Albania part of the match fixing probe

TIRANA, Feb 12 – Albania is also part of the probe of the FIFA for match-fixing in football around the world.
Match-fixing has also branched out from traditional hotbeds of corruption נAsia andthe Balkans נto places like Canada, Finland and Norway, which rank among the least corrupt nations in the world. Until recently, no one נincluding sports regulators נthought to look for corruption in lower-level leagues. Still, given the vast amount of soccer betting, there’s plenty of money to be made.
As former Balkan warlords and Chinese businessmen have discovered, owning a club means players don’t need to be paid extra to fix matches; they can just be ordered to lose. Corrupt team officials have also dangled career advancement instead of money before vulnerable young players.
An American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks quoted the U.S. Embassy in Sofia as reporting that “Bulgarian soccer clubs are widely believed to be directly or indirectlycontrolled by organized crime figures that use their teams as a way to legitimize themselves, launder money and make a fast buck.”
Priceshave gone up. Italy’s Calciopoli investigation found it cost up to $516,000 to fix a match in the top league of Serie A; $155,000 for a fix in the second division and $64,500 for a third-division fixed match.
In Croatia, court documents show that first-league games in 2010 could be fixed for as little as $25,600.
There is also a shift in the traditional match-fixing scenario in which players are paid to lose or referees are paid to make sure one team wins. With the rise of online spot betting נwagers made during the game נcriminal gangs can predetermine not only the outcome of the match but also make money on bets like how many goals are scored, when they are scored, or who will take a penalty kick.