When the professional league committee of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) was announcing the 'noi-guilty* verdict in the prolonged match-fixing investigation into clubs Brothers Union and Rahmatganj MFS, a new and darker revelation emerged as Brothers Union manager Amer Khan declared on TV that he was forced to play a fixed match against eventual champions Abahani.
Amer claimed in an interview given to satellite television Ekattor TV on Sunday, aired yesterday, that his side had deliberately lost against Abahani on May 26, 2012 as he was told to do so by an
influential member of the club on request from Abahani.
Without naming names and alluding to the investigation against the Rahmatganj-Brothers match which took place on April 26 this year, Amer said, “Everyone has their fingers raised against a relegation-threatened club, but no one dares to do so against the champions,” Amer said, pointing the finger at the Abahani-Brothers match. "Is it too difficult to understand how we lost 2-4 against Abahani when they were playing with 10 men? We had to do so because there were specific instructions given to us to lose. When an influential political leader tells you to throw away the match, what else could you do?”
Amer could not have been any more blatant in his accusations as he said that it was on the request of some influential person from the Abahani club that the instruction was relayed to him. However, Amers opposite number, Abahani manager Satyajit Das Rupu was quick to deny any wrongdoing and challenged the Brothers manager to produce evidence.
“These allegations are completely fabricated, baseless and borne out of ill-motive. This is a plot to tarnish the image of the club (Abahani). I challenge him to produce concrete evidence of his allegations or else we will take measures against him," said Rupu to the same TV channel.
No matter what comes out of this new revelation, Amer’s allegations are the biggest twist in the match-fixing saga since last year's revelations by the then Muktijoddha coach Maruful Haque who had admitted to the media about being asked by a Rahmatganj official to throw a match. The Muktijoddha coach, for his honesty and naivety, had to serve a three-month suspension, but at the same time succeeded in compelling football's governing body to rethink their stance on match-fixing and at least admit that matches were being fixed or at least 'compromised' under their very noses. It remains to be seen whether Amer’s revelations can bring about any changes in BFF's nonchalant approach this time around.