German Police Investigate Reports Of Alleged Match-Fixing In Lower-League Football Games

The Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper reported Friday that message logs detailed the apparent sale on the “dark web” of information up to 17 games ranging from the third division to regionalized fifth-tier competitions.

The newspaper didn't publish the messages and didn't identify any games or teams, but said some games included refereeing mistakes or unusual goals. Police in the southwestern state of Saarland said in an e-mail statement that they were investigating a game that had taken place there.

Prosecutors in the state capital, Saarbrücken, said the investigation followed information about the potential manipulation of lower-league games across Germany “presumably for the purpose of facilitating sports betting fraud.”

The prosecutor's office did not identify the game in question, citing a need to protect the ongoing investigation. Police in the central German state of Hesse told German news agency DPA that they were examining two games which took place there.

The German football federation said in an e-mail statement that it was in contact with the authorities regarding possible match-fixing but did not yet have “robust information” about specific cases.