Back to the Soccer Newsfeed

Soccer-Italy breaks up soccer match-fixing network involving mafia

(Changes dateline to Rome, rewrites, adds details and comments)

By Steve Scherer

ROME, May 19 (Reuters) - Italian police on Tuesday detained some 50 people, including team managers, players and a suspected Calabrian mobster, accused of fixing dozens of soccer matches in the country's third division and its top semi-pro league.

"The probe demonstrates there was a heinous pact of corruption in the world of soccer," Andrea Grassi, investigator for Italy's elite SCO, an Italian anti-mafia police unit, told Reuters.

"It shows the interest of criminal networks in the business generated by soccer and the legal betting industry.