Sports

Russian Mobsters Accused of Fixing Bayern Munich UEFA Cup Match

by Jon Azpiri | October 2, 2008 at 11:32 am

184 views | 0 Recommendations | 2 comments

Spanish newspaper El País is reporting that Russian mobsters may have fixed the semi-final of last year's UEFA Cup between Bayern Munich and Zenit St. Petersburg. The German club was seen as a favourite to win the entire tournament, but lost 4-0 in the second leg of the semi-final against a much weaker Russian side.

El Pais said a probe by Judge Baltasar Garzon has turned up a taped telephone conversation of suspected Russian gang member Gennady Petrov mentioning that 50 million of an unspecified currency had been paid to Bayern.

Previously, in a call in May, one of Petrov's aides, Leonid Khristoforov, boasted to Petrov that he knew the result of the match in St. Petersburg would be 4-0 in Zenit's favor. The final score was in fact 4-0, with Zenit winning. Bayern and Zenit had drawn 1-1 in the first leg in Munich.

Zenit went on to win the UEFA Cup.

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JeffHuang

at 11:37 on October 2nd, 2008

Match fixing and how soccer (football) is connected to organize crime is ridiculous

Yuliya Talmazan

at 07:13 on October 3rd, 2008

While a lot of match fixing is going on (especially with Italian clubs), in this case I would not agree that Zenit was such a weak club that there was no way it could have beat Bayern without the extra "help" from Russian mobsters. The Munich team was definitely very strong but Zenit went on to beat Glasgow Rangers in May to win the UEFA cup and than the giant Manchester United in Super Cup event in September and it did not look like either of Zenit's opponents were poised to lose, so I think the chances are high that Zenit won fairly. I mean one can just tell when players are not making an effort to win. I watched both matches and it did not seem to be the case to me. Yet, even the talks of possible match fixing are disturbing and damaging to the reputation of the beautiful game.