UEFA To Charge ‘Club X’ With Match-Fixing

By: chris | March 25th, 2009

Excellent news. Someone has fixed a match. Or multiple matches. And UEFA has caught the dirty, cheatin’ scoundrels. Or so they say.

UEFA’s planning to unleash formal charges against a club within the coming days for fixing matches, which was announced at UEFA’s 2009 Congress held in the lovely city of Copenhagen. But they won’t name names. Chances are we can rule out FC Kobenhavn, because UEFA would never be such rude guests, but for now it’s simply the mysterious case of…..Club X.

“There are number of cases we have been looking at,” UEFA general secretary David Taylor told a news conference after the UEFA Congress. “It’s very complex and very difficult to find proof. But within the next couple of days we will be issuing charges against one club.”

Taylor did not disclose what country the club was from. In September UEFA said it was reviewing 10 matches from the current UEFA Cup season and 15 from last season for irregular betting patterns, all in the competition’s preliminary rounds.

Now the question: who? Poland’s always up for a spot of match-fixing, while Romania is surreptitiously attempting to back out of this conversation as we speak. The problem becomes these are almost certainly games played under UEFA’s jurisdiction, such as Champions League, UEFA Cup and the Intertoto.

If it’s from the UEFA Cup early rounds, as many suspect, chances are it’ll be a minnow most have never heard of. If not, the possibilities are endless and it really gets one’s brain swarming in all kinds of fantastical directions.

After all, what if the big one finally happens? What if someone’s charged with… fixing the Champions League knockouts?

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Category: World Football

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Dan

Mystery solved - it was Macedonian side FK Pobeda in relation to a 2004 Champions' League game against FC Pyunik.
Cerberus

Yevy-

That game was even more messed up because Manchester City started the free kick way downfield from where it was given allowing Danny Califf to be stuck man-marking two people for the own goal. The ref didn't even blink an eye about where the kick was taken from. Sitting in the stands, it was hard to take.

But I'm going to say it's probably one of the former Soviet Bloc teams, just because of betting stuff and the nascent scandal rumors about match-fixing in Romania and Russia, but given some of the stuff out there, I wouldn't rule out an English FA scandal in the near future.
Yevy

Chubby, I doubt it's Sampdoria, though I know better than to trust an Italian club :)

I am guessing it would have to be a match from last fall or earlier, because it would take time to investigate such allegations.

How about Manchester City's 1-0 win at FC Midtjylland on August 28? City need to stay alive in Europe to attract top talent, and trailing by a goal on aggregate they get a convenient own goal in stoppage time and proceed to win on penalties. Three days later they sign Robinho. Put on your tinfoil hats!
Anthony

Does this mean we'll be given some compensation then? :)
Chubby

Samp??? I mean kudos to Metallist, they were THAT close to beating Kiev, but it was Sampdoria, not Anorthosis, Kaunas or TVMK.
Peter Katsiris

Watch all the Rangers fans start accusing Kaunas for their early exit from the Champions League. Or, now this is subjective, was it Anorthosis? :P
Matt

Is there a Lithuanian team still in the UEFA Cup? Since Mad Vlad owns seemingly half the teams, I'd go with a team from there.
Ian

Pick your minnow. I'm going with Estonia's TVMK. Random guess. Anyone else want to try their luck?