Rumors of games being fixed
«In refereeing, nothing is done without exchange,» a sports journalist stated on television, hastening to add that there were no «receipts or invoices for all that.» Over the last few weeks, Alpha Channel investigating journalist Makis Triandaphyllopoulos has presented tapes of wiretaps suggesting widespread match-fixing. But prosecutors could surely find out if they investigated the world of refereeing carefully. And surely no fan, whatever his loyalties, could repress a shudder at hearing that the match between Atromitos-Ethnikos had been fixed. When Skoda Xanthi has Intracom as a sponsor and its head is the president of Olympiakos, then entangled interests of this nature are poisonous to soccer, even if this cannot be adduced as a reason for Olympiakos’s repeated wins over Xanthi. The removal of two referees is not enough; the sporting world needs radical solutions.
