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Apologies to any others who've already seen it but this piece amused me from the Guardian's excellent Fiver mailout last night:
Speaking as a teatimely football email that only this morning assured its boss it was "popping downstairs for coffee" before returning four hours later reeking of Purple Tin and staggering like a three-legged goat, the Fiver's in no position to dispense lectures on the art of subtle chicanery. No, for tips of that sort you want to talk to Bernard Tapie, who in 1993 discreetly bribed Valenciennes players to throw a match versus his beloved Marseille - and he would have got away with it too, if it weren't for some meddling whistleblower.
One of the players in that Marseille side was Ghanaian great Abedi Pele, who, funnily enough, now finds himself having to reject claims that not only has he been copying Tapie's tricks but has been doing so in the most cackhandedly blatant way possible. Pele set up FC Nania back in his homeland 10 years ago and last month the club stood on the verge of reaching the country's top flight for the first time. Going into the last day of the season, Nania were level on points with Great Mariners, with both sides knowing goal difference could be crucial in deciding who gets promoted. Mariners duly found the net 28 times without reply in an obviously above-board victory over Mighty Jets - only to be pipped to the top by Nania, who squeezed past Okwawu United 31-0. Both matches had been 1-0 at half-time.
Somehow sensing foul play was afoot, the Ghanaian FA launched an immediate investigation and quickly concluded that money had changed hands at half-time in both games. It demoted and fined all four teams and suspended 46 players and officials for a year. All have protested their innocence and vowed to appeal, not least Pele, who insists that his side's second-half rampage can be explained by the simple fact that Okwawu were down to seven men following genuine injuries to four players, including their first- and second-choice keepers.
"My contention is that while the scoreline may raise eyebrows, it doesn't provide irrefutable proof that the match was fixed," he howled. "I've never even met the Okwawu chairman," continued Pele, who also claimed he'd left the stadium long before the match's curious denouement - which, of course, means that when his brother, Solar Ayew, described him being carried shoulder-high across the pitch by jubilant fans after the final whistle he was gravely mistaken.
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