In the small café next to the stadium of KF Skënderbeu Korçë, a group of five longtime fans discusses the future of their favorite club. It looks bleak since the Uefa imposed a ten-year ban on the European club competitions in March 2018 and the club a fine of one million euros has aufgebrummt. The men's round is certain: "They wanted to make an example to Albania, because it is so small and insignificant! We serve as a deterrent."
Edvin, who speaks only English, recalls the day of the verdict: "The whole city was in shock." Even as a child he was a fan of the Red-Whites from the 50,000-inhabitant city near the Greek border. Skënderbeu Korçë has rarely played a noteworthy role in Albanian football, being a long-time elevator team. "Then came a new board and rolled everything over - we became champions for the first time in 2011, and then four more times - with the successes, pride came to Korça, and now it's all over."
Hardy greens
Edvin (left) worries about the Albanian football
Uefa can prove 53 manipulated games to the club through data analysis of betting coefficients. Although the association has not caught anyone in active betting fraud so far. But the situation seems clear based on the data: Skënderbeu has manipulated on a large scale. First only friendly matches, then national league games and finally European Cup games.
After scoring two goals in 2015 and losing 2-3 to Crusaders FC in a 4-1 first-leg win in injury-time in 2015, opposing goalkeeper Sean O'Neill tweeted: "If there's no investigation, then something goes wrong. " He has never seen football like in the last ten minutes of the game.
"The sentence is absurd"
Edvin becomes thoughtful when addressed to the manipulated games. 53 - that, too, is a number that has never been seen before in European football. "I do not want to say that nothing happened, that there were no manipulations, there was certainly, but the sentence is absurd," he says: "I know exactly what's going to happen: in one year at the latest, it will be the backer of course, because he wants to see something for his investments, of course, and then the lights go out, a catastrophe. "
When the verdict was announced in March 2018, a thousand-man protest march took place on the central Bulevardi Republika, linking Korça's historic bazaar with the football stadium on the other side of downtown. "Mos na vrisni ëndrrën" was on the posters - "do not kill our dream".
imago / Seskim Photo
Skënderbeu fans at an away game
"We all live here for football," says Edvin. "It has a long tradition: in Durrës or Tirana you could watch Italian television early on, not us here, for us there was and is only football." In vain, Mayor Sotiraq pleaded with Filo Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin not to re-destroy the "just-risen nation-wide hope for football". Skënderbeu was the first Albanian club in 2015 and 2017 to make it into the group stage of the Europa League.
A football president as a bookmaker
The magical uplifting of the club began in January 2010, when Agim Zeqo, managing director of Red Bull Albania, became president and brought some friends as investors. Among them was former Albanian Minister of Finance Ridvan Bode, who in his term of office privatized the Albanian betting market, ex-prime minister Sali Berisha and Rezart Taçi, an oil tycoon who several years ago tried in vain to take over AC Milan and then bought FC Parma and led to bankruptcy. Also there was Ardjan Takaj, a friend of Zeqo, who also works in the oil business and replaced Zeqo 2012 as president of KF Skënderbeu. He also believes "that the Uefa wanted to make an example to show that their system works against betting manipulation". According to the Uefa report, Takaj has shares in a total of six betting offices.
A football president as a bookmaker - that only offers Albania.
The consequences of the scandal have shaken the already battered Albanian football. A year later, the stadiums are empty, any hope is gone. "People are not going to stadiums anymore because they know they're just going crazy," says Tirana-based journalist Andi Deçka.
No bookmaker leads more games of the Albanian leagues, and the betting shops in the country, which were found everywhere a few years ago, are closed. This does not solve the problem, especially as even the powerful association president Armand Duka is repeatedly suspected. "His cliques reach everywhere, no politician gets involved with him," said journalist Deçka.
The men's round of Korça is pessimistic about the future. "The problem is the close intermeshing of politics, betting syndicates and drug mafia - if we can not handle that, football in Albania is dead."