Italian Football Federation (FIGC) President Carlo Tavecchio said that "action must be taken to clean up the Italian game in the wake of allegations that Serie B club Catania bought results last season," according to Ben Gladwell of ESPN. Seven arrests were made on Tuesday "as part of an investigation into alleged match-fixing with Catania accused of paying opponents to let them win important matches to avoid relegation last term." Catania President Antonino Pulvirenti "is among those under house arrest as a criminal investigation takes place." The FIGC "is monitoring the situation closely before deciding what, if any, action it might take against the Serie B club," which dropped out of the top flight just a year ago. Tavecchio: "The problem is this kind of thing is starting to get repetitive. It started off in the '80s, continued in the '90s, then we had Calciopoli and now this." Tavecchio "would like to see everybody involved in the Italian game vetted and effective banning orders be issued" (ESPN, 6/24).
MATCH-FIXING PREVENTION: INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL's Paul Nicholson wrote the Greeks "have made an attempt to plaster over the match-fixing crisis that has rocked the game in the country and forced a stand-off between government politicians and football's governing officials." The Hellenic Football Federation "signed up with betting monitoring specialists Sportradar for a series of 120 match-fixing prevention workshops over three years." While the workshops "will undoubtedly be invaluable in the education of players, officials and club and federation employees on the dangers of match-fixing, the problem in Greece goes much higher within the professional game and the question needs to asked whether the workshops will be directed at and attended by the right people." Athens criminal prosecutors' reports in the Greek match-fixing case "run to hundreds of pages of phone-tap evidence and witness testimony." Dozens of former players, club staff, referees, Super League and HFF officials "are currently awaiting trial as the judicial authorities in Athens pursue their criminal cases." While match-fixing in Greece has been taking place at the level of club owners, board members and senior club execs, they "will not be mandated to attend the workshops, though the HFF is, reportedly, sending all its officials to the workshops" (
INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 6/24).
