Tom English: 'Why would you bribe a rank underdog to take a dive?'

WHEN NEWS broke on Thursday of an alleged match-fixing scandal in the latter stages of last season's UEFA Cup, Vitaly Mutko did not take the news at all well.

Fair enough, all this talk of alleged mafia men messing with the game is an unpleasant business and, as president of the Russian football federation, it was his duty to defend the honour of Zenit St Petersburg, whose triumph in Manchester was, to the naked eye at least, wholly pure and wholly deserved. But Mutko took his indignation just a little too far.

Mutko had a hurt air about him when he condemned the reports as false and outrageous, wondering aloud what kind of people would write such things about football in his homeland, the implication being that the game in Russia is beyond reproach. "This is just another attempt to diminish something… Such things are not done at this level."

Well, that's a hell of a statement. Didn't the Italian game convulse in the summer of 2006 because of match-fixing? Weren't there resignations and fines and bans for individuals involved, weren't there fines and relegation for clubs involved, didn't the whole game fall to its knees during the police investigation watched by the entire world – apart from, it seems, Vitaly Mutko?

Didn't the Supreme Court of Sporting Justice declare null and void the outcomes of 11 Brazilian league matches in 2005 after referee Edílson Pereira de Carvalho (a FIFA official) was investigated for and admitted to accepting bribes from betting rings to fix the results of games? Wasn't there a scandal in Germany the same year? Referee Robert Hoyzer admitted to fixing a game. "The accusations that have been raised in public are true," he said. "I regret my behaviour profoundly and apologise."

Hoyzer told state prosecutors that other referees and players were involved. He said he had been present when other referees accepted money from a Croatian-controlled betting ring in Berlin and had heard of players getting paid. Nothing ever came of this claim but, whatever the truth in his allegation of corruption elsewhere in Germany, there is one undeniable fact. Hoyzer took a bribe. It happens. Not saying it happened in the Zenit case. Not saying that at all. But it has happened in the past. It happened 108 years ago in England (for the first time, we think) when Burnley goalkeeper "Happy" Jack Hillman was banned for a year for attempting to bribe Nottingham Forest players before a relegation match. "A fiver a head if you take it easy," Happy was alleged to have said. And, Comrade Mutko, Russia is not immune.

There are many anecdotes you could cite. Here's one from the pages of Simon Kuper's Football Against The Enemy, published in 1994. Kuper recounts an interview with a man called Valeri Ovchinikov, the then coach of Lokomotiv Nizhni Novgorod. Without any prompting, Ovchinikov admits to being a regular briber of referees. "Do you think I'm the only coach who does?" Ovchinikov asked his interviewer rhetorically. Kuper reports that the managers of the 18 First Division clubs in Russia had once been asked: "Are there arranged matches in our league?" All 18 had replied: "Yes". The next question they were asked was: "Does your club play in these matches?" All 18 replied: "No".

Of course not.

Another book, Football Dynamo by Marc Bennetts, has chapter and verse about match-fixing in Russia. He quotes a source: "If they (the Russian authorities] started to battle against corruption, like the Italians, I don't know what would happen. Something awful, that's for sure." The source is all the more powerful for being named. These are the words of Vladimir Beschastnykh, an ex-Spartak Moscow striker and one of the country's most-capped players with 71 appearances.

All stories alleging corruption in the game are intriguing but the one that came out of Spain last week was all the more gripping because of the extraordinary cast of characters mentioned. There is Gennady Petrov, the alleged boss of the Russian mafia in Spain, a man who was arrested in the summer at his ?20m mansion in Majorca as part of Operation Troika, a mission that led to 20 arrests, the unearthing of ?200,000 in cash, the seizing of numerous luxury cars and a signed Salvador Dali painting and the freezing of 100 bank accounts containing ?14m.

Then there is Baltasar Garzon, the judge who spearheaded Operation Troika, the crusading investigator known all over Spain for his campaigns against Islamist terror cells, former dictators and the Basque terror group Eta who are believed to have had a contract out on his head. Human rights groups have campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize to be given to Garzon. He is a man of the most impeccable character.

The story goes that Garzon has a tape, secured from a wire-tap of the phones of alleged gangsters, that contains the voices of Petrov and others. The conversations supposedly centre on the fixing of football matches, the UEFA Cup semi-final second leg between Zenit and Bayern Munich, won 4-0 by the Russian team, and the UEFA Cup final with Rangers, won 2-0 by Zenit. El Pais, the Spanish daily, reported that Petrov is on tape claiming to have paid ?50m to Bayern to lose.

Garzon has now passed the tape on to officials at Bayern Munich. Naturally, they and Rangers completely deny any knowledge of any illegal activity. And, in fairness to them, it is easy to see why.

So much of this is peculiar. Zenit, for instance, were a sensation last season, their team packed with high-class players, some of whom went on to star for Russia in Euro 2008, where they made the semi-final. On their way to the semis in the UEFA Cup, the hugely-moneyed Russians eliminated Villarreal, an outstanding outfit that finished second in La Liga last season, Marseille, who came in third in the French league, and Bayer Leverkusen, whom they trounced 4-1 in their own ground in Germany.

That kind of form did not go unnoticed. Clearly, they were a force to be reckoned with. Then they faced Bayern. The first leg was in Munich and it ended 1-1. With an away goal in the bank, Zenit were now clear favourites to progress against a Bayern team that had been leaking goals all the way through the competition; two each to Red Star, Bolton and Aberdeen and three to Getafe in a quarter-final second leg they only came through after extra-time.

Zenit won the second leg 4-0. It's been said this past week, in the wake of the story from Spain, that the scoreline was suspicious. But was it? Zenit were playing wonderful football at the time, Bayern were struggling. At 2-0 on the night in St Petersburg (and 3-1 on aggregate) the tie was over and Bayern's spirit was crushed. With a relentless attacking force like Zenit, 2-0 can become 4-0 very quickly if you drop the head. Looking back on the highlights of the game, nothing appears suspicious about that match, nothing at all. Not one incident, not one substantial decision, nothing. Zero. The same with the final. Zenit won it fair and square. Rangers tried their guts out but were not good enough. There was no debate, no argument from Rangers' people, nothing in the remotest bit dodgy about the performances of the players, the referee, the linesmen, anybody.

And what was supposed to be fixed about the final? The fact that Zenit won? Well, they were overwhelming favourites to win. Why would you bribe a rank underdog to take a dive? Or maybe Petrov means the final score of 2-0 was rigged. If so, he had to wait until the dying seconds for the second goal, a goal that Rangers tried like men possessed to avoid conceding, but just couldn't because they were overrun by better players.

None of it makes sense right now. Until we hear the tape, none of it ever will.