The Togo team that lost 3-0 to Bahrain in an international friendly last week was “completely fake,” the chairman of Togo's interim football federation told The Associated Press Tuesday. Seiyi Memene said the federation did not know the players that claimed to represent Togo in the match at Bahrain's National Stadium in Riffa last Tuesday. “We cannot send our players to play friendly matches abroad without the approval of FIFA,” Memene told the AP. “The players that took part in the friendly match against Bahrain were completely fake. We have not sent any team of footballers to Bahrain. The players are not known to us.” Nabine Gnonh, chief of staff at Togo's Sports Ministry, said both the ministry and the football federation have now opened an investigation into the match. Details are only just coming to light of a bizarre situation where a country may have been represented by players who are not international footballers, or even Togolese nationals. “We don't have precise information at this point,” Gnonh said. “We haven't received the list of the players who played this match and we still have to check if they were members of the national team.” Nabine couldn't say if regular Togo internationals had already been interviewed. Togo Sports Minister Christophe Tchao told the AP that his country will ask FIFA to investigate. Under FIFA rules, national teams are free to arrange their own friendly matches and even play in a neutral country if they choose. However, FIFA does collect a tax from match revenues and also requires that friendlies between teams from two different continents are arranged by match agents it has licensed. Match agent licenses can only be held by individuals, not companies, and must be approved by the FIFA players' status committee, which is chaired by Geoff Thompson, England's representative on FIFA's ruling executive.
