Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/764316
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2016 4 News MATTHEW AGIUS MALTA international and Flori- ana midfielder Ryan Camenzuli is among three players who have been accused of accepting bribes to fix a recent Under-21 game. The other players implicated are Balzan defender Samir Arab and Floriana midfielder Emanuel Briffa, who was in August acquitted of match-fixing charges. The accusations were made last month by former footballer Ron- nie Mackay, who has been charged with fixing the Under-21 game be- tween Malta and Montenegro in March that Malta went on to lose 1-0. Earlier this year, former Valletta player Seyble Zammit testified that he had been approached by Mac- kay to bribe players ahead of the Montenegro game against a reward of €6,000. He claimed that he had been under pressure to throw the game, or incur a refund of €7,000 – the travel expenses of a Chinese betting syndicate who had travelled to Malta to commission the opera- tion. Although he approached nine players, the plan failed as only Emanuel Briffa and midfielder Kyle Cesare showed interest. Zammit, Briffa and Cesare were later all ex- empted from court punishment, but Mackay still faces charges of match-fixing. Testifying last month, Mackay – a former AFM soldier – told mag- istrate Joe Mifsud that he had be- come addicted to gambling, after falling into bad company, having found out that his girlfriend at the time was being unfaithful. His downward spiral into gam- bling left his family "financially ru- ined" and Mackay in serious debt with three banks and various loan sharks, as well as landing him an 18 month prison term for match- fixing. After serving his sentence, he said that nobody was willing to employ him as he had a criminal record. He said that he spends all his unemployment benefits on his house loan and that if his parents didn't give him handouts, then he wouldn't even be able to afford food. When he left his treatment at Caritas in October last year, by De- cember, he had already borrowed money, gambled and lost a lot more than he had borrowed, so in Janu- ary had voluntarily signed him- self on to a register of people who would not be allowed entry into betting or gaming shops. The endless cycle of borrowing from one person to pay the other had "broken" him, his health and his family's finances, he said. Mackay 'unaware' of Zammit's pardon Mackay recounted how he had been approached by Seyble Zam- mit in February with an offer to bet on a match. Zammit, who admitted corruption charges in April but was exempted from punishment due to his collaboration with the police, had pestered him to place a bet on a First division match, but Mackay had initially refused. But when, a month later, Zammit tried again, this time taking bets on Montenegro winning an interna- tional U21 match against Malta, he brought backup, Mackay said. The accused explained that Zam- mit had given him the phone num- ber for a Chinese man whom Mac- kay knew only as "Fred," telling him to pick up Fred and drive him to a bar in Valletta. At that bar, Mac- kay said, he found Zammit and his teammates Samir Arab and Manuel Briffa sitting around a table. In the four minute meeting that followed, Zammit had offered the players €3,000 each to throw the match – a deal which Arab and Briffa had immediately accepted, but Zammit claimed to have said nothing, although he conceded that he had found the prospect of earning thousands so painlessly increasingly attractive the more he thought about it. Realising that he could not afford the €7,000 stake and had no way of borrowing the sum while making a profit, Mackay eventually turned the offer down, in spite of Zammit's persistence, he said. But while the fixed match was be- ing played, after Malta conceded its first goal, Zammit had called the ac- cused, who was watching the game from the stands, telling Mackay that he had missed a golden oppor- tunity. Zammit had later testified that the bet had not been placed at the end. Mackay said that he had not been made aware of Zammit's pardon when he had gone to make his statement to the police. Mackay explained that when he was questioned by the police in the subsequent match-fixing in- vestigation, he had withheld a lot of information so as not to im- plicate Zammit, who he said he later found had not been quite so gallant and had put the blame on Mackay. Asked by defence lawyer Gian- nella de Marco whether Zammit had told him to find someone else for the wager, the accused con- firmed this had happened, adding that Zammit had also asked him to open bank accounts under Mac- kay's name, but he had refused. "The easy way out for him, when he was caught, was to blame me because... I had already been ac- cused [of accepting bribes] by one player in a separate case." He had revealed all this, includ- ing the mobile number belonging to "Fred", to the court, de Marco said, so that "whoever needs to be arrested can be arrested." Arab, Briffa, Camenzuli bribed Cross-examined by prosecuting police inspector Sean Scicluna, he named Samir Arab, Manuel Briffa and Ryan Camenzuli as the players he knew to have been bribed. Mac- kay said he had only heard Kyle Cesare's name in connection with the attempt from news reports. "What did Samir Arab say?! Samir Arab wasn't even arraigned here and he was around the table with the players... Ryan Camenzuli was never charged either. I'm the sacrificial lamb who gets punished for everyone." Zammit had shown him an SMS from Camenzuli, in which he ac- cepted the money but refused to meet the Chinese connection. Zammit had told Mackay that he was going to speak to footballer Joseph Mbong next, but Mackay had warned him not to as Mbong was "clean" and would not hesitate to report him to the authorities. "Zammit had texted him anyway, he didn't listen to me," he said. The prosecution asked why he was asking about Samir Arab and whether he knew something that the police didn't. "Why was Ema- nuel Briffa charged?" Mackay re- plied. "Samir Arab took the same money. Took them. 'Confident,' he had told the Chinese guy. He said he was confident, too." Nobody had wanted to know about Ryan Camenzuli when Mac- kay had tried to tell the police about him, Mackay insisted, saying he thought that perhaps the police "had instructions about him." Seyble Zammit and Samir Arab were former club teammates "the best of friends," he said. "If you look at Seyble Zammit's Facebook profile they're always to- gether, in an embrace. They used to play for Valletta together, so I think I was the odd one out." Mackay said he had bumped into the national team in October, while having a coffee at a hotel in Bugibba. He had left immediately, but later remembered hearing that a well-known person who had been involved in corruption cases had also been spotted at the hotel. That person, who the witness was not asked to identify, was never charged, he said. Malta international among three footballers accused of match-fixing Ryan Camenzuli