It was a brutal defeat for Myanmar, the biggest victory in their opponent’s history, and the final nail in the coffin for the losing coach.
Now the 7-0 loss to Kyrgyzstan is the centre of a match fixing investigation.
FIFA, the world governing body of football, and the Asian Football Confederation, have sent officials to probe whether the outcome of the match was dishonestly predetermined, Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) president U Zaw Zaw told local media.
“It is normal that FIFA initiate an investigation in matches with big goal margins,” he told news outlet Eleven Myanmar. “We helped them in the investigation.”
Such an overwhelming result between two teams placed low in the FIFA rankings caused suspicious, said Zaw Zaw. Myanmar is currently ranked 136 while Kyrgyzstan is ranked 96.
The two teams met in the second round of qualifiers of the Asian confederation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the Kyrgyz Republic on October 10.
Going into the match-up, Myanmar was on a three-loss slide to China, Japan, and minnows Mongolia—all under Miodrag Radulovic, who was named head coach in April 2019.
Ten days after the massive defeat, MFF announced it parted ways with the Montenegrin coach by mutual agreement between the two parties.
Myanmar fans were shocked at their side’s heaviest international defeat since 2015. More unwelcome news may be contained in a report on the match, which Zaw Zaw said would be released after the investigation.
