Salgaocar Sports Club president Shivanand V Salgaocar denied his involvement in match fixing and offered to resign if the football fraternity felt he had betrayed their trust at any point of time.
Refuting the charges made by the chairman of Fransa Pax football club Mickey Pacheco, that he [Salgaocar] being the treasurer of the All India Football Federation has influenced the referee to fix their match against them, Salgaocar challenged the organisers of any tournament to show his involvement in any such case.
On February 22, Pachecho had threatened to pull his team out of the ninth National Football League if biased refereeing continued in their remaining matches.
"This is the first time in my life that I have been accused of interfering in the result of the match by influencing the referees. We maintain a team for sheer love of the game and whilst we look forward to victories, we have never been poor losers. We play football in the spirit of the game," Salgaocar said in a statement in Margao, on Thursday.
"I have been the Goa Football Association president for nine years during the various terms and have never interfered or influenced the appointment of referees, which has always been left to the organising secretary. I challenge any referee or any of the organisers of any football tournament in India to point out any instance where I have sought to influence a referee or fix a match," he said.
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