A Swedish court in Stockholm has cleared former Super Eagles midfielder Dickson Etuhu of any wrongdoing after he was accused of attempting to fix the result of a game.
The match-fixing incident happened back in 2017 when his former teammate said he approached him to help fix a league game between IFK Gothenburg and his former side, Stockholm’s AIK in Swedish league.
The former Fulham midfielder was said to have tried to bribe his former AIK teammate, goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos to influence the result of the game.
After the revelation by Stamatopoulos, the match was moved forward and was played weeks later.
However, a district court in Stockholm, which heard further explanation from Etuhu and Stamatopoulos last week, cleared the Nigerian of any wrongdoing, as there was not enough evidence to back Stamatopoulos’s claim.
Judge Carl Rosenmuller said: “The question in the case has been to fairly accurately determine what was said at the restaurant and then judge it legally.
“Words have been against words and the accused have completely denied that they proposed any match fix.
“Despite this, it is clear that there has been a close proximity to the goalkeeper, especially from one of the defendants, as well as the fact that this approach concerned match-fixing of the upcoming match between AIK and IFK Göteborg.
“However, it has not been proven in the case that during the conversation it has been sufficiently concrete to reach a criminal offense.”
Etuhu played for Nigeria in the 2010 World Cup and for clubs like Manchester City, Norwich, Sunderland, Fulham and Blackburn Rovers in the English premier league.
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