Daily Star – In 2004, FC Paderborn, team in the Bundesliga second division, came back from two goals down to win against Hamburger SV in the German cup knockout competition.
By the final whistle, Paderborn had reversed the score of the match, which ended 4-2, after being awarded two penalties by referee Robert Hoyzer, who also sent off one of Hamburger’s players.
Later investigations revealed that Hoyzer had taken money from Croatian gambling syndicates to fix the match, and he was sentenced in 2005 to two years and five months in jail. Hoyzer’s cooperation in investigations led to the indictment of several other suspects involved in match fixing in Germany.
Hoyzer’s case isn’t an isolated one in the recent history of football. The list of match fixing goes on to include players and club officials in addition to referees. In 2006, Italian Serie A Champions Juventus were stripped of their title and relegated to Serie B after top club officials were found guilty of influencing the appointment of match referees.
Match fixing has plagued – to various degrees – every sports industry since its inception. However, a growing betting industry, estimated to be somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion annually, that includes both legal and illegal markets is increasingly casting doubts over the integrity of games.
Increased ease of access to betting markets since online sports gambling ballooned nearly a decade ago in line with the growth of the Internet and mobile technology is facilitating match fixing in low-profile games around the globe and Lebanon is no exception, experts told The Daily Star.
Imad Nahas, a lawyer who holds a doctorate in gaming contracts and betting from French law school Paris II Panthéon-Assas said some strong indications pointed to a series of manipulations in the results of several low-tier leagues across a number of different sports.
