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Bahrain National Soccer Team Gets Punked, “Beats” Fake Opponent

Usually a 3-0 Bahrain win over Togo won’t make it into your sports section here in the United States.  But when a fake agent may have somehow tricked the Bahrain Football Federation into playing a team full of impostors, you may have one of the most hilarious sports practical jokes of all time.  From ESPN’s Soccernet:

A “fake” Togo national team played against Bahrain in an international friendly last week, prompting an investigation from the African nation’s sports ministry and FIFA.

Bahrain beat who they thought was the Togo national team 3-0 in Bahrain last Tuesday, but Togo officials have claimed to have no knowledge of the match. It has emerged the players may not have been professional footballers or even Togolese nationals, but mystery still surrounds their true identity.

Togo is perhaps best known as a surprise qualifier for the 2006 World Cup and Bahrain is a constant threat to advance out of Asian qualifying, so it’s not as if the match could fly completely under the radar.  But the “loss” certainly came as a surprise to Togo sports minister Christophe Chao, who apparently had no knowledge  that a game was even scheduled.

Everything looked legit to Bahrain, who received approval from what they thought was Togo’s football governing body.  It wasn’t until shortly before kickoff when the “Togo” pulled the old switcheroo – all 18 players who dressed for the match were different from the team roster that was given to their opponents in the planning stages.

After Bahrain cruised to a 3-0 win they rightfully began to wonder why the victory was so easy.  Maybe it was the fact that they played a bunch of stiffs with Togo jerseys on, and all that was missing was a laughing Ashton Kutcher bursting into the victorious locker room.

UPDATE

Good God Almighty – consider the plot thickened.  There are reports that the team, and possibly the referees at the game, were part of an elaborate gambling scam from Asia, through the help of a previously trusted agent.  More from The Daily Telegraph: 

But The Daily Telegraph has learned from sources close to the BFA that the agent behind the friendly match was named as Wilson Raj Perumal, who has a conviction for match fixing and has failed to answer bail in his native Singapore, where he has been convicted on an unrelated matter.

In 1995 Mr Perumal was jailed for a year for match-fixing and he is currently under investigation by the football authorities in Zimbabwe after allegedly taking a club side to Malaysia last year and passing the players off as the national team.

This is quickly becoming one of the best sports scams of all time.

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