UEFA President Michel Platini wants to establish a "European sports police force to address betting, corruption, match-fixing, doping and hooliganism," according to the AP. Speaking to the UEFA Congress in London on Friday, Platini said that his previous calls "have been ignored by governments for six years." Platini: ''Given the absence of any reaction and the lack of awareness on the part of politicians, I renew that call today [Friday]. And if, by misfortune, this call again falls on deaf ears, I ask that each country, at the very least, adopts specific provisions of national legislation addressing the issue of match-fixing, in order to finally have the legal tools necessary to rigorously punish these cheats.'' Platini said that only 10 nations "have such provisions." Europol said in February that it "reviewed 680 suspicious recent cases of match-fixing" (AP, 5/25). Platini said, "We are protecting our sport from this scourge with all the means at our disposal, but, unfortunately, that is sometimes not enough. We are not dealing with petty criminals who are looking to make ends meet" (London TELEGRAPH, 5/24).
PROTESTERS ARRESTED: The London EVENING STANDARD reported UEFA said that three protesters "who caused a disturbance" at an official dinner for European football's leaders in London Friday night "were arrested by police." The trio, two men and a woman, "took advantage of a security lapse to infiltrate the dinner" to protest about UEFA staging next month's European U21 Championship in Israel (EVENING STANDARD, 5/25).
