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Over 50 people, ranging from managers to referees to a number of former professional players, were arrested in a series of police raids in Turkey on Wednesday in relation to a long standing investigation into the match fixing of soccer games. The Turkish Football Association announced the investigation in August last year and these arrests come just after a similar raid in February where 77 people, including nine players, were arrested.
The wider investigation was brought to public attention in November 2009 where, after German authorities had tapped the telephones of a number of organized crime rings, a number of raids took place in Germany as well as Austria, England and Switzerland regarding the fixing of 200 matches in eleven countries by both players and referees. Criminal gangs are thought to have made up to $15 million through the match fixing which took place on an estimated 30 games.
Michel Platini, the former captain of the French national side and current UEFA President, had already announced that UEFA were taking match fixing allegations seriously as they undertook to monitor over 27,000 games this season after noting last November that "if results are fixed in advance, football has no further reason to exist. Platini will hope that this current investigation will bring an end to match fixing in Europe which has been rocked in the past five years following two high profile incidents, the first of which was the Bundesliga Scandal in 2005 where a football referee as well as a number of players were implicated in match fixing for a Croatian criminal ring. The most high profile was the Serie A Scandal in 2006 where it was found that four teams were conspiring with sympathetic referees in the top tier of Italian football which ultimately saw Juventus relegated to Serie B and stripped of two league titles.
The wider investigation was brought to public attention in November 2009 where, after German authorities had tapped the telephones of a number of organized crime rings, a number of raids took place in Germany as well as Austria, England and Switzerland regarding the fixing of 200 matches in eleven countries by both players and referees. Criminal gangs are thought to have made up to $15 million through the match fixing which took place on an estimated 30 games.
Michel Platini, the former captain of the French national side and current UEFA President, had already announced that UEFA were taking match fixing allegations seriously as they undertook to monitor over 27,000 games this season after noting last November that "if results are fixed in advance, football has no further reason to exist. Platini will hope that this current investigation will bring an end to match fixing in Europe which has been rocked in the past five years following two high profile incidents, the first of which was the Bundesliga Scandal in 2005 where a football referee as well as a number of players were implicated in match fixing for a Croatian criminal ring. The most high profile was the Serie A Scandal in 2006 where it was found that four teams were conspiring with sympathetic referees in the top tier of Italian football which ultimately saw Juventus relegated to Serie B and stripped of two league titles.
