Trying to prove that players or officials can influence the outcome of team sports, particularly football, is an arduous task, but it has been known to occur.
At all levels of the game, if the financial inducement is attractive enough, it seems that some involved in football just can’t resist.
Suspicions were raised back in 2018 in the Serbia SuperLiga, when Spartak Subotica played their match against Radnicki Nis.
On that occasion, as MARCA detail, two penalty decisions, and one in particular described as ‘scandalous’ by the media present at the match, led to the referee in the game, Srdjan Obradovic, being investigated.
Conclusions have recently completed, and Obradovic has been handed a 15-month prison term and a 10-year ban from holding any position in the Serbian Football Federation.
Serbian news agency, Tanjug, note that the ruling, which was passed by the Anti-Corruption Chamber of the High Court of Novi Sad, can be appealed.