The trial on the case of eight arbiters arrested with the charges of commercial bribery will be held today and the court will rule on the preventive measure against them.
The lawyers of the defendants were at the Moduli office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs last night, where they were handed over the case materials.
The same arbiters were prohibited to carry out their professional activities from now on – the corresponding decision was taken at the meeting of the referees committee of the Georgian Football Federation yesterday.
The chairperson of the same committee resigned after the scandal of the arbiters.
The investigation is in progress. Arguably, along with the life disqualification, the eight referees will face criminal punishment.
The arbiters were detained by the officers of Anti-corruption Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs two days ago. The detainees are charged with commercial bribery – they are the referees and Referee Supervisors’ Committee arbiters on the fact of commercial bribery.
The investigation established that detainees made an agreement with citizens in advance on the number of red and yellow cards to be shown during the match in return for certain amount of cash (2500 to 5000 US dollars).
By means of the scheme, detainees enabled citizens to make bets on the number of cards which would be shown during the football game and thus managed to win money through bets.
According to the investigation, the practice of commercial bribe by the referees was shared by other referees as well and the detectives are now working to identify them as well.
Source: rustavi2
