Match Fixing at the the Africa Cup of Nations… Please Don’t Be True

January 24th, 2008 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Benin coach Reinhard Fabisch claims he was approached before his team’s game against Mali and asked to fix the result. And not in a good way. “He wanted to find out from me if there was any possibility of manipulating (the match),” Fabisch told The Associated Press. “I told him, ‘Look, you have two minutes to leave the hotel or I will call the police.”’ Which we can safely assume means “no thanks,” and Fabisch immediately warned his players about the approach.

Benin lost the game 1-0 to a Fredi Kanoute penalty, which obviously everyone will look at with a bit more suspicion now.

Go ahead, take a look for yourself. My feeling is that Alain Gaspoz was unlucky to concede the penalty, but it doesn’t look particularly dodgy on either Gaspoz or the referee’s part. It looks like a slightly clumsy tackle from a nearly 40 years old man. And though Benin keeper Rachad Chitou fails to dive for the penalty he did genuinely seem to be wrong-footed by Kanoute. The man takes a mean penalty. On top of that, Rachaad also made some good saves throughout the match.

But if Fabisch was approached then it’s likely others were too. While it’s depressing that this has come out just as the tournament is getting really, really good, at least it’s out in the open. Now all we can do is cross our fingers that no players, coaches or referees are involved, and see how this one unfolds over the next couple of days.

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