Friday, August 18, 2006

Another match-fixing scandal

First came the German disgrace, then the confusion in Brazil, then the full-blown corruption center in Italy and then some 'minor' scandals in Belgium, Turkey and Poland. Well now it looks like another scandal is about to breakout in Russia.

Mikhail Grishankov, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Parliament's lower house Security Committee, sent a letter to the Interior Ministry, asking it to inquire into the July 16 game between Spartak (Moscow) and Tom (Tomsk), which was allegedly fixed by referee Pavel Kulalayev.


Officials made sure to note that this is not yet a criminal investigation, however if it looks like Kulalayev did take bribes, then an investigation will be launched.

Russia has been bounced around as an 'up and coming' league, however if the stink of corruption gets attached to it, that should kill such a notion fast. In addition, if Kulalayev is guilty, I find it hard to believe that he only took a bribe for one match or that he is the only ref doing so.

The facts are not yet in, so I don't want to jump the gun, but it does seem like more scandal has hit the soccer world.

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Don't forget the US Soccer Carnival part IV.

1 Comments:

Blogger ERic said...

I disagree. This is confirmation that Russia is an up and coming league. All the best leages have corruption.

Clearly, England doesn't yet have a good league, as there's no corruption in it.

9:33 AM  

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