Match fixing, more match fixing and corrupt World Cup ticket sales
Today is the final day of appeals in the Italian match fixing scandal. AC Milan, who were not demoted from Serie A, are asking to have their ban from the Champion's League overturned. Juventus, who was stripped of Serie A's last two league titles, wants them back. They would also like to see their 30-point penalization reduced. Lazio and Fiorentina are also appealing their punishments.
All of these matters should be settled tomorrow.
But Italy is not the only match fixing game in town as the Turkish government has lunched a probe into allegations of match fixing in their domestic league. However, this probe seems to be nowhere near the size of its Italian counterpart as it deals with one match.
"According to media reports, first division club Denizlispor are alleged to have offered to pay three Malatyaspor players to throw a game with Gaziantepspor to help Denizlispor avoid relegation on the last day of the season.
"Malatyaspor lost the game 1-0 and were relegated. Denizlispor, who have rejected the claims, ended the season 15th and avoided relegation."
Finally, the Polish soccer federation finds itself looking at another possible scandal as prosecutors are looking into the sale of their World Cup tickets. There are allegations that fans did not receive tickets for which they paid and that either the federation or people associated with the federation then sold those same tickets to the highest bidder.
"Polish football's ruling body is also dealing with allegations of widespread match fixing in a separate investigation which has seen two referees and around a dozen other officials detained over the last 18 months."
The interesting thing is that all three of these countries are connected by their desire to host the 2012 European Championship. Turkey was in the running till they lost out on November 8, 2005, when UEFA's executive committee narrowed the list from 5 to 3 (Greece was also booted). The three remaining bids are Italy, Croatia/Hungary and Poland/Ukraine. So there is only a one in three chance that none of the host nations for 2012 will have been recently involved in a match fixing scandal. The final vote will happen in December.
All of these matters should be settled tomorrow.
But Italy is not the only match fixing game in town as the Turkish government has lunched a probe into allegations of match fixing in their domestic league. However, this probe seems to be nowhere near the size of its Italian counterpart as it deals with one match.
"According to media reports, first division club Denizlispor are alleged to have offered to pay three Malatyaspor players to throw a game with Gaziantepspor to help Denizlispor avoid relegation on the last day of the season.
"Malatyaspor lost the game 1-0 and were relegated. Denizlispor, who have rejected the claims, ended the season 15th and avoided relegation."
Finally, the Polish soccer federation finds itself looking at another possible scandal as prosecutors are looking into the sale of their World Cup tickets. There are allegations that fans did not receive tickets for which they paid and that either the federation or people associated with the federation then sold those same tickets to the highest bidder.
"Polish football's ruling body is also dealing with allegations of widespread match fixing in a separate investigation which has seen two referees and around a dozen other officials detained over the last 18 months."
The interesting thing is that all three of these countries are connected by their desire to host the 2012 European Championship. Turkey was in the running till they lost out on November 8, 2005, when UEFA's executive committee narrowed the list from 5 to 3 (Greece was also booted). The three remaining bids are Italy, Croatia/Hungary and Poland/Ukraine. So there is only a one in three chance that none of the host nations for 2012 will have been recently involved in a match fixing scandal. The final vote will happen in December.
posted by Mike H at 10:12 AM
1 Comments:
In regards to the Turkish football scandal the really stupid thing is that as Denizlispor won their last match of the season there was no need to have bribed the three Malatyaspor players anyway.
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