Exposing the "super network" of football match-fixing

The king sport is facing a serious risk of losing its reputation when on February 4, European police (Europol) announced that they had investigated a giant network that had fixed hundreds of football matches at different levels around the world, including the English Premier League (Champions League) and the World Cup.

Speaking to the press in The Hague (Netherlands), Europol Director Rob Wainwright said the investigation was conducted in 5 countries and they discovered 380 football matches with signs of suspected match-fixing.

At least 425 players, referees and several football officials were involved in fixed matches and could have pocketed large sums of money from betting.

Most of the football matches that were fixed took place in the Turkish, Swiss and German national championships, but matches around the world, including the English Premier League and the World Cup, were also implicated. However, the Europol official refused to reveal further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

According to Mr. Wainwright, this is the largest investigation ever conducted by Europol into football matches suspected of being corrupted. This network is extremely sophisticated and organized by criminal gangs in Asia and closely coordinated with criminal gangs in Europe.

Mr Wainwright stressed that match-fixing is a serious threat to football and the huge illegal profits ($11 million/year) are at risk of distorting the image of the world's most popular sport, and warned that all football matches need to be guarded and protected.

The shocking information was announced a month after the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) warned that corruption in international football was creating more "motivation" for the underworld to dominate the fields of prostitution, drug trafficking, weapons and creating a series of scandals that shocked the world football./.

According to (TTXVN) - DT