Minerva Punjab owner Ranjit Bajaj has claimed that two of his players were approached with monetary offers for match-fixing and has notified the authorities of the same.
Bajaj has reported the approach to the All India Football Federation’s Integrity Officer Javed Siraj and to the Asian Football Confederation through their integrity app.
The North Indian club, based in Chandigarh, currently leads the I-League with 22 points from their 9 games and are three points ahead of second placed East Bengal with a game in hand.
Bajaj refused to reveal the identity of the two players who were approached but hoped that this problem would be solved soon. “We need to be ultra careful now that the cat’s out of the bag. It has arrived in our country; the curse of horrible people trying to ruin our beautiful game with the immediate lure of easy big money. I really hope no match officials or players fall in this trap.”
Match-fixing has plagued Indian football for quite some time now, with a couple of Calcutta Football League matches coming under the AFC’s scanner for reports of supposed fixing.
The Minerva owner claimed that his players had been offered sums of Rs 30 lakh each for a single game but the players did not respond to the approach, and reported it to Bajaj instead.
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