FIFA Wants Bulgaria's Report over 'Rigged' Friendly Probe

Latvia's Oskars Klava, right, vies for the ball with Jhasmany Campos of Bolivia during last week's friendly in Turkey. Photo by Getty Images

FIFA has approached the Bulgarian football federation, asking for the match report from the friendly against Estonia, as it probes allegations of a possible manipulation.

"We can confirm that FIFA has requested the match report from the federations," a FIFA spokesperson told CNN.

"At the moment we don't have much more information. We can only say we have started an investigation and we require the reports from all federations."

The Bulgarian and Estonian football federations approached the European and world governing bodies after the match ended 2-2 with all four goals coming from the penalty spot.

The game was organized by the Thailand-based agency "Footy Sport International", while Russian Sergey Protsenko acted as an intermediary despite not holding a license by a FIFA manager.

The same people organized the previous match between Latvia and Bolivia, in which all three goals were also scored from penalties. Latvia beat Bolivia 2-1 in a friendly in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya just before the Bulgaria-Estonia game.

Spokesman Mihkel Uiboleht said last Thursday that his Estonian Football Association had been informed about "possible manipulation" after the matches.

"The friendly was organized by an agency with whom we will not work any more," he said in quotes reported by the UK Press Association.

"We received information of possible manipulation even before the game as the same agency also organized the match between Latvia and Bolivia and there was the same scenario there."

Hungarian referee Krisztian Selmeczi, who was in charge of both matches, has been suspended in the wake of the scandal.

"We don't know this referee and we can't say he acted intentionally when awarding the penalties," said BFU vice-president Atanas Furnadzhiev.

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