Berlin | Presiding judge Gerti Kramer has ignored prosecutors’ requests for a suspended sentence and given match-fixing referee Robert Hoyzer a 29-month jail term. Hoyzer will remain free on appeal and plans to write a book. Hoyzer “violated his important duty of neutrality,” said Kramer on handing down the sentence. Prosecutors have appealed an 18-month suspended [...]
Copenhagen | Jens Sejer Andersen, director of Play the Game, pens an eloquent letter to FIFA after the governing body’s reply to queries about FIFA’s relationship with Burma. Andersen is pleased that Sepp Blatter had intervened in the case of arrested journalist Zaw Thet Htwe (see Nov 7), but argues for more transparency from FIFA and more [...]
Copenhagen | The fourth “Play the Game” conference started Sunday, Nov 6, with a focus on sports corruption. Declan Hill of Oxford University reports that match-fixing in football is common, with the most egregious example perhaps Malaysia in the 1990s. “Up to 90 percent of games were fixed and often both teams and every official were bought,” [...]
David Goldblatt calls The Global Game: Writers on Soccer "the first truly global survey of writing" on world football. Buy from Amazon »