The European police agency, Europol, says matches they believe were fixed include Word Cup and European Championship qualifiers, two Champions League games and “several top football matches in European leagues”.
425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals are suspected of being involved, while a further 300 games covering Africa, Asia and south and central America are under suspicion.
Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Chelsea have all featured in the competition in recent years. The match that immediately rings in Chelsea fan’s heads is… Barcelona 2008-09. Ah, the infamous night. Only 2 Champions League games are said to be fixed and with that match in mind, that could well be it.
Take a look at the main points in this match :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PENQDQ52SOY
With those appeals in mind, a 93rd minute equalizer from Andres Iniesta had Barcelona in the Final against Manchester United. Barcelona went on to win 3-1 and many football fans thought there could be a Conspiracy, that UEFA didn’t want a repeat final and 2 English teams against 1 another. Barcelona – Chelsea could well be the one.
However, it might not be. Other matches of alleged match-fixing could be the actual ones considering over 380 suspicious matches in Europe and another 300 questionable games outside the continent, mainly in Africa, Asia and South and Central America are said to be investigated. It was unclear exactly how many of 680 games mentioned were previously known to have been tainted, but the very public announcement shed light on the murky underworld of match-fixers, who bet on fixed games to reap enormous profits around the globe. But, the Chelsea – Barcelona match could be one of the main interests of UEFA and Europol. Tom Henning Ovrebo (the match official) hasn’t officiated a UEFA match since CFC – Barca, could UEFA have banned him for match fixing without a proper announcement? Or was it just Ovrebo’s honest errors? We’ll see when all the details are uncovered.
conspiracy, conspiracy everywhere….?
The champions league semi final with Barca is actually gonna be the one, match fixing has been existing since ages. I will be very happy if the europol can take a good look into it and bring the fixers out for people to know. Moreso, the fixers should be put to jail for violating the rule of the game.
What about Manchester United. How many of the last games we’ve played against them have been changed due to dumb decisions made by the ref. Torres red card…. John Terry red card….. and offside goals???
I think they should try and look at some of the Man-United games very well, most of their games are being fixed up and I think the Europol should look closely to some of the past games they played. Most expecially some games they played last season.
He refereed The Champions league the year after specifically Fiorentina vs Bayern where he also made big cockups.