Following accusations against the former president of Cyprus, a House of Representatives hearing revealed a recent email from UEFA confirming 16 soccer league matches in the country involved suspicious betting activity. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
A whistleblower’s accusation earlier this month of fixing a soccer match in Cyprus and which former president Nikos Anastasiades denied “malicious allegations” has returned, with the country’s concerns confirmed by a recent email from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). . I reported 16 games for suspicious activity.
The whistleblower, the former head of the Cyprus Sports Ethics Commission, Andreas Babcharalambous, used the fuel in early May, accusing Anastasiades of illegally interfering with a match-fixing investigation. The allegations prompted Cypriot lawmakers to call witnesses to testify before a House of Representatives committee on Wednesday.
Enter another former member of the Sports Ethics Committee, Charis Savvides.
Savvides told shocked MPs at the hearing that UEFA had recently sent an email pointing to 16 matches that were likely to have been fixed.
The increase in betting traffic coming from China for the games was particularly high
Savvides listed the bulk of suspicious betting events taking place in games involving Karmiotissa FC and Ermis Aradippou franchises from 2019 through summer 2020. He added that the increase in the number of bets coming from China on the games was particularly high.
As Savvides said to hear Allegations of failures and cover-ups by the Cyprus Football Association and a UEFA officialwho made a personal appeal to Savvides to ignore the red notices.
