Two Maltese nationals accused of rigging football games in Italy were spotted in the company of ringleaders from Calabria, Italian police have confirmed.
Rodolfo Ruperti, head of the Catanzaro police, told Times of Malta yesterday Robert and Adrian Farrugia had visited the city of Lamezia Terme in Calabria, the focal point of the police operation Dirty Soccer.
“They were together with others who were organising and financing the match-fixing scam,” Dr Ruperti said when asked what had led the police to point the finger at the pair.
The police also intercepted phone calls between the Farrugia brothers and the Italian masterminds, he added.
The Farrugias were among a list of 50 individuals named by the Italian police on Tuesday, when they released information on the nationwide match-fixing probe that also implicated nationals from other countries, including Malta, Serbia, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Robert Farrugia is the vice president of Msida St Joseph football club, while Adrian Farrugia is the former team manager of Mosta FC.
When contacted yesterday Msida president Edward Calleja said the club was treating the case very seriously but insisted he could not force Robert Farrugia to resign as yet. “Robert called and assured me the Msida club had nothing to do with what was being alleged. He denied any links to any organisations and insisted he will defend himself.
“Robert has been implicated in an investigation but has not been accused and so I cannot oblige him to resign for now.”
Mr Calleja said he was following matters as best he could and if it resulted the affair was damaging the club in any way, Robert Farrugia’s position would have to be reviewed.
Malta FA president Norman Darmanin Demajo (see page 45) said the association would decide how to proceed once it had received official information from the relevant authorities. However, he said the news “came like a bolt out of the blue”.
The scam primarily involved matches from the third and fourth tiers of Italian football, and those arrested included club presidents, footballers, coaches, officials and financiers, who fixed matches to win millions of euros on bets.
Dr Ruperti alleged the Farrugia brothers acted as “financiers” and were in the process of trying to fix Maltese games as well.
An Italian national with links to Maltese football, Felice Bellini, was also implicated in the scam. Mr Bellini was a former director general at Vittoriosa Stars and in the past had connections with the Gudja and Qormi football clubs. Mr Bellini is currently a director of marketing at Vigor-Lamezia, the Lamezia football club that has been identified as one of the culprits.
The police honed in on the scam as a result of investigations into links between the little-known football club Neapolis and the Calabrian mafia, ‘Ndrangheta.
Under Italian law, sports fraud carries a maximum nine-year jail term, now that penalties have been increased since last September. Some of those charged could face longer jail terms, however, if they are accused of aiding and abetting a mafia organisation.
kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com