Monday, February 4, 2013

European match fixing linked to Singapore crime syndicate





The sports world has had an influx lately of fallen hero's, PED accusations, and fake girlfriend stories.  It's hard these days to have any faith in any sport or sports star. 

Well the news doesn't get any better today after Europol has said that at least 380 European matches, including World Cup qualifying, Euro 2012 qualifying, and UCL games, are under investigation for match fixing, all orchestrated by Singapore based crime syndicate.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A wide-ranging match-fixing investigation has uncovered more than 380 suspicious matches -- including World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and two Champions League games -- and found evidence that a Singapore-based crime group is closely involved in match-fixing.
"This is a sad day for European football," Rob Wainwright, head of the European Union police organization Europol, said Monday, referring to the sport Americans call soccer. He said the investigation uncovered "match-fixing activity on a scale we have not seen before."
The probe uncovered (euro) 8 million ($10.9 million) in betting profits and (euro) 2 million ($2.7 million) in bribes to players and officials and has already led to several prosecutions.
Full story via Associated Press here.

If you can't trust Italian football then what can you trust? I guess next you're going to tell me that there's racism in European football as well.


Illustration by Daniel Bejar

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