El Salvador and Canada are set to continue their World Cup qualification campaigns at the BC Place in Vancouver tomorrow.
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With his teammates sitting behind him, El Salvador forward Nelson Bonilla told reporters that players were approached Saturday night at the team’s hotel by a Salvadoran businessman, Ricardo Padilla, who had an offer from a Honduran friend to present the players.
Canada must beat El Salvador in Vancouver and hope Mexico defeat Honduras in the final round of Group A games to stand a chance of progressing.
Finally, Canada has a -5 goal differential while Honduras has an even one. On the other side of the ledger, the Mexicans are strong favourites to win at home vs. Honduras. Canada has only scored two goals in the entirety of the qualifiers. For example, a 3-0 win for Canada and 3-0 loss for Honduras would do the trick.
El Salvador players line up before last week’s qualifier against Mexico.
The country had 14 players banned for life in 2013 following an investigation into a match-fixing scandal.
“According to Padilla, he is acting in representation of a Honduras millionaire that wanted to guarantee the qualification of the Catracha [Honduras] national team”.
Padilla has admitted to Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa that he made the offer, but insisted it was because the fans had already suffered so much and deserved to see their team do better.
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Five players are heard on the recording and after the initial proposal, they ask questions, including who the person putting up the money is and why the payments would change if the team was defeated.
