Two players questioned in Germany
Thursday, 26 November 2009 18:28German side Fortuna Dusseldorf have confirmed two players from their reserve side were today questioned by police in connection with a Europe-wide match-fixing probe.
The club named the pair on their official website as midfielder Ben Abelski and goalkeeper Maximilian Schulze Niehues.
The duo play for the club's second team in the regional league.
Fortuna's first team currently lie fourth in the German second division. The club gave no further details about the questioning, other than to say that it took place at the instigation of the Bochum state prosecutors, who have been at the forefront of the investigation into matching-fixing in European football.
Fortuna have an illustrious history, having won the Bundesliga title in the 1930s, the DFB Pokal in 1979 and 1980 and also reached the European Cup Winners' Cup final in 1979.
SC Verl, a fourth-division club allegedly involved in the scandal, this week announced they had suspended players Patrick Neumann and Tim Hagedorn from games and training.
UEFA yesterday named five clubs - KF Tirana and KS Vllaznia of Albania, FC Dinaburg of Latvia, NK IB Ljubljana of Slovenia, and Budapest Honved of Hungary - suspected of involvement in match-fixing.
Seven Champions and Europa League qualifiers involving those teams, all played between July 16 and August 6, are under scrutiny.
UEFA yesterday met with nine national football associations - from Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey - to discuss the investigation into the alleged manipulation of both domestic and continental matches.
Prosecutors in Germany are leading the investigation, with the case involving around 200 matches.
Peter Limacher, UEFA's head of disciplinary services, has previously described the scandal as the biggest to affect European football.
