Erstwhile Super Eagles midfielder, Dickson Etuhu, is alleged to be in the centre of a match-fixing scandal rocking Swedish football.
Etuhu, 35, made 33 appearances for Nigeria, featuring at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Currently a free agent, the ex-Manchester City star, was questioned by police in the Scandinavian nation over allegations during his time at AIK Stockholm.
The Times claims that he attended an interview voluntarily and was quizzed under caution about Gothenburg’s postponed match against AIK in May.
The match – one of the biggest of the season in the Swedish top-flight league – was called off after AIK goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos told authorities he’d been approached two days before kick-off by an unnamed former team-mate.
The 38-year-old Greek-Canadian reserve keeper claimed that he was offered around £180,000 to “underperform” when he was due to step in after an injury to the club’s No.1.
Wages in Sweden are considerably less than in the Premier League – with players earning around £2,000 a week.
The Swedish FA’s secretary general Hakan Sjostrand claimed the person at the centre of the allegations was offered a “very large amount of money” and talked of alleged “veiled threats”.
He told The Times: “It was a mixture of money and concrete threats, special circumstances that convinced me that we cannot play this match. We needed to protect this goalkeeper – what would happen if he made a mistake.
“This was important for the game and the reputation of football. It is not football that creates this match-fixing problem, it is betting.”
Quizzed on Swedish TV, Stamatopoulos said only: “I just hope the right thing happens.
“What happened was a shock and now the procedure has been dealt with in a good manner and I just hope the outcome is good, of any kind that is.”
Etuhu’s lawyer didn’t respond to requests for a comment by The Times.
A decision on charges, if any, is expected within weeks.
Etuhu spent almost all his playing career in England – kitting for City, Blackburn Rovers, Fulham, Sunderland, Norwich City and Preston North end.
