Mystery surrounds the identity of the team claiming to represent Togo in an international friendly against Bahrain last week.
Togo’s interim soccer federation said on Tuesday the team that lost 3-0 was “completely fake,” while Bahrain insisted the game was legitimate.
Togo federation chairman Seiyi Memene said the body did not know the players that claimed to represent Togo in the match at Bahrain’s National Stadium in Riffa the previous Tuesday.
“We cannot send our players to play friendly matches abroad without the approval of FIFA,” Memene said. “The players that took part in the friendly match against Bahrain were completely fake. We have not sent any team of footballers to Bahrain. The players are not known to us.”
Nabine Gnonh, chief of staff at Togo’s sports ministry, said both the ministry and the soccer federation have now opened an investigation into the match.
Details are only just coming to light of a bizarre situation where a country may have been represented by players who are not international players, or even Togolese nationals.
“We don’t have [the] precise information at this point,” Gnonh said. “We haven’t received the list of the players who played this match and we still have to check if they were members of the national team.”
Nabine couldn’t say if regular Togo internationals had already been interviewed.
Togolese Sports Minister Christophe Tchao said his country would ask FIFA to investigate.
FIFA said on Tuesday it would not comment because it did not sanction the match.
Togo’s version of events was disputed by Sheik Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the vice president of the Bahrain Football Federation.
He said he received two letters from the Togo soccer federation saying they were sending the team and the controversy was a dispute between the Togolese sports ministry and the federation.
“Unfortunately, there was a problem with the Ministry of Sports,” Al Khalifa said. “We were dealing with the football federation, not the Ministry of Sport. FIFA only approved the game because we had formal approval from both federations.”
Al Khalifa, however, acknowledged the game did not up live up to expectations and Bahrain has launched an investigation into a FIFA-approved, Singapore-based company.
“It was a weak formal Togo team, I agree,” he said. “The coaches and the players didn’t benefit. It could have been the reserves. We actually started an investigation of the company that was dealing with this to clarify the matter.”
“There was a big fuss. Obviously, all their professionals are in Europe and they didn’t come back, but that is not our problem if there is a conflict between the Ministry of Sport and the football federation,” he said.
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