By Mark Baber
August 23 – Armenian referee Andranik Arsenyan and assistant Hovhannes Avagyan have been handed life bans by UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary Body (CDB) after admitting attempting to manipulate the outcome of a Europa League match.
The pair were found to have attempted to manipulate the outcome of the second-leg fixture, between Turkish club Inter Turku and Faroese club Víkingur on July 11, 2013 which ended 1-0 in favor of Víkingur.
The match-fixing attempt was discovered after the UEFA Betting Fraud Detection System (BFDS) detected suspicious betting patterns around the match, prompting a Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) and UEFA investigation.
Alarm bells had reportedly rung when a large bet was placed with Betfair on both teams scoring in the game. The referee awarded two dubious penalty kicks early in the game, one to each side – but Inter Turku missed and the match-fixing attempt failed.
The two officials admitted their part in the affair and were provisionally banned on August 7 before receiving life bans on Thursday.
The European governing body said in a statement, “UEFA is pleased with the excellent cooperation of the FFA, the local authorities and the betting operators during the investigation process.”
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