Portuguese justice sentenced five people to prison terms on Friday for organizing the faking of second division football matches for the benefit of an illegal betting network fed by funds invested in Malaysia.
A businessman, a member of the main group of supporters of FC Porto and a former professional player received sentences ranging from five and a half to six years and nine months in prison for having organized the rigging of several meetings during the 2015/2016 season. Two intermediaries were also sentenced to terms of more than five years' imprisonment, a threshold from which they cannot be suspended under Portuguese law.
The Leixoes club was also found guilty of "active bribery" and was excluded from professional competitions for two years, according to the decision rendered by the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
" Double-dealing "
At the end of the trial which began in February 2018, 19 other defendants were sentenced to suspended sentences, including several footballers accused of deliberately playing badly to cause the defeat of their own team.
This affair, dubbed "Double Game" by the authorities, had exposed the fragility of many clubs in the lower Portuguese divisions. Since this scandal broke out in 2016, several investors from South America and Asia have bought local clubs, the Lusitanian press reported.
"It is a kind of ghost world because they are small clubs which easily go unnoticed in the eyes of the authorities. (…) Our fear is that this type of corruption from the lower echelons will eventually contaminate the professional championships ”, recently declared the president of the Portuguese football union, Joaquim Evangelista, to the weekly Expresso .
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- Portugal
- Corruption
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- Match-fixing
- Soccer