Football: ‘Match-fixing gangs target 50 leagues’

Fifa head of security Ralf Mutschke says criminal gangs targeting leagues for match-fixing, any country is vulnerable.

ZURICH:

Organised criminal gangs are targeting around 50 national leagues for possible match-fixing and any country is vulnerable regardless of its record on corruption, according to Fifa head of security Ralf Mutschke.

Mutschke said a convicted match-fixer had personally told him that the activity was preferred by many criminals to the drugs trade. “I met a match-fixer, a convicted match-fixer, here in Zurich next to the zoo and he told me organised crime is moving out of the drug trade and getting involved in match-fixing because of low risk and high profit,” he said. “He told me straight to my face. I would say there are about 50 different national leagues outside Europe which are targeted by organised crime on the betting market.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2013.