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Nigeria: Match Fixing Scamthreatens Siasia's Beijing Plans
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This Day (Lagos)
28 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008
Lagos
Samson Siasia's preparations for the men's Olympic football tournament are under threat as Malaysian football authorities consider scrapping or postponing upcoming international tournaments.
The move is being considered because of alleged match-fixing by local players, a Malaysian newspaper has reported.
Khairy Jamaluddin, deputy president of the Football Association of Malaysia, has warned officials may cancel the Inter-Continental Cup Under-23 that Malaysia plans to host next month.
"The nation's image will be tarnished if any of the national players are hauled up by the authorities during this international tournament," he was quoted as saying.
The eight-team tournament is due to be part of Nigeria's preparations for the Olympic tournament in China, Ghana is also due to take part in Malaysia.
Dream Team IV Coach Siasia is hoping to use the tournament to look at some new players.
"There are several players we hope to bring into the team and this tournament gives us the chance to look at them," he told BBC Sport.
As well as the two African nations the Inter-Continental Cup is scheduled to feature Malaysia, Argentina, Australia, Croatia, Iraq and Ireland.
Siasia's team is billed to take on hosts Malaysia, Ireland and Iraq in Group A of the event.
The other group will see Ghana play Argentina, Croatia and Australia.
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Should the tournament be called off it will be second set back Siasia is facing in his efforts to build a formidable squad which can replicate the gold winning performance of Dream Team I after the American embassy declined to give his team visas to take part in a tournament which took place in the US some months ago
Nigeria has been drawn against Holland, USA and Japan in Group B of the men's football tournaments at the Olympic Games in August.
Dream Team IV is also scheduled to head to Portugal in June to continue their build up for the Olympics.
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