By Mike Rowbottom
January 19 – Ukrainian referee Oleg Oriekhov (pictured) has been banned for life after being found guilty in the Court of Arbitration for Sport of having links with a criminal match-fixing gang before and after last season’s UEFA Europa League match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia.
Oriekhov officiated at the group E match on November 5, 2009 which Basel won 3-1.
Following investigations conducted by the public prosecutor of Bochum in Germany, it appeared that Oriekhov was in contact with a criminal group involved in betting fraud and that he was offered an amount of approximately 50,000 euros (£42,182) to manipulate the game.
The CAS ruling upholds the decision announced by the UEFA Appeals Body on July 6 last year, which concluded that Oriekhov had violated the principles of conduct and his duty to disclose illicit approaches, set out in the UEFA regulations, in failing to immediately report to UEFA that he had received offers from certain individuals to take an active part in their match-fixing scheme.
The UEFA Appeals Body maintained that a life ban on exercising any football-related activity was the appropriate sanction to be imposed upon Oriekhov in view of the seriousness of the situation.
On July 17, 2010 Oriekhov filed an appeal with CAS to request annulment of the UEFA decision.
The case was heard on December 15 in Lausanne by a panel of CAS arbitrators composed of Michael Beloff QC, of the United Kingdom (President), Denis Oswald, of Switzerland and José Juan Pintó of Spain.
The CAS panel concluded that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there were repeated contacts between Oriekhov and the members of a criminal group involved in match-fixing and betting fraud.
In particular, it has been convincingly established that Oriekhov had been contacted before and after the match in Basel by persons who offered him money to manipulate the results of the match.
The CAS panel rejected Oriekhov’s claim that he did not report the contacts because of his inadequate command of English and because he was not aware of to whom he should make such a report.
But the existence or not of an effective manipulation concerning the match in question could not be established during the CAS procedure.
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