Police and the prosecutor have ended investigations on Finland third tier, Kakkonen, MuSa match-fixing case. They blame investigations would be too expensive considering the possible gain and even in the best case only short suspended sentences would follow.[1]
This is sad but true. Finland legislation is badly outdated in this regard. In order to sentence a player from match-fixing it is required that football is an economic activity for that particular player, his bread and butter so to say. Even in Finland highest tier, Veikkausliiga, there are teams who work on semi-professional grounds. Players have day jobs as football doesn’t bring enough money for them to live on. In Kakkonen all teams are amateur teams and only lucky few live from playing football – and their income keeps them below the poverty line.
In 2011 Finland faced a broad match-fixing case. Veikkausliiga club RoPS had been fixing dozens of matches and majority of their players were in the plot together. Everything was orchestrated by the infamous Wilson Raj Perumal and his colleagues. Nine players got sentenced in the District Court. Strictest sentence was 1 year 8 months of suspended sentence and assets forfeiture. Five out of nine sentenced players appealed and all of their sentences were significantly shortened by the Appeals Court. This case is not comparable with the mentioned MuSa-case. First of all, even if poorly paid, football was a day job for RoPS players and satisfied that particular requirement of the legislation. Second, RoPS sentences were result of long term match-fixing operation while MuSa has not been suspected from more than one fixed match. Nevertheless, it’s easy to see where prosecutor got the idea that sentences would be at best short suspended sentences i.e. not worth investigating.
Police estimates that possible bribes paid for players have been from few hundreds of euros to few thousands. They base their estimation on the general salary level of Kakkonen. It’s been estimated by the professional bettors that a six numbers figure in euros was made out of the fix, even up to one million euros. Bribe money might have been higher than just a few hundreds of euros…
Police and the prosecutor suspect that it would be unsure whether they would be able to gather evidence against the match-fixers. Unfortunately this seems more than true. There have been several match-fixing cases in Finland where the police authorities have failed to gather evidence and no court cases have followed. In the mentioned RoPS 2011 case Finland authorities got a tip about Perumal. According to several sources this was due to the fact that one of Perumal’s associate had given information to Interpol due to disagreements with him. When jailed Perumal chose to speak and give up all his associates. Finland Police then gathered the fruits. It seems very unlikely this case would have never been solved without tip to Interpol from inside.
It’s been also said by the police authorities that when requesting for police investigation the Finland Football Association (FFA) didn’t provide any foul play suspicions towards players or referees in the course of the match. Investigation request was made due to unexceptional betting patterns and volume. That wasn’t obviously enough and FFA should’ve been able to point out the particular persons suspected to be behind the match-fixing. Was that not the police job to investigate in the first place?
Finally, it’s been stated that both teams, MuSa and KaaPo, did straight away reject any foul-play claims on behalf of their players. It must be underlined that KaaPo is not under any suspicions; they didn’t throw a match. It’s understandable that MuSa defends their players too, but the level of naivety is absurd. They’ve shown a model example of victimization in their press releases and social media writings. As their coach didn’t notice anything out of ordinary during the course of play, there couldn’t be anything fishy going on. No way. Match-fixing is not always something you can clearly spot on the stands not to mention if you are a coach or a supporter who lives through the team. Match-fixing is often so delicately carried out on field that it’s not easy to spot on venue even by a neutral experienced observer.
Welcome to Finland match-fixers! Your foul play will not be in-depth investigated as it’s expensive to do so. If you happen to be an idiot and leave bullet proof evidence behind, the sanctions you will face will at worst be short suspended sentences. Team personnel will blindly defend their own and play the media game on your behalf – how nice of them!
[1] Turun Sanomat was the first to release the story and by now it’s also in several other Finnish media’s. http://www.ts.fi/uutiset/turun+seutu/810048/Poliisi+lopetti+epaillyn+sopupelin+tutkinnan
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