{"id":17922,"date":"2018-10-10T19:23:51","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T19:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17922"},"modified":"2018-10-10T19:23:51","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T19:23:51","slug":"mass-raids-at-belgium-football-clubs-over-match-fixing-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17922","title":{"rendered":"Mass raids at Belgium football clubs over match-fixing, fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A massive corruption scandal has engulfed Belgian football as authorities carried out dozens of police raids in the country and around Europe in a vast probe into financial fraud and match-fixing.<\/p>\n

A total of 44 police searches took place in Belgium on Wednesday and 13 more in France, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia, according to the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prosecutor’s statement said a year-long probe into football showed evidence of “suspect financial operations” by sports agents and indications “of possible influencing of games” over the last season.<\/p>\n

The judicial investigation concerns “criminal organisation, money laundering and private corruption,” the statement added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Belgium’s “Big Three” clubs\u00a0 – Anderlecht of Brussels, Standard Liege and Brugge –\u00a0 all confirmed their premises had been searched.<\/p>\n

Anderlecht said it was “fully cooperating” with authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reigning champions Brugge, who play\u00a0in the Champions League,\u00a0<\/span>said their Croatian coach Ivan Leko was also taken in for questioning.<\/p>\n

Mogi Bayatein, a well-known agent in Belgium, and a former Anderlecht manager were also interviewed, local media reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The unexpected raids and arrests, which top-selling Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws said had shaken Belgian football to its core, come just three months after the country reached the World Cup semi-finals and ended up finishing third<\/a> at the tournament in Russia.<\/p>\n

‘Full transparency’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Along with searches at “various football clubs,” the prosecutor’s office said club committee members, agents, referees, a former lawyer, an accountancy bureau, coaches, journalists and possible accomplices were also under investigation.<\/p>\n

The raids, which involved 184 police officials, took place in just about every region in Belgium. Meanwhile, 36 police officials carried out the searches in the other European nations.<\/p>\n

Some agents were suspected of hiding commissions on transfers, players’ pay and other payments from the Belgian authorities, the prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

It was during the investigation, the prosecutor’s office said, indications appeared there may have been match-fixing during the 2017-18 season.<\/p>\n

The Belgian Football Association said it noted the investigation would contribute with “full transparency” if asked to do so.<\/p>\n

In a Tweet on Wednesday, Belgium’s Justice Minister Koen Geens said: “Match-fixing undermines the integrity of sports. The Justice Department is working for a fair sport.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A massive corruption scandal has engulfed Belgian football as authorities carried out dozens of police raids in the country and around Europe in a vast probe into financial fraud and match-fixing. A total of 44 police searches took place in Belgium on Wednesday and 13 more in France, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}