Russian football authorities will eradicate match-fixing entirely by carrying out more investigations and issuing tough punishments, the head of the Russian Football Union’s committee on match-fixing promised in an interview with RIA Novosti on Monday.
Russian football is persistently dogged by claims of match-fixing, including in the Premier League, although few of the accusations are ever upheld by the authorities.
“It will soon be that we have so much [work] that it will be difficult,” Anzor Kavazashvili told RIA Novosti.
“The fact that we are now moving forward swiftly shows that there will no longer be fixed games because no one wants to pay huge fines or be banned from football for life.”
The Russian Football Union would make public the names of those caught match-fixing and pass on information to law enforcement authorities, he added.
The union’s rules allow for a fine of up to 50 million rubles ($1.7 million) for clubs involved in match-fixing and life bans for players and team officials who fix games.
In one well-known case in Russia, the coach of third-tier side Volotchanin-Ratmir, Vladimir Kosogov, was fined over $3,000 by Russian football authorities after alleging in 2008 that lower division games were regularly rigged.
The Russian Football Union said that Kosogov was fined because he failed to provide proof.
