Match-fixing trial starts in Turkey

including the club’s jailed president, as the opening hearing into their match-fixing case began yesterday.
Fenerbahce president Aziz Yildirim and 92 others have been charged in the scandal allegedly involving 19 league matches last season. They are scheduled to appear before the court near Istanbul.
League champions Fenerbahce were barred from the Champions League because of their involvement in the match-fixing scandal and they could be stripped of their domestic title and face relegation. Match-fixing scandals tarnished leagues in Turkey, Italy, Israel, Finland and Greece last year despite Uefa spending millions of euros to monitor betting and investigate cases in which players and referees were allegedly bribed.
“The government might collapse, (chronic) inflation might go down but Fenerbahce can never be relegated,” Fenerbahce fans shouted outside the courthouse in the town of Silivri, near Istanbul.
The head of the Turkish Football Federation and two of his deputies resigned last month following a controversy on how to deal with teams implicated in match-fixing.
In December, Turkey’s parliament approved a sharp reduction in prison terms for match-fixing and hooliganism, a move that will lead to lighter sentences for any suspects found guilty in the match-fixing scandal.
The parliament voted for the new reduced term of a maximum three years in prison, overriding a veto by President Abdullah Gul who had argued that the amendments were giving “the impression of a special arrangement” to save suspects including Yildirim.
Fenerbahce went unbeaten through the second half of the season and beat Trabzonspor to the title on goal difference. Officials of Trabzonspor, who replaced Fenerbahce in the Champions League, have also been implicated along with officials and players of several other clubs.
Yildirim, who has denied any wrongdoing, faces charges of establishing a crime ring and match-fixing, according to the indictment which included records of wire-tapped conversations between the suspects who allegedly exchanged encoded messages.
Fenerbahce risks having their name tarnished like Italian club Juventus, who were stripped of their 2005 and 2006 Italian league titles. – AP.