Pakistan’s Inam Butt blames 'conspiracy', 'match-fixing' after defeat in wrestling championship

• Butt defeated Micheil Tsikovani of Greece and Ibrahim Yusubov of Azerbaijan but lost the group match to Oleksii Yakovchuk of Ukraine.
• The Pakistani wrestler said that he was in a strong position to qualify for the semifinal but a decision was made against him.
• Says "this is all part of a conspiracy that is being orchestrated against Pakistan in the international sports arena."

Pakistan’s top wrestler Inam Butt has blamed “conspiracy” and “match-fixing” after he was unable to win a third consecutive medal at the Beach Wrestling World series in Romania.

Butt, a gold medalist in Greece and Italy, was aiming for a third medal in Romania during the last tournament of the 2021 Beach Wrestling World series but missed the opportunity after winning two out of three matches and being eliminated during the semi-final on the basis of a minor difference with an opponent from Azerbaijan.

The Pakistani wrestler defeated Micheil Tsikovani of Greece and Ibrahim Yusubov of Azerbaijan but lost the group match to Oleksii Yakovchuk of Ukraine in group matches. Winning two of his three matches left Inam to wait for the results of the Oleksii Yakovchuk and Ibrahim Yusubov fight, which Ibrahim won 3-1. Butt says he smells a foul play in that result.

In a video message sent to Geo News, Butt alleged that the match between Ibrahim and Olekssi was fixed and Azerbaijan’s wrestler was given an additional technical point which pushed the Pakistani wrestler out of the race to the semifinal.

“This was fixing, a point was given to him only to push me out, it was a conspiracy to deprive me of a certain medal in here. I had defeated the Azerbaijan wrestler 3-0 and he was playing the final,” Butt said in the video message ahead of the final bout, which was also won by Ibrahim Yusubov.

The Pakistani wrestler said that he was in a strong position to qualify for the semifinal but a decision was made against him. He said that this is all part of a conspiracy that is being orchestrated against Pakistan in the international sports arena.

“There has been a conspiracy against Pakistan. If you remember how the New Zealand team left Pakistan tour abandoned, whatever happened with me is also connected to the same conspiracy,” Butt said.

He added that a complaint has been registered with the Romanian Wrestling Federation and the United World Wrestling over the alleged fixing and conspiracy and hoped that he’ll get fair treatment and justice.

Butt added that such tactics won’t bring him down; instead, he will be more determined to raise the Pakistani flag in the wrestling arena.

“We will continue to make Pakistan victorious everywhere,” Inam aimed.