By EFE
05 Sep 2024, 00:34 AM EDT
A Panamanian court on Wednesday charged two current and former soccer players with alleged match-fixing in the Panamanian Football League (LPF) and the Panamanian Second Division (Liga Prom), and ordered preventive detention for one of them.
The precautionary measures of periodic reporting and preventive detention were issued by a Judge of Guarantees, during a hearing held today in which they were charged with the crime against economic order.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime has brought charges against two soccer players and a former player for crimes against economic order, as well as a report (periodically to the authorities) for the players and provisional detention for the former player,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) reported in X.
The three defendants, who have not been officially identified, were arrested last Tuesday as part of the so-called ‘Operation Garra’, after the Panamanian Football Federation (Fepafut) itself reported a year ago that it had been trying to combat these match-fixing for some time.
The Superior Prosecutor against Organized Crime, Emeldo Márquez, who is leading this investigation, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the accused “offered and promised current league players amounts of money ranging from $1,500 to $4,500 dollars, so that they would have results in the games by time, or final result.”
According to the prosecutor, the amounts were paid “immediately after the matches ended (…) to the players who participated in these irregular situations.”
The crime they are accused of, Márquez noted, carries a penalty of 2 to 4 years in prison, and although most of the payments were made “in cash,” payment was also made through digital currency, in these cases Bitcoin.
In a statement on Tuesday, Fepafut said that “the people involved are temporarily suspended from all activities related to federated football in Panama while the investigations by the Public Ministry continue.”
FIFA President Manuel Arias said that “FIFA is aware of all the investigations, of everything that has been done.”
A year ago, Arias had already warned that “many players” had been removed or suspended for their possible involvement in these match-fixing schemes, and that they had been trying for two and a half years, with the creation of an Integrity Office in Fepafut, to combat something that “is part of football life” in all countries where this sport is professionalized.
The controversy had broken out days earlier in Panama, after the Anglo-Panamanian coach Gary Stempel reported that match-fixing had been taking place in the Central American country for over a year, something he defined as “a crisis in Panamanian football.”
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