Following an emergency meeting at UEFA headquarters in Switzerland, UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino said Wednesday that a further seven European club competitions are now under investigation for suspected match-fixing involving teams from Albania, Austria, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia and Turkey.
Infantino said UEFA was launching its own investigation into three referees and one other individual connected to UEFA in relation to the match-fixing allegations, but dismissed widespread media reports that any administrative staff at UEFA were under suspicion.
The latest matches to fall under investigation include the Champions League second round qualifier between KF Tirana of Albania and Stabæk IF of Norway, as well as two Europa League third round qualifiers and four second round qualifiers involving Fenerbahçe SK, Budapest Honvéd FC, NK IB Ljubljana, FC Metalurh Donetsk, SK Rapid Wien, KS Vllaznia, Bnei Yehuda Tel-Aviv FC and FC Dinaburg.
"UEFA wishes to stress that it has been co-operating fully with the German police and authorities on the case and indeed, following a request from the German police for information on a number of matches, UEFA was able to assist thanks to its Betting Fraud Detection System that has been monitoring all UEFA competitions and European national league first and second-division matches for irregular betting patterns since July 2009,” said UEFA General Secretary, Gianni Infantino.
"UEFA will file criminal complaints, together with the relevant national associations, as soon as possible against clubs, officials and/or players in those countries concerned. We have full trust in our national associations to deal with the cases related to their national competitions and will continue to provide them with our full co-operation and assistance," he said.
Infantino admitted that the organisation was ill equipped to tackle the problem of organised crime and was dependent on the work being carried out by public authorities in a number of countries, but said that by working together as a team, they could “eradicate this cancer altogether and kick it out of football”.
He also called on any players or officials with knowledge of the incidents to come forward and speak to either UEFA, the national associations or football leagues.
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