Dickson Etuhu has been questioned by police in Sweden about a conspiracy to fix a Swedish top-flight game in May
According to The Times and Swedish media, a former teammate offered AIK goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos £180,000 to “under-perform” against IFK Goteborg two days before the game.
That game was postponed after former Canada international Stamatopoulos, whose identity has not been confirmed by police, informed Swedish football authorities.
No charges have been announced and The Times reported that Kevin Etuhu, who spent his entire club career in England before moving to AIK in 2015, has denied wrongdoing.
The move comes as the head of a new police unit set up to fight organised crime in Swedish sport is investigating four cases of possible match-fixing.
On Friday, chief inspector Fredrik Gardare’s Stockholm-based unit made two more arrests linked to another match-fixing case, this time an attempt to rig a match between Malmo and Halmstad on Oct. 1.
Gardare said on Tuesday that tackling the “growing threat” from organised crime was now a “priority” for the Swedish police and, as well as the four possible cases of match-fixing in football, his unit is also looking at criminal activity in basketball and ice hockey.
Another area of concern for Gardare is corruption related to the representation of players.
“We are seeing more criminals getting into the business of buying and selling players — I think you also have this problem in England,” Gardare told Press Association Sport. “But we are looking at all types of organised crime in Swedish sport, especially in football, and we are ready to cooperate with everybody and anybody.”
The threat from organised crime has grown markedly in recent years with the explosion in sports betting in the Far East, much of it unregulated.
Speaking to Press Association Sport, Swedish Football Association secretary general Hakan Sjostrand said: “Football itself doesn’t create match-fixing problems — it’s betting on football that makes this problem.”
Sjostrand said the IFK-AIK case involves “concrete threats from a criminal network” and was a “serious attack on football that we’ll never accept.”
He said the matter was now an ongoing police case and, while it is always difficult to find enough hard evidence to prosecute, the individuals involved will not be “welcome in the football family.”
The post Dickson Etuhu Questioned By Swedish Police Over Match Fixing Case appeared first on 360Nobs.com.
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