November 19 – Police have arrested several people in Germany and abroad today suspected of bribing soccer players and referees to fix matches in top European leagues, German prosecutors said.
The arrests, in Germany and abroad, came as part of an investigation into match-fixing supported by UEFA, authorities in Bochum confirmed.
A Berlin newspaper reported that a Croatian man convicted as the mastermind of a German match-fixing scandal in 2005 was among those arrested.
The Berliner Morgenpost claimed that Ante Sapina and his brother were among five people arrested in Berlin and that 15 arrest warrants in 10 countries had been issued.
The ring reportedly placed enormous bets with Asian bookmakers and Turkish international players were said to be involved in the fraud.
The accused are primarily Kosovans, it is believed.
The investigation has been under way since the beginning of the year and targeted an international gang suspected of wide-ranging match-fixing.
German football is still recovering from a scandal in 2004, when referee Robert Hoyzer admitting to rigging matches for a Croatian mafia ring.
The matches concerned were mainly in the German Second and Third Division, but a German Cup match between First Division SV Hamburg and Third Division Paderborn and a First Division match in Turkey were also affected.
In 2008, Berlin was rocked by more allegations, that the 2006 World Cup knock-out stage match between Brazil and Ghana in Germany was influenced by an Asian betting syndicate.
Der Spiegel magazine alleged that large sums of money had been bet on Brazil winning by at least two goals and a former Ghana international acted as an intermediary.
A press conference is scheduled for tomorrow at 2:00 pm (1300 GMT) in Bochum to give more details of the latest allegations.
Prosecutor Bernd Bieniossek said his office had no comment before the conference.
UEFA said it was aware of the arrests, adding that it had been “working closely with German authorities through its betting fraud detection system for monitoring irregular betting patterns.”
The Morgenpost reported that games in the Turkish top division were suspected of being manipulated and that the probe by Bochum investigators targeted 200 people.
Top players in Turkey are among the suspects, the newspaper said.
Quoting Berlin security sources, the newspaper said the gang apparently operated from Germany and its boss apparently lived in Berlin.
Sapina was convicted of fraud in 2005 and sentenced to 35 months in prison for fixing or attempting to fix 23 games by paying Hoyzer (pictured) to rig matches Sapina and his brothers bet on.
Sapina’s brothers Milan and Filip were given suspended sentences.
Hoyzer was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 29 months in prison.
UEFA said two months ago it was investigating 40 cases of suspected match-fixing in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, mostly involving Eastern European clubs.
The matches under investigation were early qualifying games that took place over the last four seasons.
UEFA has beefed up its efforts to protect against illegal betting and match-fixing.
President Michel Platini has described those issues as the greatest problem facing European football.
The detection system monitors all top two divisions across Europe and domestic cup games.German police have arrested an undisclosed number of people suspected of fixing matches in major European leagues.
Harald Stenger, a spokesman for the German Football Federation (DFB), said: “As far as the DFB knows, no German matches are affected.”