BY: REUTERS
Wednesday 16 May 2012
There are thousands of players like Mario Cizmek in football, professionals who never fulfilled their early promise yet whose passion for the game takes them to unfashionable clubs to earn a living from the game they love.
Cizmek represented his native Croatia at under-20 and under-21 level. A diagnosis of diabetes halted his rise and he never made it to the big leagues. Instead he became a journeyman, playing for clubs as far afield as Israel and Iceland.
The 36-year-old midfielder, though, has since made a name for himself for the wrong reasons after admitting involvement in fixing eight matches in 2010, raising the prospect of time in jail and a ban from playing the sport for life.
Cizmek said his life started to unravel after his club, Croatia Sesvete, failed to pay his salary, which amounted to roughly 3,000 euros (about $3,900) a month.
“A month or two is not a problem but I did not get my wages for a full year,” he told AFP.
He owed the state about 35,000 euros in taxes and social contributions and did not want to ask friends and family for loans anymore.
“You lose your dignity and become an easy target,” he said, revealing how the organizers of the match fixing worked on cultivating susceptible players for months.
Cizmek said he received between 2,000 and 3,000 euros ($2,600-3,900) a match and was one of 15 players and football officials sentenced by a Zagreb court last December for rigging eight Croatian First Division (HNL) matches.
For that, he was sentenced to 10 months in jail in the country’s first trial of its kind. He is now waiting for Croatia’s Supreme Court to give its final ruling. If it finds against him, he will go to prison.
Cizmek stressed that the difficulties he faced did not justify his behavior and now wants his experience to serve as an example to young players tempted to follow the same path.
“You get just a bit and you can lose almost everything,” he said. “Football was my whole life and I lost it,” he said.
“You feel so stupid and miserable ... thinking, ‘How is it possible that I’m doing this after a honest career spanning 20 years?’” Cizmek, though, is not an isolated case in the global game.
In Turkey, nearly 100 people, including officials and players from top sides like Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas, are currently on trial over claims that at least 19 first and second division matches were fixed during the 2010-11 season.
Italian prosecutors are also grappling with fresh claims of graft, six years after current Serie A champions Juventus were stripped of two league titles and relegated to Serie B for trying to influence refereeing appointments.
Corruption allegations have also rocked the fledgling league in China, while the probe in Croatia was launched in late 2009 after German police provided information about match-rigging and betting fraud across Europe.
Football’s world governing body FIFA has launched a new drive against corruption in the game, including an appeal for assistance to Interpol and the establishment of protection program for those who blow the whistle on match fixing.
FIFA estimates that between 400 and 500 billion euros are generated each year by betting on sport — both legal and illegal — with between five and 15 billion euros stemming from fixed matches, making it hugely attractive for organized crime.
But in a special “Black Book,” the global football players union FIFPro said there was “a clear link between the non-payment of wages and match fixing.” It found that more than 40 percent of professional players in 12 Eastern European countries did not have their salaries paid on time.
Cizek said the reality of fixing matches is more mundane than simply making mistakes on the pitch and with most first division sides in Croatia struggling financially, it’s easy to see how players can succumb to temptation.
“There were eight of us (from the same club involved in match-fixing) on the pitch, it was enough just not to play with 100 percent effort,” he explained.
Marketing and sponsorship income have dropped dramatically in less high-profile leagues like Croatia due to the economic crisis, while poor quality games and fans turned off by a string of scandals has left clubs playing to almost empty stadiums.
Anti-graft prosecutors in Croatia suspect several top football officials of taking bribes and fixing matches.
“The current situation within Croatian football is the most critical ever” since the former Yugoslav republic gained independence in 1991, said leading sports journalist Robert Matteoni.
“The main problem is poor management of the federation and clubs, which are on verge of financial collapse.” The Croatian league has vowed to slim down from 16 clubs currently to just 10 by 2014.
“Simply, Croatia’s economic environment cannot support 16 professional clubs,” added Croatian football federation (HNS) secretary-general Zorislav Srebric.
To tackle the problem, Croatia’s center-left government is drafting a new law on sports aimed at bringing more transparency in management and money flows.
Changes in the football federation leadership are also imminent, media reports have suggested.
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