Author:
OC'91
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Date Posted: 11:39:30 04/05/05 Tue
A sample of some headlines from a "soccer corruption" Google. Comments follow these stories.
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BRAZIL: "BRASILIA, Oct 3 (2000,Reuters) -- Brazil's Congress launched this week a special investigative commission into corruption within organized soccer, which has been swamped with accusations ranging from tax evasion to mishandling transfers of players, lawmakers said on Tuesday."
SLOVENIA: Post-Socialist Football in the Balkans: a Charade
"Ozren Podnar reports... The usually peaceful Slovenian soccer scene was shaken by bribery accusations launched by a local politician against the national team manager Bojan Prasnikar and the Mura football club director Zeljko Fundak.
Miran Vuk, a former players' agent and currently the chairman of the municipality of Zavrc, told Slovenske novice diary that he had to pay 10,000 Deutsch Marks (around 5000 euros) to Prasnikar to secure the first team slots in Maribor football club for his clients Nastja Ceh and Marko Kmetec, both later to become full internationals."
CHINA: Corruption critic Zhao Junzhe voted China's Footballer of Year
March 16, 2005 BEIJING (AFP) - Liaoning captain Zhao Junzhe, a leading critic of corruption in the Chinese game, has been voted Footballer of the Year. The midfield maestro took the top honour despite slamming the way the troubled Super League was run last season, the state's Beijing Daily Messenger said, citing the China Football Association.
Zhao, 26, became the first player to openly criticize corruption and match-fixing in the league when he threw away his captain's armband and stormed off the field in a league match last September. "We have to discipline ourselves, especially in such a bad soccer environment," said Zhao at the time. "I should not have been so impulsive as to throw away my armband, but I just want to stand up for my integrity." A CFA official cited by the paper said "his integrity brought extra points for him". Shenzhen Jianlibao coach, who led his team to the inaugural league title, was voted coach of the year, the paper said, adding that an official announcement was expected at a later date. Zhu was recently appointed China's new national coach.
The league faced a near boycott last year due to the CFA's reluctance to implement market-oriented reforms and stamp out corruption. Sponsors have stayed away in droves this year, forcing authorities to postpone the start of the season from March 5 to April 2.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech local court hands out first soccer corruption sentences
The Czech Nymburk district court Tuesday convicted the country's lower league soccer referees Vaclav Sulc and Josef Lorenz of corruption.Lorenz was fined 10,000 crowns (about 440 US dollars) and Sulc received a six month prison sentence with 18 months conditional release. Both men were found guilty of taking bribes in lower soccer leagues and were banned from the game for two years. Lorenz appealed the verdict on the spot, but Sulc would not appeal. Both, however, continued to proclaim their innocence and said that the case was trumped up. Judge Vaclav Krejcik said in his verdict that the evidence was undeniable.
The case broke a year and a half ago when Libice nad Cidlinou soccer club captain Radek Vana agreed to a bribe in favor of his team with one referee for 500 crowns (about 22 dollars). The bribe was then filmed by a Czech Television crewman posing as a club sponsor reporter with a secret camera. The Nymburk case was the first of a series of corruption incidents to rock Czech soccer. Several first and second league clubs have been hit with heavy fines and point deductions, while a number of top referees and club officials have been charged and banned from the game. ($1 = 22.845 crowns)
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These were just a few...the stories go on and on and on.
Look - I really don't have anything against soccer. But I have to laugh when some get into arguments about prefering one sport over another based on the behavior of certain pro organizations.
I won't argue that perhaps some or many soccer organizations might have stricter regulations...but a good many don't.
And the level of corruption and problems is just as high and in some cases exceedingly more so than MLB.
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