Afghan football chief accused of seeking $10,000 bribe for national team place

The president of the Afghanistan football federation (AFF) has been accused of demanding a $10,000 (£7,400) bribe to secure a spot for a player on the national team. In leaked recordings, Mohammad Yousef Kargar is heard discussing how to transfer the payment with the brother of Nesar Ahmad Mohmand, who was being considered for a spot in the team’s training camp in Thailand.

Kargar has denied the allegations and claimed the recordings were “nothing but conspiracies and fabrications”.

Mehman, who plays in the second tier of Australian football, was spotted at the end of last year during an annual tournament in Melbourne organised by the Afghan diaspora. Kargar invited him to join up with the national team for the training camp in March and sent an invitation letter to his club, Stockton Sharks. But in recordings aired this month by Afghanistan International TV – which is based in London and has been banned by the Taliban – Kargar is heard asking for the $10,000 payment to be transferred to the account of one of his close associates.

“Once it arrives on Saturday, I will inform the coach, and then he can proceed with the arrangements,” he says in one recording made public. “We will say that $10,000 was donated to the national team,” he says in another. “However, the player will still be selected. In the future, we will try to establish a one-year protocol. Once the invitation is confirmed, the coach will decide. You know for the match against Myanmar it won’t be possible, but for the game against Syria in June, we will register him early so he is fixed in the lineup.”

In a third recording, Kargar, president of the AFF since 2019, appears to accept a reduced fee that he says will cover visa costs for the trip to Thailand. “OK, no problem. I had said $10,000, you said $5,000. Add another $1,500 on top, because we need it for the visa. We need the money here; it won’t help us in Thailand. If we don’t have the money, how can we go to Thailand?”

Kargar acknowledged on the Afghan television channel Ariana last week that it is his voice that can be heard in the recordings. However, he said he had been attempting to negotiate a new sponsorship deal with a man he had met in Australia “whose name I did not even know”.

Kargar said: “He said he wanted to bring foreign sponsors for the upcoming match against Myanmar in March. He then offered $10,000. I told him that was acceptable, and that in return, according to the agreement, we would meet our obligations as a federation. But he said he had no need for advertising or publicity. I asked him: ‘Then why are you offering $10,000?’ He replied: ‘Because I want my brother to be included in the national team.’

“I made it very clear that this was impossible, since the national team has a head coach, and only the coach can select players – not the federation. He then suggested sending his brother to the training camp in Thailand. I told him that first he must send his brother’s CV to the coach. If the coach accepted, then he could join, but the costs would have to be covered by him personally.”

Kargar also said he had “never seen this player” despite posing for a picture with him during the tournament in Melbourne. Several other inconsistencies in his explanation have also been pointed out, including the fact he asks for the payment to be made via a money exchange rather than the AFF’s bank account. “This raises serious doubts about the transparency and legitimacy of the process,” said one source who did not want to be named. Kargar did not respond to questions from the Guardian when asked about the inconsistencies in his defence.

A Fifa spokesperson, asked whether the governing body would be investigating the allegations against Kargar, said: “As a general rule judicial bodies do not comment on whether investigations are under way into alleged cases. Any information will be communicated at their discretion.”

It is not the first time Kargar has faced allegations of corruption. He has denied accusations of fixing two matches during an international men’s tournament in 2008 in Malaysia. It has also been alleged that several AFF staff have not been paid their salaries for the past three years.

Kargar’s term as president was due to end this year but Fifa has confirmed it has been extended until the end of January 2026 for unspecified reasons.

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