According to reports European football has been hit by a massive match-fixing scandal with approximately 200 matches are under investigation.
There were simultaneous police raids in Germany, Britain, Austria and Switzerland, around 50 raids and the police have arrested 17 people as part of the investigation, which encompasses nine European leagues, the police officials said at a news conference in the German city of Bochum.
Matches under investigation were played in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Austria. Further at least three of the games were in the UEFA Champions League, 12 in the UEFA Europa League and two in the UEFA U19 European Championship qualifiers.
European football’s governing body confirmed on Friday that the matches concerned are all early qualifying round games. On Thursday police made several arrests across Europe in connection with the alleged bribing of players and officials to fix the results of games, prosecutors in the German city of Bochum revealed.
A UEFA statement read:
“UEFA has been actively involved in the investigation and has given assistance via detailed information through its Betting Fraud Detection System. This detection system monitors all UEFA competitions and European national league first and second division matches for suspicious betting patterns. The information on a number of matches was passed to the German authorities upon their request.”
UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino added:
“This case proves that it is possible for a state investigative authority to work closely together with a sports governing body when it comes to corruption or match fixing, and it is gratifying to see that the Betting Fraud Detection System endorsed by the UEFA president, Michel Platini, is already bearing fruit. We will continue our battle against any form of corruption in European football with a mission of zero tolerance. UEFA will be demanding the harshest of sanctions before the competent courts for any individuals, clubs or officials who are implicated in this malpractice, be it under state or sports jurisdiction.”
Loading ...