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Bayern vs UEFA
Topic Started: Sep 15 2010, 12:11 PM (409 Views)
ursus arctos
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Get some popcorn and pull up a chair.

Quote:
 
Bayern Munich said Wednesday they have started legal action against a senior member of European football's governing body UEFA over unsubstantiated allegations of corruption made in German magazine Stern.

The complaint, filed in the Munich offices of the state prosecutor, is against UEFA's head of their disciplinary service Peter Limacher and his colleague Robin Boksic.

According to Bayern, the pair made comments that were "totally untrue and slandererous" in an article to appear in Stern on Thursday.

"In the edition of Stern magazine, to be published on Thursday, we read that these two people have discredited the club and individuals in professional football," read a statement issued by Bayern.

"Bayern Munich will do everything in its power to see that these people are made to account for their comments, and we have already taken appropriate measures."

The Stern report outlines how Bayern Munich was wrongly suspected of throwing their UEFA Cup semi-final match against Zenit St Petersburg in May 2008 following comments made by a Russian gangster involved in a court case.


UEFA responds.

Quote:
 
In a letter addressed to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of FC Bayern München, UEFA has expressed its shock at the club's statement that it has filed criminal charges against one of UEFA's employees.

FC Bayern München, a club which qualifies regularly for the UEFA Champions League, has today informed UEFA that it has filed charges for defamation against Peter Limacher, UEFA's head of disciplinary services, in a Munich public prosecution office.

UEFA wishes to reiterate its full confidence in Peter Limacher, who has never accused FC Bayern München of any misconduct, as it is a permanent principle of UEFA to presume innocence in the absence of any proof. UEFA will, of course, take any relevant legal action to protect its integrity, as well as the integrity of Mr Limacher.


This is very interesting.

On the one hand, Bayern's reaction seems completely over the top. On the other, one wonders why UEFA's release doesn't mention Boksic, who is allegedly the source of the rumour.
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Winslow
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And the Bayern-UEFA tiff gets even worse:

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=a...ich-montypython

Disgraceful!
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Yogi
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Winslow,Sep 15 2010
01:26 PM
And the Bayern-UEFA tiff gets even worse:

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=a...ich-montypython

Disgraceful!

From the link:

Quote:
 
European soccer’s governing body has barred Bayern Munich fans from displaying a Monty Python-inspired banner at a Champions League match because it could offend visiting fans from the Italian club AS Roma.

The Union of European Football Association says the banner saying “Romani ite domum”—Latin for “Romans Go Home”—supporters wanted to display at Wednesday’s match was considered provocative.


Obviously UEFA has no sense of humor! :D

I think that is a very clever sign.

As for the criminal complaint, ursus is right, it could become an interesting fight. And very curious that Boksic's name was not mentioned in UEFA's press reply. Looks like he is getting thrown under the proverbial bus by UEFA.
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Merengue
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Bayern are still upset by Robben's injury with Holland and they are trying to obtain some compensation from them for his first half of the season absence. So they are particularly testy now, still their reaction does seem over top in this matter. I guess they are just playing hardball with UEFA because these are serious charges, even if shown to be false, and Bayern are looking to protect their reputation.
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Mr. Pither
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Winslow,Sep 15 2010
01:26 PM
And the Bayern-UEFA tiff gets even worse:

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=a...ich-montypython

Disgraceful!

I wonder if UEFA instead would force the Bayern fans to rewrite it in correct Latin grammar several hundred times! :o

It does sound as if UEFA are ready to make Boksic be the sacrificial lamb in all of this? Why else leave his name out of their press release?
P-I-T-H-E-R ...as in Brotherhood, but with PI instead of the BRO and no HOOD
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Merengue
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Now UEFA are taking a more conciliatory stance,

UEFA opens internal probe into Bayern allegations

Quote:
 
UEFA President Michel Platini and Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge "discussed recent events that have been covered in the news media and agreed on the need to have absolute clarity on the matter," at a meeting on Thursday, UEFA said in a statement.

Bayern Munich started legal action in Germany against UEFA disciplinary chief Peter Limacher on Wednesday, bitterly denying the allegations reported by German weekly Stern and said the comments were "totally untrue and slanderous".

UEFA said that its officials and Bayern had held "an open and constructive conversation."

"It was mentioned that, in the light of the recent press coverage, UEFA understands the reasons for the reaction of FC Bayern Munich."

"FC Bayern Munich has been informed that, in order to clarify the case, UEFA has already opened an internal investigation into the whole matter," the statement added.

Limacher, head of UEFA's disciplinary committee, denied in the German press on Thursday that he has made the remarks.


As mentioned yesterday, pull up a chair and watch this spectacle.

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Johnbuildr
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As a casual observer of this thread, my comment is: how do we know Bayern's reaction is over the top when we are not even sure what the specific alledged slanderous comments were?
In other words, maybe their reaction is perfectly understandable and reasonable, if the comments were blatantly slanderous.
Just an uninformed observation...... ;)
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum



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ursus arctos
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John, thanks for bringing me back to the thread.

As you note, at the time of the original post, the Stern article hadn't been released. It hit the newsstands yesterday, and here is an accurate precis from a German-speaking poster on another board (including a link to the internet abstract):

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Boksic claims that he was employed by the BND (the German federal intelligence service), and had access to information showing that --




* Sepp Blatter personally received €1m in bribes

* Bayern threw the 2008 UEFA Cup semi-final against Zenit after being bribed by the Russian mob

* Boksic bases some of his claims on Spanish wiretap transcripts documenting Russian mobsters bragging about buying off Bayern with €50m (the Spanish investigation led nowhere)

* Boksic and Limacher claim they have evidence showing the money being transfered to Bayern's accounts, and that searches of houses belonging to Bayern President Hoeneß, CFO Hopfner, and a Bayern player have already taken place.

* As an aside, Limacher was responsible for ensuring Ribéry's card resulted in him missing the CL Final


Boksic allegedly traveled on FIFA's payroll, based on UEFA's recommendation, to the 2010 World Cup. A (once-) secret FIFA report finds Boksic to be unreliable; he kept making accusations - during the World Cup - about various teams/players being bribed, especially some of Serbia's players during the group phase.

www.stern.de/sport/fussball/anschuldigun...stapler-1603839.html

Unless something fairly stunning is revealed, it's safe to say that Bayern's winning this one. Hoeneß never takes the nuclear option unless he thinks he's got the upper hand.


What I hadn't realized at the time of my original post was that defamation can be a criminal offense in Germany (that isn't the case in most US states). Given that fact, Bayern do indeed to be well within their rights to bring the matter to the attention of the public prosecutors (though I have my doubts as to whether they are going to bring a charge).
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Mr. Pither
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Boksic either has a lot of dirt on many people or is an inherent liar. Seems as if the FIFA internal report viewed him as the latter. So why then was he on UEFA's payroll?

Bayern are taking a hardline stance on this for reason, they need to protect their reputation after these allegations were printed. So often the mere existence of the allegations, even if without mrit, is enough to cause damage. So I understand why Hoeness is taking the hardline stance.
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Martin
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More on Boksic and Limacher,

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writ...nich/index.html

Quote:
 
Repeatedly pressed for hard evidence, neither Limacher nor Boksic could oblige. Stern then discovered that Boksic, a Munich-based Croatian and apparently the sole source of Limacher's information, was himself under investigation for fraudulent business practices. The 32-year-old also had ties with Ante, Filip and Milan Sapina, the three Berlin brothers convicted of fixing matches with the help of corrupt referee Robert Hoyzer in early 2006. The Sapinas were arrested again in November 2009 and are currently being investigated for fixing up to 270 different matches throughout Europe.

Stern revealed that Limacher had sent Boksic to the World Cup as his "best man," too. During the tournament, he had bemused South African authorities with claims that six teams had been "bought." Boksic purported to have received that information from the Chinese secret service but he was quickly seen as untrustworthy. "It is possible that UEFA were funding their own subversion and [actually] facilitated the manipulation of sports betting," an internal FIFA document seen by Stern concluded. In other words: They suspected Boksic was effectively working as a sort of double agent in concert with the very people UEFA was trying to expose.


Bayern may have cause to sue.


Club Sportivo Desamparados
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ursus arctos
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Was just going to post that.

It's an incredible story. Bayern and Koln are completely right to sue and UEFA have to be very worried about what Boksic may have done while he had access to all of their confidential monitoring apparatus.
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Mr. Pither
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Industrial espionage! The bookmakers, the infamous Sapina brothers, had their own plant inside UEFA! It is straight out of a spy novel. But ursus is on to something, Bayern and Koln do seem to have grounds to sue and UEFA should be very concerned tat their security apparatus in combating match fixing has been compromised.
P-I-T-H-E-R ...as in Brotherhood, but with PI instead of the BRO and no HOOD
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Merengue
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That is some story. Shows the cleverness though of these betting groups, here they are setting up people inside UEFA to try and learn their methods to detect match rigging. Wha is fascinating is how FIFA sniffed out how Boksic was unreliable but UEFA did not.

This story should have some legs.
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