Print Print edition: 2017-01-21

East Timor banned from Asian Cup 2023

Published January 21, 2017 Updated January 21, 2017 12:00am

East Timor has been banned from the Asian Cup in 2023 and fined $76,000 for fielding several Brazilian-born footballers with fake documents, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said on Friday.
The AFC and FIFA investigated the eligibility of a number of East Timor footballers after the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 qualifier playoff round matches last year. The AFC said in a statement it had found 12 Brazilian-born East Timor footballers registered with falsified Timorese birth or baptismal certificates.
"Nine of the footballers participated in a total of twenty-nine matches falling under the jurisdiction of the AFC, and seven matches falling under the jurisdiction of FIFA," the confederation said in its statement.