Match-fixing fears expressed
The head of Greece’s state-run gambling organization believes some domestic soccer matches might be rigged. «I don’t consider it impossible that games are fixed,» Anestis Philippidis, whose agency is known as OPAP, told private radio station Athlitiko Metropolis late Monday. «But I can’t prove it.» Philippidis said Sunday’s bad-tempered league clash between PAOK and Olympiakos in Thessaloniki, which ended 1-1, raised questions about whether Greek soccer was «clean.» Yesterday, he clarified his statement. Not having «clean and civilized football is different from [saying] fixed,» he said. «What I say is that there is no proof. People say things that no one can prove.» But his initial remarks could interest European soccer’s governing body. UEFA last week sent two inspectors to Greece to investigate allegations of match fixing at a December 1 UEFA Cup game between Panionios and Dynamo Tbilisi, and a possible connection with a corruption scandal in Germany. Reports of suspicious betting patterns emerged after the game, which Panionios won 5-2, despite trailing 1-0 at halftime. Yesterday, Sepp Blatter, the president at FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, renewed calls for professional soccer referees to handle games worldwide in a bid to avoid a repeat of the German match-fixing scandal. «If someone is not refereeing in professional football as an amateur but as a professional himself, he will think three times [before cheating] because of the possibility of losing his profession,» Blatter said after a FIFA executive committee meeting. FIFA’s 24-member executive committee spent a large part of its regular two-day meeting discussing the German crisis, officials said. Referee Robert Hoyzer, at the center of the scandal, has admitted to fixing or attempting to fix seven league games. «Human beings are human beings and will remain human beings,» Blatter said. «They will always be subject to temptation, and we have to try to reduce that temptation.» Hoyzer, who was arrested last month by German authorities, is facing a lifetime ban and a large fine from the German soccer federation. Blatter said the FIFA executive committee expressed «full confidence» in the German federation’s handling of the scandal. «In our game, as in every other game, people try to gain an advantage,» Blatter said. «If there’s evidence that even one referee is involved in corruption, that is painful.» Hoyzer has confessed to manipulating games to aid three Croatian brothers, whose betting scams are now suspected of extending beyond Germany to the UEFA Cup match between Panionios and Dynamo Tbilisi. German prosecutors are investigating 25 people, including 14 players and four referees, who are suspected of rigging at least 10 games, mostly in lower divisions. In separate scandals, five teams have been docked points in the Czech league for rigged games while a first-division game in Belgium is under investigation. «We have to ensure that situations as in Germany are not repeated,» Blatter said. Blatter said the issue of professional referees has been on FIFA’s agenda for a decade but that national associations have failed to discuss it in detail. «With the new situation now, we have another incentive,» he said, adding that the executive committee had decided to ask FIFA’s ethics committee to look at the problem of referees’ involvement in match fixing. There are a range of rules for referees across the soccer world, Blatter said. They are salaried in the English Premier League and the French first division, as well as the Mexican, Brazilian and Argentine leagues. In Italy and Spain, their contracts only cover the soccer season. German referees are paid per game. While referees could never expect to earn as much as top soccer stars, they could be paid the same as a «middle-level professional» in their league, Blatter said without elaborating. «A referee who is no longer in a hobby but who is officiating professionally will have another mind-set,» he said. (AP)
