Cyprus to draft strict new legislations to fight football corruption

NICOSIA -- Cyprus has set up a legislative committee to draft new strict legislations to fight corruption in football and also beefed up a special police unit to investigate match fixing reports, Justice Minister George Savvides said on Wednesday.

"The task of cleaning the scum in football is not the easy one, but the beginning of the tangle has been found," Savvides told the state broadcaster after the first court case for match fixing has been filed.

Savvides presided over a meeting of party and sports officials on Tuesday when he agreed on the need of new sports related legislation.

"The meeting was a success. The government and all the political parties share the common goal of rooting out match-fixing and corruption in football. I will meet again with party leaders in two months to review progress," Savvides said.

Savvides said that the government is working on a major project aimed at creating a common law on all sports-related matters and issues.

UEFA, the European soccer governing body, has sent to the Cyprus Football Association six dossiers on six matches up to now this year, which it said were suspected of having been fixed as there was unusually big and peculiar betting on them.

It was not revealed where the betting was, but in over 70 cases reported by the UEFA in past years the betting was centered in the Far East and presumably involved criminal groups.

All matches reported this year involved second division of soccer cup fixtures between low lying teams, but the football structure was rocked earlier this month after a Spanish newspaper claimed that it found evidence of match fixing involving the island's top teams.

It said its investigation of the Cyprus football came as a by-product of an investigation into Spanish football corruption which involved a Spanish player who had played with a Cypriot first division team.

The Cypriot authorities said they could not use the evidence in court as it was the product of unauthorized surveillance of telephone conversation.

Following reports by football officials and players, the president of a second division club and a referee have been arraigned on charges of fixing a recent match and will appear shortly before a criminal court.

Savvides said that beyond new laws targeting match fixing, a total of 13 investigators have been assigned to a special unit to analyze all football corruption reports.

"This is a hugely important move," Savvides said.

The Justice Minister also said that a Sports Ethics Committee has been set up with broad authority to investigate unethical behavior of people involved in sports, but mostly in football.