Greece jails 58 match fixers

Athens: Fifty-eight people were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 30 months to 10 years on Wednesday for their involvement in the 2011 match-fixing scandal which rocked Greek football.

Several of the sentences were suspended for three years, while a number of other individuals can avoid jail by paying five euros per day for the duration of their prison term. Among those sentenced by the three-member Court of Appeal was former Greece international and current Brisbane Roar defender Avraam Papadopoulos who received a suspended 30-month sentence. 

The court ruled the 33-year-old was guilty of illegal betting on matches while he was playing for Greek giants Olympiakos. Another former Olympiakos player Kostas Mendrinos, now at Apollon Smyrnis, was handed a similar punishment for the same offence.

Former Ilioupoli player Michalis Nikolopoulos was sentenced to four years behind bars, a sentence that will be suspended under the condition that he appears every month at the local police station and is under the supervision of a social welfare officer.

Nikolopoulos was found guilty of betting, as well as bribery in two matches. Achilleas Beos, the mayor of the northern city of Volos and ex-president of Olympiakos Volos, received a four-year sentence for bribery, manipulating results of two matches and illegal betting.

Asteras Tripolis owner Dimitris Bakos and the club’s president Giorgos Borovilos were handed suspended three-year terms for bribery, while former Levadiakos president Giannis Kombatis got a term of 30 months.

The longest jail term was given to former Ilioupoli president Giorgos Tsakogiannis, sentenced to 10 years and 10 months for illegal gambling, illegal betting, bribery, money laundering, attempted extortion and the possession of illegal weapons.

He was reportedly involved in four attempts to rig matches. All those sentenced have the right of appeal. Originally 84 people were named in the match-fixing scandal, including Olympiakos boss Vangelis Marinakis who along with 24 others were acquitted.

Greek judicial authorities began the investigation after a list of 41 suspicious matches were submitted to the country’s football federation by European football’s ruling body UEFA. The list included two matches from the Super League and many from the second division.