By Andrew Warshaw
February 28 – FIFA have banned 74 more officials and players worldwide for match fixing – this time from Italy and South Korea.
The 70 Italian cases saw their suspensions for match fixing between 2011 and 2012 extended worldwide by FIFA’s disciplinary committee.
FIFA said the charges involved “match-fixing (direct involvement or omission to report match-fixing), illegal betting or corrupt organization (association to commit illicit acts).”
Last week, Italian authorities detained Admir Suljic, a Slovenian national, after he arrived in Milan on a flight from Singapore, one of the hotbeds of the Asian illegal gambling network. Suljic is allegedly an associate of Singaporean businessman Tan Seet Eng who is accused of heading a crime syndicate that has made millions of dollars.
FIFA said the four new South Korean cases follow worldwide sanctions imposed on 10 others last year and a further 41 last month. The latest punishments came two days after FIFA extended bans to 58 people found guilty of match-fixing offenses in China. Of those, FIFA expelled 33 from football for life, including 2002 World Cup referee Lu Jun.
FIFA has been especially bullish since European police agency Europol revealed earlier this month that around 680 matches were suspected of being fixed in a global betting scam.
Europol said today its investigation did not include any suspicious matches in France where it is based. In response to a French League request, Michael Rauschenbach, head of Serious and Organised Crime at Europol, affirmed that France was not involved.
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