Shafiqullah Shafaq banned from cricket for six years
Afghanistan wicket-keeper Shafiqullah Shafaq has been banned from all forms of cricket after accepting four charges of breaching the Afghanistan Cricket Board's anti-corruption code. In February, the 30-year-old was provisionally suspended with immediate effect and charged with five breaches of anti-corruption code. The charges relate to the inaugural edition of Afghanistan Premier League (2018) and the 2019 edition of the Bangladesh Premier League.
"This is a serious offence where a senior player is involved in the corruption of a high-profile domestic game in APL T20 2018. The player had also attempted but failed to get one of his team-mates to engage in corruption during BPL 2019," Quraishi said.
Shafaq breached the Article 2.1.1 that states the following: Breach of Article 2.1.1 - Fixing or contriving in any way or otherwise influencing improperly, or being a party to any agreement or effort to fix or contrive in any way or otherwise influence improperly, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of any Domestic Match, including (without limitation) by deliberately underperforming therein.
Breach of Article 2.1.3 - Seeking, accepting, offering or agreeing to accept any bribe or other Reward to (a) fix or to contrive in any way or otherwise to influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of any Domestic Match. Breach of Article 2.1.4 - Attempting to solicit, induce, entice, persuade, encourage or intentionally facilitate a Participant to breach Article 2.1.
Breach of Article 2.4.4 - Failing to disclose to the Designated Anti-Corruption Official (without unnecessary delay) full details of any approaches or invitations received by a Participant to engage in Corrupt Conduct under ACB Anti-Corruption Code.
Under the provisions, Shafaq admitted to charges levied against him and also agreed to the sanctions imposed by ACB. Quraishi also mentioned that the term of Shafaq's could have been longer without his cooperation. "It is an alert for all those players who think their illegal activities concerning the game of cricket will not be disclosed to the ACB's ACU," he stated.
