Match-fix ban for Macedonian club

FK Pobeda players celebrate a goal in a match from July 2005

Macedonian club FK Pobeda have been banned from European competitions for eight years having been found guilty of deliberately losing a match.

Club president Aleksandar Zabrcanec and former captain Nikolce Zdravevski were handed lifetime bans by UEFA from all football activities in Europe.

UEFA received reports of irregular betting in a Champions League match against Armenian club Pyunik in 2004.

UEFA's disciplinary panel issued the verdicts after a seven-hour hearing.

The European authority will now ask football's world governing body FIFA to ban Zabrcanec and Zdravevski worldwide, though the verdicts can be appealed.

The panel ruled that the two men fixed the outcome of the qualifying match in which Pobeda conceded three goals in the first half during the home leg. Pobeda drew the second leg 1-1 in Armenia, losing 4-2 on aggregate.

UEFA said when brining the charges that Zabrcanec and Zdravevski were suspected of "manipulating the outcome... to gain an undue advantage for themselves and a third party."

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UEFA President Michel Platini said last month that match-fixing and illegal betting was the greatest problem facing European football.

However, while UEFA is steadily building its own investigation unit, gathering the evidence required to bring allegedly corrupt clubs and officials to a hearing has proved difficult.

The Pobeda case is the second time that UEFA has sanctioned a club for match-fixing, but the first case in which a club official or player has been found guilty.

Greek club Egaleo FC were fined £28,000 in 2006 for "violation of the principles of loyalty, integrity and sportsmanship" and "creating favourable conditions for illegal betting practices."

Egaleo fielded a weakened team at home against Lithuania's Zalgiris Vilnius in the first leg of an Intertoto Cup match played in July 2005. They lost the match 3-1 and were knocked out 5-4 on aggregate.

UEFA is still investigating bets made on an Intertoto Cup match between Bulgarian side Cherno More and Makedonija in July 2007.

The visiting Bulgarians won the first leg 4-0 in Macedonia and went through 7-0 on aggregate. That case is one of at least 22 suspect games UEFA has shared with Interpol.