Sliema Wanderers FC yesterday filed a police report on corruption allegations about this week's Europa league qualifier match with Qormi.

The club won the match 2-0. Earlier the club goalkeeper Simon Agius had filed a judicial protest claiming that his club bosses had falsely accused him of corruption and threatened him, hours before Wednesday's match. The club denied making such allegations against Mr Agius. Yesterday, the club issued a dry statement saying it had passed on corruption-related information to the police.

However, when contacted, Sliema Wanderers' president Steve Abela insisted the claims had "nothing to do with" the former goalkeeper.

He would not say whether it involved any other player from the Sliema team or elaborate further but police sources confirmed the claim was connected to Wednesday's match.

In his protest on Wednesday, the 32-year-old goalkeeper said he had been called for a 1 a.m. meeting that morning, during which he was allegedly told by the club's top officials that they had paid someone who told them that he had taken a bribe to throw the decider match.

The judicial protest was filed against Mr Abela, coach Mark Marlow, PR officer Ivan Calleja, club secretary Mario Debono and treasurer Marc Migneco in their capacity as representatives of the club.

But replying to these claims, Mr Abela denied ever accusing Mr Agius of taking bribes, or that any of the Sliema officials had refused to refer their allegation to the police for a fully-fledged investigation.

Mr Abela said it was Mr Agius who had asked to meet club officials late on Tuesday, a meeting that lasted until the early hours of Wednesday morning.

He said that, later that morning, they were informed that in the middle of the night, Mr Agius had left the hotel where Sliema FC players were staying to prepare for their football match, without informing anyone.