Four referees and 14 players are among 25 people suspected of manipulating at least 10 games, including first-division matches, Berlin prosecutors said in Germany’s growing match-fixing scandal on Wednesday.
Police raided the homes of 19 people across the country early on Wednesday and seized documents, a statement from spokesperson Michael Grunwald said.
The statement did not give the names of any players but said they are from six clubs, none of them from the first-division Bundesliga.
All are suspected of fraud or abetting fraud, the statement said.
The probe was based on the statement referee Robert Hoyzer gave to the prosecutors on Friday, according to prosecutors. They did not say which games were allegedly manipulated.
Hoyzer, the first referee to come under suspicion from the German soccer federation (DFB), admitted taking bribes from a Croatian-controlled betting ring to manipulate at least four games.
In his statement, Hoyzer gave the names of other people allegedly involved in the scandal.
Apart from Hoyzer, the prosecutors said they are investigating three other referees — Juergen Jansen, Felix Zwayer and Dominik Marks.
Jansen, among the people whose home was searched, was in charge of the only Bundesliga game mentioned in the case so far.
Apart from the four referees and 14 players under suspicion, three Croatian brothers are among the suspects, plus people connected to them, including one former referee, the statement said.
The three brothers, in custody since late on Friday, bet on the manipulated games in Germany and abroad and made gains ”in the millions”, the statement said.
The prosecutors said they seized bank accounts and property worth about €2,44-million as guarantee against any compensation claims.
The probe is still at the beginning, the statement said.
The players are from second-division teams LR Ahlen, Chemnitzer FC, Energie Cottbus and Dynamo Dresden and third-division clubs Kickers Offenbach and SC Paderborn.
The 10 games believed to have been manipulated involve the three top divisions, plus the German Cup.
When the DFB started investigating irregularities less than three weeks ago, it was looking at six games — five in the lower leagues and one German Cup match, top-division Hamburger SV vs third-division Paderborn.
It was the first match to raise suspicion. Hoyzer was the referee and awarded two dubious penalties to Paderborn, and sent off one Hamburg player as Padernborn rallied from a two-goal deficit to win 4-2.
The game drew attention because unusually high sums were bet on a Paderborn win.
Paderborn’s captain was suspended on Monday after admitting he received a ”special bonus” for the victory from a man he didn’t know. The money was later split among the players.
Several Dynamo Dresden players admitted a similar incident before one of their games in June 2003. Dynamo was then in the third division. The players split €15 000 one of them received from a man he said he didn’t know.
Jansen, one of the suspected referees, was allegedly approached by the Croats in November and asked to make sure the Bundesliga game between Kaiserslautern and Freiburg ended in the ”right” result, according to media reports on Tuesday.
The November 27 match ended in a 3-0 win for Kaiserslautern after two disputed goals.
Jansen was removed as the official in charge of the first-division match between Werder Bremen and Hansa Rostock just hours before kick-off on Sunday.
The DFB described Jansen’s removal then as a ”purely precautionary measure,” saying he wasn’t suspected of fixing matches. Jansen gave a sworn statement on Monday denying any connection to the affair. — Sapa-AP