EUROPEAN FOOTBALL SCANDAL GROWS

7 December 2007

15 games under investigation by police


The BBC World Service has highlighted the gravity of the growing UEFA match-fixing allegations, reporting that investigating officers have been supplied with a list of 15 games that the European soccer body suspects may have been affected.

The report quotes the former head of the English Football Association compliance unit, Graham Bean, who opined that the issue has the potential to be the biggest of its kind ever to impact the international game. Bean told the BBC 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 they must have evidence of some kind, perhaps as a result of betting patterns, or individuals telling them what they know.

"If they can prove it then any punishments involved should be excessive. For something of this magnitude involving these type of games like Euro 2008 qualifiers and Champions League matches, then this is potentially one of the most serious things that has ever happened in world football."

The matches under suspicion were played in a variety of UEFA competitions including a Euro 2008 qualifier, Champions League qualifiers, UEFA Cup qualifiers and UEFA Cup and Intertoto Cup ties.

UEFA would not confirm when the matches took place, although a 96-page dossier handed to Interpol last month goes back to July 2005, the BBC report reveals.

Fifteen of the suspect games were played during the current season with another 11 between July 2005 and November 2006, The German publication Der Spiegel said earlier. These mostly concerned teams from eastern and southern Europe notably Bulgaria, Georgia, Serbia and Croatia but also the Baltic states in the north.

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