Just weeks after Samson Siasia was implicated in a match fixing scandal by football governing body, FIFA, another ex-Nigeria international is in the news for similar reasons.
Former Manchester City midfielder, Dickson Etuhu has reportedly been sentenced to serve probation having been found guilty of attempted match-fixing in Sweden.
Etuhu, who represented Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2008 and 2010 as well as the World Cup in South Africa, escaped a jail sentence by whiskers after the Court of Appeal in Stockholm was convinced that Etuhu tried to influence AIK keeper Kyriakos ‘Kenny’ Stamatopoulos to fix a match in Sweden’s top division in May 2017 between AIK and IFK Gothenburg.
In the delivered judgement, the court of appeal was quoted as saying that “the content of what the men submitted to the player (Stamatopoulos) was so clear that it should be considered a criminal offer of bribe.”
The 37-year-old however insists he is innocent and has revealed that he will be appealing the judgement.
It should be noted that last year regarding the same case Etuhu was acquitted by a court which decided there was not enough evidence of a concrete monetary offer being made to Stamatopoulos, AIK’s reserve goalkeeper at the time.