The officers of Anti-corruption Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained referees and Referee Supervisors’ Committee arbiters on the fact of commercial bribery. The detainees are: arbiters of the national category-Otar Kh. (DoB 1977) Irakli U. (DoB 1979) Mamuka U. (DoB 1972) Teimuraz Kh. (DoB 1975), first category arbiters-Aleksandre G. (DoB 1975), Zviad A. (DoB 1984), national category assistant-Onise M. (DoB 1974) and “Fifa” abiter Tornike G. (DoB 1986).
Investigation established that detainees made an agreement with citizens in advance on the number of red and yellow cards to be shown during the match in return for certain amount of cash (2500 to 5000 US dollars). By means of the mentioned plot detainees enabled citizens to make bets on the number of cards which would be shown during the football game and thus managed to win money through bets.
Investigation is in progress on the fact of commercial bribing committed by the group (article 221, IV part, sub-paragraph A of the Criminal Code, envisaging from 4 to 6 years of imprisonment. According to the information gathered by the investigators other referees also acted according to the above mentioned scheme against whom investigation is still in progress. Investigation is conducted by Anti-corruption Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
