Hyderabad: A US-based investor who was accused of derailing a Hyderabad-based company’s bid for the FIFA World Cup 2026 media rights in the Indian subcontinent by allegedly submitting forged financial documents claimed that the allegations against him were false.TOI’s July 10 report said that the Hyderabad Central Crime Station (CCS) police had registered an FIR against US-based investor Deelip Mhaske and others under various sections of the BNS, including cheating, on the complaint of Pritish Kollati, managing director of Metalloid Productions Private Ltd, a Hyderabad-based company.The complainant alleged that his company had signed an agreement with Mhaske’s US-based company for a proposed $50 million investment from the latter to acquire FIFA World Cup media rights. The deal, however, did not go through after FIFA through due diligence, allegedly found out that various financial documents submitted by Mhaske and entities associated with him were false, fabricated or unverifiable.In response to the allegations, Mhaske said, “I believed I was helping create an extraordinary story for India—a story where a small Indian company could achieve something unimaginable on the global stage through FIFA. I never expected to personally profit from it. I was trying to give something back to India after 30 years of building my life in the United States. I never imagined that trying to help would cost me so much.”He also said that the allegations against him in the FIR were false. “We never furnished any false or fabricated documents to FIFA as alleged. If the FIFA application contained inaccurate or misleading representations, then the truth must be confronted through the evidence not through false accusations,” Mhaske said.He also alleged that the police did not consider the evidence he provided. “After I came to know about the FIR, I provided more than 200 pages of evidence to the police in my support. The police didn’t call me a single time to verify the content,” he alleged.
