El Salvador claims it refused bribe to fix World Cup qualifier

El Salvador's national football team sensationally shed light on match-fixing in the international game Monday.

A significant portion of La Selecta filed in for a news conference ahead of Tuesday's bout with Canada, and played a recording of a person offering monetary incentives for engineering a result to benefit Honduras in CONCACAF qualification for the 2018 World Cup, according to the BBC.

The man in question was banking on a win for El Salvador or a loss by one goal, according to Andres Cantor of Telemundo, utilising connections he had with certain members of Ramon Maradiaga's squad.

"It's the most dramatic thing in football I've seen for some time," journalist Declan Hill told the BBC. "The entire team came in with their coaches and said they had been approached on Saturday.

"They played an 11-minute conversation with the attempted match-fixer. He was offering each player a variety of money per minute depending on the result they could get. The most they would have got for allegedly fixing the match would have been about $3,000 per player."

The National Autonomous Federation of Football of Honduras has yet to comment on the recording.

El Salvador is already unable to progress to the next round of qualification, but a comprehensive victory for Canada, coupled with a comfortable win for Mexico over Honduras, would see the Canucks progress to the fifth round - better known as the "Hex."

Despite already being assured of advancement via top spot in Group A, Mexico's head coach Juan Carlos Osorio insists El Tri's desperate for victory Tuesday in a bid to further heal the scars of June's 7-0 defeat to Chile at the Copa America Centenario.

"Mexicans demand a lot and with the result and score (against Chile), confidence was lost," said Osorio. "It's our responsibility to recuperate it."

El Salvador is currently 137th in the FIFA World Rankings, and last competed in a World Cup in 1982. Canada, meanwhile, is ranked as the 100th-best team in FIFA's standings ahead of the Vancouver test.