Police to investigate 15 games for match-fixing
LUCERNE, Switzerland, Dec 1 (Reuters) - UEFA has given police a
list of 15 matches it suspects may have been fixed, a senior UEFA
source said on Saturday.
News of the match-fixing investigation came while UEFA officials
and coaches gathered in Lucerne ahead of Sunday's draw for Euro
2008, to be played in Switzerland and Austria.
According to the source, who spoke to Reuters on condition of
anonymity, '15 matches are under investigation and being dealt with
by UEFA's disciplinary committee'.
The matches under suspicion were played in a variety of UEFA
competitions including Champions League qualifiers, UEFA Cup
qualifiers and UEFA Cup and Intertoto Cup ties.
UEFA would not confirm when the matches took place although the
source said a 96-page dossier handed to Interpol last month went
back to July 2005.
Irregular betting patterns on the matches alerted UEFA to the
possibility that some might have been fixed.
'UEFA introduced, over one year ago, an early warning system in
order to monitor irregular betting activities, and agreed to work
together with the appropriate police authorities,' UEFA said in a
statement on its Web site (www.uefa.com).
'In this respect we were informed of some unusual betting patterns
in the preliminary rounds of UEFA club competitions.
'For the avoidance of doubt, there are no investigations underway
into any of the qualifying matches for UEFA Euro 2008.
'As a responsible governing body, UEFA is continuously monitoring
football betting patterns and will take disciplinary action in any
cases where that may be justified.'
Graham Bean, an ex-police officer and former head of the English
FA's Compliance Unit, said the affair could become the biggest of
its kind to hit the international game.
Bean told the BBC World Service on Saturday: 'These are clearly
exceptionally serious allegations but having said that they will be
extremely difficult to investigate.
'Clearly for UEFA to pass this report across (to the police) they
must have evidence of some kind...
'...This is potentially one of the most serious things that has
ever happened in world football.'
Earlier this week, UEFA opened an investigation into the Intertoto
Cup match between Bulgarians Cherno More and Macedonia's Makedonija
on July 7, which Cherno More won 4-0.
The Bulgarian club have strongly denied any wrongdoing.
'It's an extremely unpleasant case but we think that the charges
are unwarranted,' Cherno More's lawyer Mihail Statev said at a news
conference on Tuesday.