The Albanian football association (FSHF) has encouraged a player and his club to report to the police, after a TV programme screened a recorded telephone conversation featuring an apparent attempt to bribe a FK Partizani Tirana player. The ‘Fiks Fare’ investigative programme on Top Channel TV broadcast a conversation between Drini Çaushi and FK Partizan player Emiliano Vila ahead of the club’s 5 May top of the table clash against KS Kukesi, which ended 1-1.

‘The Albanian football federation strongly condemns the recent action in the “Fiks Fare” investigative program, involving a publicly-made public video alleging attempted manipulation of Partizan footballer Emiliano Vila’, read a FSHF statement. ‘The person in question, which according to the video is called Drini Çaushi, is not a part of any club or Albanian football association […] We encourage both the player in the video and the club to report this case to the competent investigative bodies.’

However, FK Partizan was critical of the FSHF’s statement, which it described as ‘late’, and urged it to also launch an investigation. ‘This situation has another dimension that must be addressed by the FSHF disciplinary bodies’, read a statement posted on the club’s official Facebook page. ‘The association needs to act, via commissions, to show its will, not make statements on the sidelines distancing itself from the situation’.

KS Skenderbeu, which is currently sitting in second place behind KS Kukesi, is understood to have fixed 73 games over four or five years. Last year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed the club’s appeal against its ban from participation in the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League. It is understood that UEFA had been receiving suspicious alerts relating to KS Skenderbeu games over four or five years from Sportradar, and the CAS felt the evidence was strong enough to uphold the sanction.