Kenyan club accuses Ugandan coach of match-fixing

A Kenyan club owner on Thursday accused a Ugandan football coach and players of conspiring to lose games they had bet on.

Cleophas Shimanyula, who owns the Home Boyz football club in western Kakamega, accused former Uganda Cranes midfielder Paul Nkata and his assistant of receiving cash to influence the outcome of two matches in the SportPesa sponsored premier league.

After the team performed poorly, an investigation showed that Nkata, 58, who led Kenya’s Tusker club to Premiership victory in 2016, and a number of players had been placing bets and manipulating results.

“We thought the poor run was just a normal one but we … found out that our coach has been placing bets on games. He has been paying some of our players between 50,000-200,000 shillings ($500-$2,000) to lose games,” Shimanyula told reporters.

“We understand that Nkata travelled to Uganda on Monday after somebody tipped him that he was being investigated and he was to be arrested by the police.” Shimanyula told AFP.

Police said they had launched investigations into the scandal.