BERLIN – A former striker at Bundesliga club St. Pauli was quoted by a magazine on Tuesday admitting to pocketing more than 100,000 euros (134,000 dollars) in bribes to fix five matches in 2008.
The Stern weekly cited Rene Schnitzler as saying in an interview that he had received the cash to manipulate five away matches during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons when the Hamburg outfit were still in the second division.
He said an agent named “Paul” handed him the money to fix the games, but denied actually doing so.
According to Stern, “Paul” is a Dutch man called Paul Rooij. The magazine cites documents from prosecutors showing that Rooij placed several hefty bets in Asia on suspected fixed matches.
Rooij is also thought to have links to several of the alleged ringleaders on trial in Germany accused of fixing more than 30 matches across Europe in what is believed to be European football’s biggest fraud scandal.
