Romanian anticorruption prosecutors probe alleged Dinamo - Lazio match fixing

Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) has launched an investigation into the football game between local team Dinamo Bucharest and Italian Lazio Roma, in the Champions League playoffs in 2007, after match-fixing allegations. The Romanian sports newspaper Pro Sport started a journalistic investigation into this match in January 2015. Journalists quoted several former Dinamo players and officials who said the club’s management at that time fixed the game against Lazio. The DNA started the investigation in less than two weeks after Pro Sport published the articles. The match in question took place on August 28, 2008, in Bucharest. Lazio had managed to get only a draw against Dinamo in their home match of the Champions League playoffs and risked being eliminated from the competition. Dinamo lost the second match against Lazio by 1-3, after having a 1-0 lead at halftime. This allowed Lazio to qualify for the Champions League group stage and get a few million euro from UEFA. In return, Lazio bought Romanian defender Radu Stefan from Dinamo. The Italian club paid some EUR 5.4 million (or EUR 7 million, according to other statements) for the player, who was only 20 at that time. Romanian businessman Vladimir Cohn, who was one of Dinamo’s shareholders at that time, said the match against Lazio was fixed by the club’s management. “For the Lazio match the fixing was made before the match. At halftime, the players were told to back out. The price was Radu Stefan’s sale, as the player wasn’t worth EUR 4.5 million at that time,” Cohn told Pro Sport. He said that Dinamo’s former executive president Cristi Borcea allegedly fixed the match. Mircea Rednic, who was Dinamo’s coach at the match against Lazio, and Cornel Dinu, Dinamo’s former sports manager, also pointed the finger of blame at Cristi Borcea and football agent Ioan Becali. Both Borcea and Becali are currently serving 6 years and 4 months prison sentences each for tax evasion and money laundering related to international transfers of Romanian football players. Several other Romanian football club officials and football agents were sentenced to jail, in March 2014, in the “Transfers' Case”. editor@romania-insider.com (Photo source: Pro Sport)