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UEFA announced today that they have begun an investigation into irregular betting in Asia involving European clubs competing in UEFA competitions this season. Serbia was name as one of the countries they would be looking into. They have stated that they are looking into matches involving club teams only and have not made any mention of any matches involving countries taking part in Euro 2008 qualifying.
What is interesting in this development were some of the other countries mentioned: Croatia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia and Lithuania on top of Serbia. The significant country here is Lithuania in regards to a Serbian involvement. During this past summer's UEFA Champions League qualifying, Serbian champions FK Red Star Belgrade played against Lithuanian Champions Levadia from Tallinn in the second round of qualification. In the first match Red Star won the match 1:0 in Belgrade but it was the return leg in Tallinn that might be where some irregularities occcured.
Levadia took the lead in the 33rd minute only to have Red Star come back only minutes later to tie the match. What became suspicious was when Levadia retook the lead in the 2nd half on a very clumsy move by Red Star keeper Randjelovic. On a free kick from the centre circle, a Levadia player punted the ball towards the net and the Red Star keeper who had his back to the play allowed a very clumsy goal. This seemed very odd as no keeper in his normal frame of mind would be in that awkward, back to the ball position. Levadia ended up winning the match 2:1 but Red Star did manage to advance on the away-goals rule.
In order to determine if any type of match-fixing or manipulation did occur you have to look at the certain betting options. In this case:
1) Were Levadia underdogs in the match (if they win, a nicer payout)?
2) In betting on live matches, were there a lot of bets being placed in the 2nd half when the score was at 1:1?
3) What was the payout on the match if the score was to end 2:1 for the home side?
At this moment, the information on that is not made public and it also varies often from betting houses.
While this is only speculation, hopefully more news will become public as time goes by.
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Odds and Ends : UEFA investigation into irregularities
Saturday, December 1, 2007, 01:39 PM EST
[UEFA Cup]
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