For many years,European football has looked east toward China,Hong Kong and Singapore hoping that the day would never dawn when its own sports were contaminated by match fixing on anything like the levels of Asia. Events in Bochum,Germany,on Friday killed that hope. At the police headquarters in the heart of the industrial Ruhr Valley,law enforcement officials announced that 15 suspects in Germany and two in Switzerland were under arrest. The police claim they have evidence implicating the corrupting of some 200 professional matches across nine central European countries during 2009 alone. The suspect matches range from minor regional leagues in Germany to top Champions League and Europa League encounters,the two most glamorous club tournaments in the global sport. UEFA,the European football authority for the sport in 53 counties,had been in denial about such widespread corruption. But the detectives of Germanys police force said their inquiries so far pointed to the corrupting of games in the countrys own leagues and across borders in Belgium,Switzerland,Croatia,Slovenia,Turkey,Hungary,Bosnia and Austria. The police say that other police criminal investigation units are cooperating,including Scotland Yard in London. Something sinister is happening in the sport and in other sports,including tennis,horse racing and anything,it seems,that attracts the gamblers who stand to make tens of millions of dollars,euros,pounds or yen. Bochums police had been bounced into their hastily called news conference by a story in the Berlin newspaper Morgenpost last Thursday. It stated that another match-fixing scandal was about to break,and it implicated Ante Sapina,the head of a Croatian syndicate,who was jailed with four others convicted of bribing a German referee,Robert Hoyzer,to rig matches in 2005. The police did not confirm or deny the Sapina story. They did say that one method of entrapment used to gain evidence was phone tappingthe tactic that exposed corruption in Italys top league,Serie A,before the 2006 World Cup. From Nyon,Switzerland,UEFAs general secretary,Gianni Infantino,said: UEFA will be demanding the harshest of sanctions before the competent courts for any individuals,clubs or officials who are implicated in this malpractice,be it under state or sports jurisdiction. But from FIFA,the global governing body of football that funds its own watchdog monitoring games for suspicious betting patterns,there was silence. We deserve better than this. Football is the global sport. FIFA and UEFA are the guardians not only of the immense money-making machine that feeds off it but of its reputation and legality. Denial wont do any more. We are fully aware of the sinister element. The fact that betting cartels in China,with links to gangs,had infiltrated the sport at all levels became public a year ago when a Chinese man was convicted of a horrendous murder of two Chinese students in Newcastle,England. The murderer went to jail for life refusing to confirm the football link,although the students had been paid by someone to act as spotters,advising a betting ring of the form of players in lower-division football. The chief of police involved in that trial is on record as saying that the evidence leans toward the involvement of criminal gambling elements in Asia. But his force could not crack the paymasters or break the silence of the killer. It becomes one more whisper in the long and perpetual saga of Asian betting,fixing or attempting to fix the odds. There have been threats to close down Chinas top football league altogether. Last month,the police in Liaoning Province began interrogating scores of people,including Chinese football officials and club management,after claims that a 5-1 victory for Guangzhou Pharmaceutical over Shanxi in 2006 had been rigged. The proliferation of online betting,with FIFA and UEFA condoning countless clubs,and even leagues,in Europe to advertise them,is an anomaly that does not occur,for example,in the United States. Europe has an unholy alliance between betting promotion and the game. The United States runs the opposite way,which is why Gary Kaplan,a New York bookmaker turned Internet betting mogul,has just been sentenced to 51 months in prison for operating an illegal sports betting organisation. His company,based in Panama City and registered in London,flouted the law that forbids Americans to bet on sports online. The bookie and his associates thumbed their noses at the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act by taking bets from Americans,albeit from abroad. They were pursued by the FBI,brought to trial in Missouri and jailed. They had to surrender more than $50 million in assets. The United States,despite Las Vegas and all it stands for,has exhibited zero tolerance toward the betting that can lead to sporting corruption. Meanwhile,Zara Phillips,granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II and 12th in line to the British throne,became world equestrian trials champion,riding horses sponsored by Cantor Index,a spread betting company. What is taboo in the United States is legal in Europe. And some people from Asia to Russia to the heart of Europe can profit from that.
