FIFA writes Nigerian Football Federation over match fixing allegation

The Federation of International Football (FIFA) has formally written to the Nigeria Football Federation to indicate interest in the match-fixing allegation by a Singaporean convict, Wilson Raj Perumal, over a 2010 World Cup qualifier match involving the Mozambique and Tunisia national teams.

The world soccer governing body had in a letter to the Glass House, which the federation acknowledged the receipt of on Tuesday, promised to work with the federation officials to investigate the allegation, disclosing that it has referred the matter to its Ethics Committee for full investigations.

According to an online medium, Eagleonline, while confirming the receipt of FIFA letter on Wednesday in Abuja, a top management staff of the federation revealed that FIFA has promised to watch the clips of the tapes of all the Super Eagles matches and other countries in the group in the qualifiers to determine

the strength of the allegation before making pronouncement on the issue.
Investigation further revealed that the world soccer governing body has written to the Football Federation of Mozambique, which Perumal allegedly paid $100,000

to its officials to secure the win over Tunisia and saw Nigeria pick the ticket ahead of Tunisia in the group for the World Cup.

The NFF officer stressed that the federation has mandated its Integrity Officer, Mohammed Sanusi, as well as its Match-fixing Investigative Officer, Christian

Emeruwa, to be in constant communication with the FIFA Security Committee on Match Fixing Matters to ensure that they dig deeper into the claim.

While dismissing the claim, the NFF officer insisted: “It is primarily not our case, since it is a World Cup match that the allegation is all about. I can confirm that we have received a correspondence from FIFA over the allegation and they have decided to investigate everything about it.”