Ribery not going anywhere, Bayern boss says

December 31, 2009

Bayern Munich’s president denied on Thursday press reports that the German giants’ French international Franck Ribery was going to move to Real Madrid in a 55-million-euro deal next summer.

“There are no offers at the moment, no options and no talks at all either about him or with him,” Uli Hoeness told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

German specialist website ran.de had reported on Wednesday that the 26-year-old winger’s move was hammered out in August between Bayern and the Spanish club at the time of Dutch star Arjen Robben’s transfer to Munich.

Bayern did not pay Real the agreed 25-million-euro price tag for the Dutch winger, instead sitting on the cash in anticipation of the Ribery deal, said ran.de, which is owned by German private broadcaster Sat.1.

But Hoeness, club manager at Bayern for 30 years who replaced Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer as president in November, said this was wide of the mark.

“There is no deal with Real. We paid for Robben quite normally.”

He also said that the club wanted Ribery to stay once his contract expires in 2011: “That is our first option. Only if we see no chance of this will we start talking to other clubs.”

Ribery, who has been out of action through injury for over two months, has made no secret in the past of his desire to join Real.

“I would really like to win the Champions League, but our team doesn’t have the necessary firepower right now,” the winger told the Bild daily recently.

“At the moment, we can’t compete with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal and Inter.”

Other recent reports have linked him with a move to Chelsea.

BERLIN (AFP)

Tags: anticipation, arjen robben, barcelona real madrid, bayern munich, champions league, dutch star, euro deal, firepower, first option, franck ribery, franz beckenbauer, french international, german specialist, price tag, private broadcaster, sat 1, sueddeutsche zeitung, uli hoeness, winger

German paper reveals match-fixing details

November 22, 2009

A German paper said Sunday it had obtained details of some of the 200 matches under investigation in the match-fixing scandal that has rocked European football.

According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s website, the matches involved were generally lower profile matches and the gambling crooks bribed players to lose by a certain amount.

The paper listed a sample of matches from Switzerland, Belgium, Croatia and Turkey.

For example, investigators are reportedly probing a match in the Swiss second division that took place between Yverdon Sport and FC Thun on April 26, 2009.

Players from the away team were reportedly bribed 15,000 euros (22,000 dollars) to make sure they lost by a four-goal margin. The match ended 5-1.

In another match in the Belgian second division, players from UR Namur allegedly received backhanders to lose by two goals. Namur duly lost 2-0.

The beautiful game is still reeling from the allegations on Thursday that a gang of around 200 people have been rigging games in Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Austria and Switzerland.

“Without doubt this is the biggest scam there has ever been in European football,” UEFA’s match-fixing specialist Peter Limacher said at a news conference on Friday in Germany, where the probe was organised.

By bribing players, coaches, referees and officials to influence matches, the gang is thought to have earned as much as 10 million euros in huge bets with bookmakers in Europe and Asia, primarily in China.

Around 300 police carried out around 50 raids on Thursday in Germany, Britain, Switzerland and Austria, arresting 15 people in Germany and two in Switzerland. More than a million euros in cash and property were seized.

BERLIN (AFP)

Tags: 10 million, allegations, beautiful game, bookmakers in europe, bosnia hercegovina, croatia, crooks, fc thun, football uefa, german paper, investigators, match fixing scandal, namur, news conference, referees, rigging, slovenia, sueddeutsche zeitung

Europe rocked by fresh match-fixing scandal

November 20, 2009

European football braced on Friday for more details on a fresh match-fixing scandal reportedly involving huge sums of money placed with Asian bookmakers on suspect matches in nine countries.

Police across Europe carried out raids and arrests on Thursday, with German prosecutors suspecting that players, coaches, referees and officials from high-ranking European football had been offered bribes to throw games.

According to press reports, 15 people were arrested in at least six European countries, with around 100 suspects in total, with matches in Turkey the main focus of investigation.

Prosecutors, who have been working in tandem with European football’s ruling body UEFA, were due to reveal more details at a news conference in the western German city of Bochum at 2:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Friday.

The Berliner Morgenpost daily cited one unnamed top investigator as saying the probe could result in “one of the biggest scandals in the history of professional football.

“This earthquake will shake the credibility of the sport for a long time,” the paper quoted the investigator as saying.

According to information from AFP subsidiary SID, matches in at least nine European leagues were being investigated for signs that they had been manipulated.

These included matches played in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey, SID reported.

Harald Stenger, a spokesman for the German Football Federation (DFB), said: “As far as the DFB knows, no German matches are affected.”

But the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that one of the games being scrutinised was a friendly between German side SSV Ulm against Fenerbahce Istanbul in July.

The Turkish side won 5-0, and investigators suspect that “certain currently unidentified SSV Ulm players” received more than 10,000 euros (14,900 dollars) to throw the game, the paper said.

Reports also said that the ring was believed to have placed enormous bets with Asian bookmakers, where limits on the sums that punters can gamble can be several times higher than in Europe.

Two of those arrested in Thursday included two Croatian brothers living in Berlin, Ante and Milan Sapina, who were at the centre of a match-fixing scandal that rocked Germany in 2004, newspapers said.

That case saw referee Robert Hoyzer sentenced to two years and five months in prison after admitting being paid 70,000 euros (104,000 dollars) by a Croatian mafia ring to throw games.

The matches concerned were mainly in the German second and third division, but a German Cup match between first division SV Hamburg and third division Paderborn and a first division match in Turkey were also affected.

Hoyzer was released after serving half of his sentence.

BOCHUM, Germany (AFP)