Napster
No ⭐
A BENT REFEREE AND A FAIR COP
Granny Fiver always used to say: "Crime doesn't pay". As Granny had a battering ram in one hand and enough diamonds to pebbledash the new Wembley in the other, the Fiver resolved merely to never get caught. Were we to attempt to fix a match, for instance, we'd go small, for fear of ending up as a prison pet to 19 stones of sweat and hair. We certainly wouldn't try to see Southend past Arsenal in the FA Cup.
Which is basically what German referee Robert Hoyzer did last August, when he conjured two penalties and a dodgy sending-off as Regionalliga Nord minnows SC Paderborn beat Bundesliga side Hamburg SV 4-2. Unsurprisingly, Herr Hoyzer has since been binned by the German FA and was today sentenced to two-and-a-half years behind bars after pleading guilty to fraud. Fellow crooked ref Dominik Marks was given a suspended sente
Behind it all was Croatian café owner Ante Sapina, who put £45k in Hoyzer's pocket for fixing, or trying to fix, nine matches between April and December last year. Sapina trousered more than 2m euros himself betting on the 23 games he tried to manipulate with brothers Filip and Milan - bagging half a million euros (and alerting the authorities) on the Paderborn v Hamburg match alone.
A master of subtlety, Ante Sapina would text Hoyzer bribes during half-time or meet players in restaurants before kick-off, brown envelope under arm, with requests to "play with their brakes on". He got just under three years today, with suspended sentences for his two brothers. Both Sapina and Hoyzer have indicated they intend to appeal their sentences, but the Fiver thinks they fully deserve a spell as the wing plaything, if only for being so stupid.
Granny Fiver always used to say: "Crime doesn't pay". As Granny had a battering ram in one hand and enough diamonds to pebbledash the new Wembley in the other, the Fiver resolved merely to never get caught. Were we to attempt to fix a match, for instance, we'd go small, for fear of ending up as a prison pet to 19 stones of sweat and hair. We certainly wouldn't try to see Southend past Arsenal in the FA Cup.
Which is basically what German referee Robert Hoyzer did last August, when he conjured two penalties and a dodgy sending-off as Regionalliga Nord minnows SC Paderborn beat Bundesliga side Hamburg SV 4-2. Unsurprisingly, Herr Hoyzer has since been binned by the German FA and was today sentenced to two-and-a-half years behind bars after pleading guilty to fraud. Fellow crooked ref Dominik Marks was given a suspended sente
Behind it all was Croatian café owner Ante Sapina, who put £45k in Hoyzer's pocket for fixing, or trying to fix, nine matches between April and December last year. Sapina trousered more than 2m euros himself betting on the 23 games he tried to manipulate with brothers Filip and Milan - bagging half a million euros (and alerting the authorities) on the Paderborn v Hamburg match alone.
A master of subtlety, Ante Sapina would text Hoyzer bribes during half-time or meet players in restaurants before kick-off, brown envelope under arm, with requests to "play with their brakes on". He got just under three years today, with suspended sentences for his two brothers. Both Sapina and Hoyzer have indicated they intend to appeal their sentences, but the Fiver thinks they fully deserve a spell as the wing plaything, if only for being so stupid.
