A Bundesliga player on Tuesday said that he was offered a €15 000 bribe by a mystery caller if his team won a match during the 2003 season.
The revelation made by Ranisav Jovanovic, a striker now with first-division Mainz 05, is the latest twist in the match-fixing scandal that has rocked German football as it prepares to host the 2006 World Cup.
Jovanovic told his club’s website that the offer was made when he was playing for third-division Dynamo Dresden and involved a match against Prussen Munster on June 8 2003.
”Four days before the game, I was rung up by an unnamed man who told me that he wanted to offer me a financial incentive for a Dynamo Dresden victory in the guise of a private sponsor,” Jovanic recalled.
Jovanovic said he passed the caller on to his manager, Christoph Finke, who said the money could only be accepted if Dynamo won the match.
”After the game [which Dynamo duly won], we all split the €15 000. I never had any more contact with the man,” the 24-year-old striker added.
”I don’t know where the money came from. We thought it was a supporter. It was only afterwards that we heard he’d had a bet on us.”
Jovanovic’s announcement comes in the wake of the corruption scandal centring on referee Robert Hoyzer, who has admitted to fixing at least five matches in return for five-figure bribes. — Sapa-AFP