FSF blames Diouf for riot
Senegal football federation (FSF) president Augustin Senghor said Saturday’s match incidents were a sabotage carefully planned by those who wanted to destroy the nation’s football and bring discredit to the body.
The FSF boss said an individual ordered match tickets to distribute to ruffians purposely to disrupt the encounter between Senegal and Ivory Coast in the return leg of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations final qualifying round, which unfortunately was called off in the 76th minute after violence broke our at the 60,000 seater Leopold Senghor Stadium in Dakar.
“We strongly believe it was an act of sabotage set up by an individual or group of persons to destabilise Senegal’s football,” Senghor said.
“Someone ordered many tickets for hooligans to disrupt the meeting at the stadium. They want to soil the reputation of our football. They want our home ground to be suspended by CAF. They were simply wishing us failure so that they can criticise us before the fans and the entire nation,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Leeds United winger El Hadji Diouf declared that the FA impounded the 1,000 tickets he had ordered to distribute to his fans for the game, on suspicion that the player wanted to recruit hooligans to disrupt the match.
According to sources close to the FSF, Diouf was the only individual that paid for such a high number of tickets for the game.
However, the player has denied any involvement in the violence, calling on the government to dismiss all the members of the FA and name a new group to overhaul the country’s football system.
