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Two jailed for match-fixing in Swedish football

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Two jailed for match-fixing in Swedish football
Photo: Björn Lindgren/TT

A Swedish appeals court has jailed two football players and handed suspended sentences to four others for their involvement in a match-fixing scandal.

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The case, which involved three football matches played by Kristianstads FF in Swedish football’s third tier (Division 1) during the 2013-14 season, originally saw all six defendants acquitted by the Kristianstad district court.

The Skåne and Blekinge court of appeal on Thursday judged however that all six men were guilty of involvement in match-fixing. Three players who received a bribe, and one who gave a bribe received suspended sentences. Two others, who also gave bribes, were sentenced to imprisonment for one year and 14 months respectively.

One of the players admitted his involvement in the scandal and testified against the others. His lawyer told public broadcaster SVT that he was happy with the sentence.

“It is a big relief for him that it’s over now. He got a relatively light sentence, and the judgement said his crime was not aggravated. We accept the verdict,” lawyer Esbjörn Svensson said.

Three of the other players have denied the crime, and are not satisfied with the outcome of the trial.

“It’s leaning towards an appeal on our part. We can conclude that the appeals court made exactly the opposite assessment of the evidence to the district court,” defence lawyer Anders Tolke told SVT.

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