Soccer Coach Aguirre Responds to Charges of Game-Fixing

Japan coach and Mexican national Javier Aguirre stated Saturday that his hands are clean in all 39 years of his professional soccer career. His statement was in response to accusations that he helped fix games in the Spanish league during his time as a trainer for Real Zaragoza.

In a press conference, the football official denied his responsibility in the case currently under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Council in Madrid.

“I don’t have any marks on my career. I have worked in Mexico, Spain, the United States, and now Japan,” he told reporters.  

Spanish authorities are investigating the coach who, with 40 others, is being accused of participating in fixing a match with the Spanish league in May 2011 while he worked with the Zaragoza team. Zaragoza won the match 2-1.

The authorities suspect that Zaragoza paid off the players and personnel of the opposing team, Levante, with US$175,000 each so that Zaragoza could keep its place in the first division that year by a three point margin.

Corruption in soccer appears to be a global phenomenon. The European Union’s police agency, Europol, conducted an 18-month investigation and found that 680 soccer matches played around the world between 2008 and 2011 had been fixed.  

“The scandal may have even involved qualifying matches for the sport’s biggest tournaments, the World Cup and the European Championships,” Hari Sreenivasan said on a PBS Newshour newscast.

Without naming any of the suspected matches or individuals involved, Europol said the corruption cases involved more than 400 people in 15 countries during that period.

Following another recent probe, the FIFA Ethics Committee cleared corruption allegations pertaining to the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to be played at Russia and Qatar.