bottom of the whole issue once and for all. This sort of an incident places a huge strain on FIFA and puts international football in a very bad light because if any country can simply start hosting matches featuring fake players the whole nature of the game will go into disrepute. This is one reason why FIFA monitors and polices the world of football with an iron fist.
A few people have mentioned some reasons that they feel could be behind sending a fake team to Bahrain. Firstly, someone may have paid off the Bahraini agent to arrange for a fake team to play in the country and since they would not need the permission of the Togo federation they could pocket the earnings from the match for themselves. Another reason could be that someone in the Bahraini federation wanted to make the Arab country’s players and team look good by beating a very weak and fake team to increase their confidence levels. The match took place right before the team started practicing for the West Asian Football Championships which begins next week. Even though these reasons are pure speculation there must be a very solid reason why someone would set up a match featuring fake players. Whatever the reason is at the end of the day, this puts the whole game of football in a fix because if one fake match can take place somewhere what is stopping other countries from doing the same.
Hopefully FIFA will sort this mess out and find out why a fake team of Togo players played at the beginning of this month. This strange situation needs a resolution because besides looking very bad for international football, a lot of curious people will want the mystery to be solved and they will want to find out what exactly happened in Bahrain.
Tags: