Filippo di Pierro, the coach of Spanish third division club, Eldense, has been arrested by police and taken in for questioning after his side lost 12-0 to Barcelona B last weekend.
Pierro's club was smashed to smithereens by a Barcelona B side that had players like Alex Carbonell, Gerard Gumbau, Alberto Perea, Kaptoum, Marc Cardona and Nacho Abeledo but Eldense president David Aguilar after the match denounced the result and asked for help from the Spanish police and La Liga- which ultimately led to Pierro's arrest.
Pierro's arrival at the club coincided with when an Italian investment group that has been accused of corruption took over the club, and it is believed the coach and the Italian investment group were involved in match fixing, hence his arrest on Monday night.
According to reports, bets were reportedly placed on being 8-0 down at half-time and to lose by 11+ goals. They were 8-0 down at HT and lost 12-0.
Following the shameful loss, Eldense announced they had ended ties with the group of Italian investors and would not be playing their six remaining fixtures of the season.
Meanwhile, Eldense player Cheikh Saad spoke to Spanish radio station RAC1, and confirmed that the game had been fixed.
Saad, who did not play in the 12-0 defeat, said: “There are four players involved in match fixing. I don’t care what happens, but when I can, I will give the names of these players. Half an hour before playing the game against Barcelona B I was starting, but then I was out of the line up. They told a teammate this game was fixed and if he wanted to play he should not score goals. They didn’t ask me as they knew what my answer would be. The coach knew something, I’m sure, and the players too.”
“The coach told me to come on and I told him I did not want to. I also told my teammates on the bench that they shouldn’t go out on to the pitch if they didn’t want their names to be stained.”
On Barcelona B, Saad added: “They are not involved in any way. They did what they had to do, score goals. If it had been me I would have done the same.”
La Liga president Javier Tebas said: “We’re going to investigate because there are certain collateral issues with an Italian investment group that bear the hallmarks of the possible involvement of an international betting ring with a view to match-fixing.”
It's a crime for footballers, football administrators, coaches or football employees to engage in football betting.
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