Nigeria's ex-coach Siasia protests against Fifa life ban
Saturday August 17 2019
Then Nigeria's Olympic football team head coach Samson Siasia on August 18, 2008 prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games men's semi-final football match Belgium vs Nigeria at the Shanghai Stadium. FIFA on August 16, 2019 banned him for life after the body's ethics panel found him guilty of taking bribes in connection with match fixing. PHOTO | AFP
Abuja,
Nigerian former striker and national coach Samson Siasia has denied wrongdoing after receiving a life ban from Fifa over match-fixing.
He was also fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,000, 46,000 euros).
Siasia said he was yet to be notified by Fifa of the ban and that he was never invited to tell his side of the story.
He said he was hearing about the allegations against him for the first time.
“I don’t know anything about this. I did nothing wrong and I have not received any letter from Fifa.”
“I will fight this to clear my name,” he said.
A Fifa statement on August 16, 2019 says the ban has been communicated.
Siasia was also a Nigeria Football Federation official.
Fifa found him guilty of taking bribes to fix matches, and ordered that he be barred from all football-related activities.
In a statement, the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s independent ethics committee said the probe targeting Siasia stemmed from a wider investigation involving Wilson Raj Perumal, who has confessed to international match-fixing.
The probe that began in February found Siasia “guilty of having accepted that he would receive bribes in relation to the manipulation of matches in violation of the Fifa Code of Ethics,” the statement said.
Fifa did not detail the nature of Siasia’s ties to Perumal, a Singaporean national who was arrested and jailed in Finland in 2011 for fixing top-tier football games.