By Andrew Warshaw
August 20 – The continuing fight against match-fixing has snared yet another alleged offender with UEFA banning Maltese international Kevin Sammut for 10 years, effectively spelling the end of the 31-year-old’s career.
Sammut (pictured top) was found to have been guilty of match-fixing over a 2008 European Championship qualifier against Norway, who won the game 4-0, with three goals in the last 18 minutes.
The Valletta FC midfielder, who was substituted at halftime, was one of three players cited by UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary Body but the only one sanctioned.
Kenneth Scicluna (pictured below, left), also of Valletta but on loan to Qormi FC, and his Qormi teammate Stephen Wellman were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Sammut says he intends to appeal the sentence which his legal team claimed was “blatantly unjust”.
“Some have said it would be better if I unmasked other people and get myself a discounted sentence,” he claimed.
“But I know nothing.
“I did nothing.
“What can I reveal?
“I do not know anything about this whole case.”
Malta Football Association (MFA) President Norman Darmanin Demajo told a news conference he believed more than one player was involved in the scandal in which €200,000 (£157,000/$247,000) were placed as bets on the outcome of the game which took place in June 2007.
“We need to respect the decision of UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary Body and in the absence of proof it would be unfair to arrive at any further conclusion,” he explained.
“[But] the whistleblower in this case originally claimed that four players were involved.
“I personally believe you can’t fix a game with one player.”
The case followed an inquiry by UEFA into claims made by members of a Croat syndicate who were convicted of match-fixing last year in the long-running trial in Bochum, Germany, the first in Europe to really blow the lid on match-fixing and catapult the issue into the public domain.
Sammut’s lawyers argue that he has been used as a scapegoat because UEFA wanted a quick verdict.
They say that, under cross-examination during last Friday’s (August 17) hearing, Croatian fixer Marijo Cvrtak (pictured above, left) – who had identified the Malta-Norway game during the Bochum trial – did not name either Sammut or two other Maltese players he claimed to have met at an Oslo hotel.
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