The Bhutan Football Federation (BFF) banned the owner of the Druk Stars Football Club from Football for a lifetime. This is as per the final verdict issued by the BFF recently. He was found involved and guilty in an alleged match-fixing in the Bhutan Premier League 2020 held last year. Seen as one of the biggest problems in organised sports, match-fixing is when the outcome of a match has been manipulated for a team to advance or for gambling.
Initially, as per the letter issued by the Discipline Committee of the BFF last year, the owner was banned for seven years and asked to pay a fine of Nu 250,000. The BFF also decided that he will not be permitted to own a football club hereafter. He was however eligible to manage a club but with a condition that he will only be allowed to manage a B-division club. And as for the club, the club was allowed to play the remaining matches of the league last year and was to be demoted to a B-division league this year.
Not happy with the verdict, the management and the executive committee of the Bhutan Football Federation re-appealed to the Appeal Committee.
“The verdict from the discipline committee which was to ban him for seven years has been changed because the management and the executive committee thought that it was not really fair or a very strong judgment that has been passed by the discipline committee. So, the management and the executive committee have written to the discipline committee and also to the appeal committee. So the appeal committee has decided to ban the owner of the club for a lifetime from football,” said Phuntsho Wangdi, the Head of Commercial and Communication with the BFF.
Likewise, the BFF also decided to dissolve the Druk Stars Football Club as well.
“The club will be dissolved as well with the banning of the owner. But we are looking into what to do with players of the club. We will look for other clubs so that the players can play for other clubs. But as far as we are a concern, Druk Stars FC won’t be functioning as a football club anymore,” he added.
Founded in 1998, Druk Stars FC is one of the oldest football clubs in the country. BBS tried contacting the club owner for comments.
Passang Dorji
