UEFA president Michel Platini on Thursday called for match-fixing to be criminalised in all European countries.
"Let's not accept the autonomy of sport to be an obstacle to intervention by public authorities," Platini told a Council of Europe conference of sports ministers.
"We have to deal with a real problem of a political order, therefore we will regulate it not only with the means (available) to sports federations."
Platini urged the states participating in the conference to "declare match fixing illegal.
"Judicial and police cooperation between the European countries must be able to break the power of the criminals," he insisted.
The Council of Europe called for all nations to adopt similar stances towards match-fixing.
"A harmonization of norms and adoption of penal sanctions for sporting frauds will be necessary as there are only several countries that have such codes", Anne Brasseur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly told AFP.
Source: AFP
