Edvinas Eimontas, the president of the Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF), has claimed that he was unaware that FIFA were probing irregular betting patterns surrounding his country’s 2018 World Cup qualifying 2-0 win over Malta before Times of Malta broke the story last week.

Lithuanian news website, www.delfi.lt, quoted Eimontas as saying that he only learned about the betting allegations from the media and criticised FIFA for their failure to notify the LFF beforehand.

According to the report, the LFF president has since contacted FIFA’s integrity office who confirmed that the world football body have launched an investigation into the Lithuania-Malta Group F qualifier.

“So far, the answer to the basic question as to why there are these red lights is no.

“But the signs are that it was a dirty game. It’s unfortunate that we’ve been implicated in this,” Eimontas was quoted as saying.

Times of Malta reported last Monday that the FIFA commissioner overseeing the Group F clash, played on October 11 at the LFF Stadium in Vilnius, walked into the dressing rooms of both teams around 15 minutes before kick-off to warn them that the game was causing alarm at FIFA due to abnormal betting activity.

Spanish referee Jesus Gil Manzano was also briefed about the situation.

Lithuania scored twice in the last 15 minutes to secure a 2-0 victory, a result that appears to have lent further weight to the theory that the game may have fallen prey to corrupt practices.

This was confirmed by Malta FA president Norman Darmanin Demajo who told a news conference last week that the report compiled by Sportradar, the Malta FA’s Swiss-based betting-monitoring partners who also work for UEFA, concluded that there was “overwhelming evidence” that bettors had prior knowledge that Malta were going to lose with a margin of two goals or more.

Darmanin Demajo also revealed that, according to the Sportradar dossier, betting on the Lithuania-Malta qualifier continued until 20 minutes before the end of the game.

For his part, Eimontas, the LFF chief, bemoaned the fact the FIFA didn’t alert the Lithuanian federation about the anomalies detected by betting-market observers.

“The federation was the last to know about this,” Eimontas, who has requested more information from FIFA as well as UEFA about the betting activity engendered by the Lithuania-Malta qualifier, told reporters.

In the meantime, sources in Lithuania have told Times of Malta that national team players, officials and fans are disappointed that the country’s first victory in a competitive match for more than a year has been tarnished by allegations that the game may have been rigged.

This is the first time a game involving the Lithuanian national team has been identified as suspicious but their domestic competitions are riven with match-fixing allegations.

“In recent years, there have been many suspicious games, both in the domestic championship and UEFA competitions and the LFF has punished dozens of players and kicked out a couple of teams,” a Lithuanian-based journalist told Times of Malta.