By Mark Baber
March 2 – The three-member Court of Appeal in Athens has punished 58 people for their roles in the Greek ‘Koriopolis’ match-fixing scandal in 2011, including the handing down of a large number of prison sentences.
Those sentenced include a number of club owners, players, bookmakers and football officials.
The scandal was dubbed “Koriopolis” after intelligence agency phone taps of some of the suspects were leaked to the media.
Amongst the sentences are one of three years suspended for three years for former Asterias Tripolis President and former referee Giorgos Borovillos; 30 months imprisonment suspended for three years for Avraam Papadopoulos who now plays for Brisbane Roar (for illegal betting) and ten years and ten months imprisonment for former Illoupoli owner Giogos Tsakogianni.
Achilles Beos, former President of Olympiakos Colou, has been sentenced to four years imprisonment which is redeemable at five euros per day, others have received terms which have been suspended for three years and ten of those convicted have had penalties of between six and ten years and ten months imprisonment imposed.
UEFA welcomed the decision to hand out prison sentences for those involved.
According to UEFA: “Greek judicial authorities started an investigation after UEFA submitted a list of 41 suspicious domestic matches to the Hellenic Football Federation. Such matches were identified via UEFA’s betting fraud detection system (BFDS), which, in close cooperation with the Swiss company Sportradar, monitors and analyses betting activities on about 32,000 matches in Europe each year, in both UEFA and domestic football competitions.”
UEFA heralded their cooperation with the Greek prosecutor in the case, which they say demonstrates that a two-way cooperation with state authorities in detecting and prosecuting criminal behaviour is key to tackling match-fixing activities.
Following these successful prosecutions, UEFA emphasise that in addition to cooperating directly with police forces and prosecutors, the organisation is also “working together with the European law enforcement agency EUROPOL, as well as other national crime and gambling authorities so that criminal charges are brought in front of the law, thus also enabling UEFA to bring disciplinary cases in a much more rapid and efficient manner.”
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