German FA bans six players

Six German soccer players suspected of involvement in a match-fixing scandal surrounding disgraced former referee Robert Hoyzer were provisionally banned by the German Football Association yesterday. The DFB said the six second and third division...

Six German soccer players suspected of involvement in a match-fixing scandal surrounding disgraced former referee Robert Hoyzer were provisionally banned by the German Football Association yesterday.

The DFB said the six second and third division league players were banned on "suspicion of unsportsmanlike behaviour" in the match-fixing scandal that rocked Germany earlier this year.

The DFB has already banned Hoyzer for life after he admitted to fixing matches to support betting on the results, a scandal that badly tarnished Germany in the year before it hosts the 2006 World Cup finals.

The latest ban on the six players was based on testimony from Ante S., the Croatian owner of a Berlin cafe who is accused of organised fraud in connection with the fixing of matches, the DFB said.

Twenty-five people suspected of manipulating the results of at least 10 matches in 2004 are under investigation.

The banned players are: Torsten Bittermann from second division side Dynamo Dresden; Steffen Karl, who previously played for third division team FC Chemnitz; Markus Ahlf, Ronny Kujat, Marco Eckstein and Ronny Thielemann from Sachsen Leipzig.

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