When the Court of Appeal hearing ended in early December, Cibicki spoke for the first time.

He was critical of the Swedish Football Association's disciplinary committee deciding that he should be suspended from all sports in Sweden for four years.

The Swedish Football Association has also requested that the international football association, Fifa, suspend Cibicki from games all over the world during the same time period.

- In my opinion, they have crossed all existing boundaries.

Then whether I am right or wrong - it is up to everyone to judge, he told TT.

Missing proof of support

This summer, the district court acquitted Cibicki, who until he was suspended earlier this year played in Polish Pogoń Szczecin, from the accusation of taking bribes and cheating in connection with an Allsvenskan match in the spring of 2019. According to the prosecution, the player will intentionally take a yellow card during the match. thank you for letting him borrow SEK 300,000 from two co-accused match fixers.

Cibicki, however, denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the SEK 300,000 was a legitimate loan, as he himself was in debt due to a serious gambling addiction.

The district court held that there was a lack of supporting evidence for a conviction, even though they wrote that there was a "certain probability" that it had happened as the prosecutor claimed, but that they could not draw a "sufficiently certain conclusion".

However, the association has lower evidentiary requirements and the disciplinary committee considered that it is "clearly probable" that the elite player and three co-accused men, all with football backgrounds, have engaged in manipulation of sports and illicit betting.

Has played in Leeds

But now the judgment of the Court of Appeal has come, and they followed the prosecutor's line.

Pawel Cibicki, who has also played in Leeds and Malmö FF, among others, is convicted of taking bribes and violating the gaming law.

"Neither the penalty value nor the nature of the crime suggests that the punishment should be determined to imprisonment.

There is no particular reason to fear that Pawel Cibicki will commit further crime.

The sanction can thus be determined to a conditional sentence ", the Court of Appeal writes in its judgment.

The text is updated