The sports betting affair with rigging of football matches by an as of yet unconfirmed organization, the so-called Croatian betting mafia from Berlin, which shook the German and European media three weeks ago, has now spread to Croatia via Austria. Marko Vukadin, a Croatian football manager with an official FIFA license, is about to find himself in the centre of interest of the German and Austrian police. This 50 year old businessman, originally from the vicinity of Gornji Vakuf, is also owner of Hotel Vienna in Zagreb. The news of the Austrian and German police interest for Marko Vukadin was published in the last issue of Austria’s weekly magazine Profil, which presented him as Marko V. from Croatia. Vukadin spoke with Nacional and denied any involvement in illegal activities.

Profil has based its information on the court testimony of Robert Hoyzer, a 25 year old German referee who admitted in late January to being involved in rigging football matches and as such was on the payroll of the Croatian betting mafia from Berlin. The German public was overwhelmed by a wave of paranoia, as Hoyzer publicly confessed that many football referees and players are involved in rigging games. After his initial statement, three brothers, Ante, Milan and Filip Šapina, thought to be leaders of the betting mafia, were immediately taken into custody. These men are nominal owners of the café King in Berlin, where they allegedly set up the games. Not longer afterwards, three players of Berlin’s team Herthe also came under suspicion, as did Croatian national team player Josip Šimunić. Šimunić immediately denied the accusations, stating that he had last stepped foot in that café over a year ago, and the club took all three players in for protection.

Though it was instantly evident that it would be very difficult to prove these accusations in the overall panic, this scandal also aroused harsh reactions from German politicians, particularly as Germany will be host to the next World Football Championships in 2006. As such, the investigation was conducted very thoroughly and seriously, and quickly spread to Austria and Croatia, and to Marko Vukadin.

Profil claims that the Šapina brothers are very closely connected to Austria, as a portion of their family emigrated to Vienna. According to Profit, it was here that their paths crossed with Marko Vukadin, whose role in the scandal will soon be investigated by the competent bodies in Germany and Austria. The Austrian weekly claim that in recent years, Vukadin has developed a series of business activities in Germany, Austria and Croatia as the founder of construction companies, a real estate and hotel owner, but primarily as a football manager.

“Since 24 July 2002, Marko V. has possessed a license from the World Football Association FIFA for mediation with players. Until the late 1990s, he ran four nondescript companies in Austria, none of which are still in existence, having either entered receivership or are in bankruptcy proceedings. At one of the addresses of these former companies, in the fourth Viennese district is, coincidence or not, the café of the Šapina family, which was closed in the meantime. A relative of Marko V. plays in the amateur club SD Croatia Berlin, one of the suspicious German clubs, in which the S. brothers also participated as players and sponsors. According to information available to Profil, Marko V. also mediated in the transfer of several players from Bosnia and Croatia to German and Austrian clubs. This businessman has even succeeded in placing his players in Japan. Even in the event that V. is not involved in the suspicious dealings of the S. brothers, it is possible that the fraud system unfolded through various such connections: the agents placed the players in the right clubs, the players who proved to be inclined towards such activities, with that, ambitious referees such as Robert Hoyzer, attract by a quick profit, and assistants in the betting shops,” wrote Profil.

Vukadin spoke for Nacional and denied having any connection to the three Šapina brothers. He claims that he does not know them and that Profil obviously confused certain names, as these three brothers are originally from Tomislavgrad. Vukadin has revealed that he is a close friend with Ivica Šapina from Bugojna, who also has no connection to the three arrested men bearing the same family name. Vukadin did not deny having several companies in Austria, though he declined to comment on why they are no longer in operations, however, he completely denied being a football manager.

The fact is that he did transfer certain players, and coaches from Croatia and BiH to Austria and Japan, However, Vukadin claims that they did not do well there and that he did not profit from that and that he is considering getting out of the business. Vukadin is also in a tough spot considering that the Austrian State Prosecution in Loeben launched an investigation against him in May 2004 after Dragan Bodul, player in the third league team SV Kapfenberg, allegedly received a threat from the betting mafia prior to a game against LASKA.

Profil wrote the following about that event. “ ‘Boss’, said Bodul to the club president Erwin Fuchs prior to the starting whistle, ‘we have to lose to LASKA today. If we win, something will happen to my kids.’ Today all the Boduls are alive and well. Kapfenberg lost the game 2:0.”

Vukadin revealed for Nacional that he knows Dragan Bodul, for he as a young man began to play football in the Croatian diaspora club Domagoj from Vienna, which Vukadin managed for the better part of the 1990s. He claims that he heard about that scandal, but denies having any involvement.

However, Profil claims that it appears that large amounts of money are paid on the games of Kapfenberg in the Asian region. “It is possible that this is a coincidence, that the football agent Marko V. and close friend of the alleged betting frauds Milan, Ante and Filip S. are frequently in Japan. The remains that very large bets are frequently paid from this region in German and Austrian betting shops,” writes Profil.

This summer, Marko Vukadin transferred Kruno Lovrek, former player for NK Zagreb, and Mario Garb, former player of NK Topolovac to the Japanese club Cerezo. Garb played one season in the first Croatian football league. Vukadin also transferred coach Albert Pobor to the same club. Cereza in general has played poorly and is closed to the bottom of the Japanese rankings. Pobor replaced Bosnian Fuad Muzurovic as coach, who coached only three games. Prior to this, the team was coached by Pero Nadoveza, who retired for health reasons. After all, it is possible that the Austrian and German investigators will check to see whether there was betting in Asia on the poor performance of Cereza.

The Austrian Football Association immediately formed a special commission to investigate whether Austria was involved in the rigging of football results. In his statement of 28 January 2005, Robert Hoyzer spoke in detail about Austria in criminal case no. 68J2 51/05. “I know that Filip (one of the Šapina brother, ed. note) was in contact with people in Austria. That means that he contacted Austrian football clubs and players. I know that he negotiated with players from the club in Bregenz, however, I do not know the names of those players. However, there is a goalman among them,” stated Hoyzer.

Profil claims that the investigation of the Austrian police has already revealed several significant losses in Austrian betting shops. Among them is a case which also does not contribute to Croatia’s image. One large Austrian betting shop had employed one Croats to receive bets, until the end of last year. The identity of the Croat, the size of the losses and the name of the betting shop were not revealed, likely due to the ongoing investigation. The owner of the betting shop commented for Profil, saying “Now we know that he took bets on games that were clearly rigged. He no longer works for us.” It is still not known whether that person was connected to the Šapina brothers.

However, Hoyzer’s statement at the first hearing was significant. “The Šapina brothers constantly went to Austria by car to make their bets,” stated Hoyzer to the investigators. Last week, the Austrian press reported several articles in which they claimed that at least three betting shops in western Austria and Vienna had lost five to seven figure amounts on the matches now under investigation by the German police.

After his statement, the police investigation has focused on Almir Tolja, goalman of the Austrian first-league club Casino Schwarz-Weiss Bregenz, currently last in the league. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” he told Profil when asked about Filip Šapina, and he signed an affidavit saying the same. Tolja spent a total of 7400 minutes in goal for Bregenz in 2002/2003. In his games to date, this 187 cm tall and 86 kg heavy Bosnian goalman made many errors in his playing. In the 21 of 36 rounds played to date, his club has been scored on 52 times, only ten less than the total number of goals in the whole last season. “July and August 2004 were particularly bad. In the first six games, Bregenz had three at-home losses (one of which was 0:9 against Austria Wien) and lost three away games. The goal ratio: 5 for, 25 against,” wrote Profil.

The Austrian police suspect that the Šapina brothers set up the Bregenz games and earned on the club’s losses. At the end of last week, president of SW Bregenz Hans Grill stood in defense of his goalman, but failed to come up with a good explanation for how the Berlin referee Hoyzer accused the last club in the Austrian league Bregenz during the hearing.

It is difficult to predict which suspicions the investigators will succeed in proving. Profil claims with certainty that not every game which received large bets was rigged and not every favourite team to lose to an outsider had players rigging the games. For that reason, Vukadin will soon have to answer all the questions of the Austrian police.

For the time being, the Šapina brothers, the three main Croatian suspects, are keeping quite. They have refused to explain for investigators how they got 2.44 million euro, the amount police froze in their accounts. In the meantime, rumours have surfaced that the King café in Berlin is actually some sort of a private bank. There they would take illegally obtained money from the former Yugoslavia and invest it in selected games in order to pay programmed betting wins, free from tax and with written-off expenses.

The final scope of the affair is difficult to see now, as it will be difficult to predict how this will erode the credibility of German and Austrian football. Unfortunately, regardless of the court outcome, the betting mafia has already significantly weakened the credibility of Croats in the football world.