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7 arrested in Italy in football match-fixing probe involving Catania club

Xinhua, June 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Italian police arrested seven people on Wednesday on charges of sporting fraud, as part of a football match-fixing probe involving the Catania club playing in Italy's second division, local media reported.

Among the arrestees was Catania club president Antonio Pulvirenti, along with the vice-president and the former sporting director of the society. Four other arrest warrants reached sport agents and managers of on-line betting agencies, the newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport said.

They were all charged with fraud in sporting competitions and scams, for allegedly "altering the results of second division matches in which the Catania club was involved, with the consequent victory for the club," police said in a statement.

The overall aim of the fraud would have been to avoid the Catania club to be relegated to the third division next year.

The probe was lead by prosecutors of the Anti-Mafia District Directorate in the southern city of Catania, in cooperation with DIGOS special police in Rome, Chieti, and Campobasso.

"At least five or six matches were rigged, and money paid to players," Catania prosecutor Giovanni Salvi told a press conference.

Other people were involved in the investigation, but their names would not be revealed yet, the prosecutor added.

DIGOS police officers were investigating several suspicious results in the football second division, including Catania's matches with Livorno, Avellino, Trapani, and Latina teams.

Catania ranked 15th in Italy's Serie B this season, only two points above those teams who finished in the relegation play-off places.

The Sicilian football team had been promoted in the Serie A in 2005-2006, and then demoted again in the 2013-2014 season.

Wednesday's inquiry was linked to a previous football match-fixing scandal, which saw some 50 people arrested and more than 70 put under investigation in May, Ansa news agency reported.

This wider probe, named "Dirty Soccer", was led by anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern city of Catanzaro, and allegedly involved dozens of fixed matches in Italy's third and fourth divisions.

Investigators suspected the sport fraud in that case was also linked to the 'Ndrangheta, the mafia organization based in the southern Calabria region. Endi