More than 50 detained on football match-fixing
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More than 50 people, including professional football players, were detained on Wednesday on allegations of match fixing and manipulating football games.
The semi-official Anatolia news agency reported that these people were detained in police raids which were carried out in eight Turkish provinces.
Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyespor coach Arif Erdem and Konyaspor goalkeeper Recep Ozturk were among those detained in conjunction with match-fixing allegations.
Also managers and high ranking officials were detained in other cities including Antalya, Samsun, Trabzon, Denizli and Kayseri.
All the detainees were brought to Istanbul for further interrogation. Those under custody are being processed at the Istanbul Financial Crimes Unit, according to the report.
Istanbul Chief of Police Huseyin Capkin confirmed the raids.
Previous investigations of match-fixing were started by the Diyarbakir Police Department in mid-February.
In that sweep, which took place across 13 provinces, 77 people were arrested including nine players and one technical director.
Turkish Football Association declared that the investigation has started with their application to the prosecutor in August 2009.
In its announcement, the federation said that three different match-fixing dossiers were probed.
Match-fixing allegations started in November by organized crime officials in Bochum, Germany. Since then more than 200 matches have been investigated in 11 countries including Turkey.
