By David Gold
August 6 – UEFA is to look into allegations of match fixing in a match between Aalesunds and Albanian side Tirana (pictured) in the Europa League qualifiers.
Aalesunds won the game 5-0, but the country’s national lottery, Norsk Tipping, stopped taking bets after the Norwegian side had scored their second goal due to unusual betting patterns.
Those patterns were apparently emanating from Asian countries, and included bets that the match would finish 5-0.
The first leg of their tie in Albania finished 1-1.
According to the Associated Press, the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) has asked UEFA to investigate.
That came after the NFF were informed of the possibility that the game could have been fixed last week, and subsequently asked European football’s governing body to intervene.
UEFA and FIFA have both been working hard to stamp out match fixing and tackle betting rings seeking to manipulate the results of matches recently.
There have been a spate of match fixing crises around the world, the highest profile at the moment being in Italy, where a number of teams and players, including Juventus’ Leonardo Bonucci and Simone Pepe, face punishment if found guilty of involvement in the scandal.
Norway itself has recently been affected by a scandal as police detained players from Follo, a lower league team, following a 4-3 defeat to Oestsiden in a match in which they had led 3-0 with 20 minutes remaining.
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