European football’s governing body UEFA has suspended two Armenian match officials after its betting fraud detection system identified suspicious betting patterns in a UEFA Europa League game involving the two officials last month.
Referee Andranik Arsenyan and assistant Hovhannes Avagyan oversaw a UEFA Europa League match last month involving FC Inter Turku and Víkingur on 11 July.
UEFA said that its betting fraud detection system (BFDS), which monitors over 32,000 matches across Europe including all first-division and UEFA competition games, had detected suspicious betting patterns around the fixture.
This prompted the start of an investigation by UEFA to which the Executive Committee of the Football Federation of Armenia (HFF) contributed closely.
In a hearing at the HFF, Arsenyan and Avagyan admitted having tried to manipulate the outcome of the second-leg game, which ended 1-0 in favour of Víkingur.
As a result, UEFA has now suspended both officials from any football-related activities with immediate effect. At the same time, a disciplinary proceeding has been opened in accordance with Article 12 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations (integrity of matches and competitions, and match-fixing).
“UEFA is pleased with the excellent cooperation of the HFF, the local authorities and the betting operators during the investigation process,” the football governing body said in a statement.
The case will be dealt with by the Control and Disciplinary Body on Thursday 22 August at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.