The Uzbekistan Football Association has handed lifetime bans to three match officials and a club sports director after its Ethics Committee found they had conspired to fix two Pro League matches during the 2023 season, the association’s press service announced on 8 January.
At the centre of both cases is Shukhrat Muminov, sports director of Kokand-1912 FC, who the committee determined had approached referee Khusan Muzaffarov before a 22 March 2023 league fixture between Kokand-1912 and Mash’al, offering him money to officiate in Kokand-1912’s favour. Muzaffarov accepted, and the match ended in the club’s favour.
Muminov then repeated the approach before a second Pro League match, on 18 June 2023, between Orol and Kokand-1912. On that occasion he offered financial inducements to all three officials assigned to the game — Muzaffarov as chief referee and Obid Jumayev and Jasur Rustamov as assistants. Muzaffarov again agreed, and subsequently shared the money with his two assistants.
Lifetime Exclusions and Fines
The Ethics Committee found that all three referees — Muzaffarov, Jumayev and Rustamov, each attached to the Uzbekistan Centre of Football Referees — had violated relevant clauses of the UFA Disciplinary Code. The committee imposed lifetime bans from all football-related activities on each of them, accompanied by financial disciplinary penalties. Muminov was likewise found guilty under the same code and sentenced to lifelong exclusion from all football-related activities.
The cases were brought before the committee by the UFA’s own special inspectorate for the control of football activities, which identified the violations during its review of the matches.
Wider Anti-Corruption Framework
The association stated that it works regularly with FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation, and the integrity monitoring company Sportradar to detect fixed matches, and warned that equally strict measures would be applied in any future cases identified through that cooperation. The statement signals that the Kokand-1912 findings are part of a continuing surveillance effort rather than an isolated inquiry.
The bans represent among the most severe sanctions available under the UFA’s disciplinary framework, permanently removing all four individuals from any role — playing, officiating, administrative or otherwise — connected to the sport.
