[CROoney]

Serious spanish newspapers ABC have stated that the 2 members of the russian mafia who were caught in Spain confessed that had been fixing matches the last season in order to make FC Zenith winners of the UEFA CUP .According to the statements, they confessed that they had fixed the matches against Bayern and Rangers.
ABC says that the criminals were caught for drug abuse, but that their relations with Zenit makes it rather worrying. Allegedly the police were trailing phone calls of Gennadij Petrov, mafia boss and his right hand Leonid Khristoforov in which there were some conversations about fixing the macthes stated above.
Although it is yet to be confirmed, the same source says that the spanish police started investigation in order to check the russians statements about fixing those matches.


ABC are the third biggest newspapers in Spain and they are sold in 250 000 copies daily

[Rooneys_Temper]

Well well well...the dirty buggers! IF this is true,then they should be stripped of the title and banned from all European competitions for 100 years so i never have to see the dirty scoundrels again.If not,then its a great tabloid story!!

[CaptainRoyKeane]

Dont tell em the super cup was fixed lol!

[Banana-rama]

Originally Posted by CROoney

Serious spanish newspapers ABC have stated that the 2 members of the russian mafia who were caught in Spain confessed that had been fixing matches the last season in order to make FC Zenith winners of the UEFA CUP .According to the statements, they confessed that they had fixed the matches against Bayern and Rangers.
ABC says that the criminals were caught for drug abuse, but that their relations with Zenit makes it rather worrying. Allegedly the police were trailing phone calls of Gennadij Petrov, mafia boss and his right hand Leonid Khristoforov in which there were some conversations about fixing the macthes stated above.
Although it is yet to be confirmed, the same source says that the spanish police started investigation in order to check the russians statements about fixing those matches.


ABC are the third biggest newspapers in Spain and they are sold in 250 000 copies daily

The Sun newspaper is the biggest selling newspaper in Britain but it is still a garbage paper that completely makes up stories on a daily basis so I would not take much notice of how much this Spanish newspaper is selling if I were you. We have seen the rubbish that can come out of the Spanish media with the lies that were printed in the Marca newspaper every single day during the transfer window so I would not believe this story at all until there is something official. I watched the majority of Zenit's matches in the Uefa Cup and they won the tournament fair and square playing some magnificent passing football.

The only eye brow raising result in the Uefa Cup involving Zenit last season was the way they hammered Bayern Munich. I think it would be impossible to bribe a huge club like Bayern to throw a match, could you really see the likes of Van Bommel Ribery and Klose going out to lose a game of football. It is impossible that they bribed the referee's against Bayern because there star striker Pogrebnyak was given a ridiculous yellow card in the second leg which he didn't deserve which led to him missing the final. If you watched the Uefa Cup Final you would see that Rangers gave everything they had but could not live with Zenit, I did not see any bias from the referee in favour of Zenit at all in the final.

So in conclusion I do not believe this story, Zenit St Petersburg have deserved there success thanks to some of the best passing and attacking football I have seen in my time watching football and it should not be clouded by these rumours.

[Hezzy]

I watched most of there Uefa cup matches last season and none of them looked suspicious. I dont believe it but its still a good story.

If it is true Rangers could be Uefa Cup Champions... ha

[gibby17]

I dont believe a word of this.
After watching Zenit st petersberg vs Bayer Leverkusen I was impressed enough to tip them to win the competition. They didnt dissapoint and were very impressive against Bayern Munich and Rangers. When they won and subsequently Man Utd won the CL I actually said to a couple of my colleagues that they would give Man Utd a tough game in the super cup. Which, unfortunately, they did :S

Im not a Zenit fan or anything of the sort, but to say they didnt deserve success in the UEFA cup is just ridiculous.

And as a side poiny their star striker Pogrebnyak is seriously impressive, far better than Pavlyuchenko if you ask me.

[manutd004]

Originally Posted by Banana-rama

The Sun newspaper is the biggest selling newspaper in Britain but it is still a garbage paper that completely makes up stories on a daily basis so I would not take much notice of how much this Spanish newspaper is selling if I were you. We have seen the rubbish that can come out of the Spanish media with the lies that were printed in the Marca newspaper every single day during the transfer window so I would not believe this story at all until there is something official. I watched the majority of Zenit's matches in the Uefa Cup and they won the tournament fair and square playing some magnificent passing football.

The only eye brow raising result in the Uefa Cup involving Zenit last season was the way they hammered Bayern Munich. I think it would be impossible to bribe a huge club like Bayern to throw a match, could you really see the likes of Van Bommel Ribery and Klose going out to lose a game of football. It is impossible that they bribed the referee's against Bayern because there star striker Pogrebnyak was given a ridiculous yellow card in the second leg which he didn't deserve which led to him missing the final. If you watched the Uefa Cup Final you would see that Rangers gave everything they had but could not live with Zenit, I did not see any bias from the referee in favour of Zenit at all in the final.

So in conclusion I do not believe this story, Zenit St Petersburg have deserved there success thanks to some of the best passing and attacking football I have seen in my time watching football and it should not be clouded by these rumours.

I agree.

We don't know exactly what the match-fixing involves, whether it means the referee, the opposition players, etc. But none of the referees made very dodgy decisions from what I can recall.

And why on Earth would Bayern throw a European Semi-Final? And why would Rangers throw a European final?

Sorry, but I find this story a load of crap. Until their is any form of solid evidence, and full details of what actually went on, I'll not change my opinion.

[ejuventus]

I suddenly thought something like that after their 4-0 victory against Bayern M.

[red lady]

too many fiddles going on in football....

[Banana-rama]

Originally Posted by red lady

too many fiddles going on in football....

So your just accepting this story as fact are you, your obviously one of the people who keeps garbage papers like the Sun and Daily Star in business because they print lies on a daily basis and people like you swallow them hook line and sinker. There is nothing in this story at all, Zenit won the Uefa Cup fair and square so don't make such an ignorant comment.