As much as we’d all like to forget Canada’s friendly against Macedonia last November, it’s in the news again. The Bulgarian referee, one Anton Genov – who seemed especially disposed to award a penalty kick whenever any attacking player so much as looked at the 18-yard box – has been acquitted of match-fixing charges by UEFA.
While Canada certainly didn’t prosper from the at-one-point-allegedly dubious penalties (I think that might pass legal muster against libel), there were allegations that Genov may have been implicated in some kind of horseplay involving betting on the final outcome of the game, including the number of penalty kicks taken. Now that UEFA has taken a good hard look at thing, it seems that he’s not a crook, but just a crap referee – even through the grainy, stop-motion internet feed some of those four penalties looked absurd.
This is all a part of a sweeping investigation of over 200 league and international matches, in four countries being conducted by German police. So far a Ukrainian ref and a Croatian ref have each been susepended.
Such luck was not with the unfortunately named Bosnian ref Novo Panic, who has been banned from “football activities” for life by UEFA. I mention this for three main reasons: “completeness,” I guess; so I can mention that Mr. Panic isn’t really a name that inspires confidence in someone trying to slip something past the authorities; and that I like the idea that “football activities” can be taken in the broadest sense, and that, five years from now, Panic will get spear-tackled by a UEFA secret policeman while having a kick-about in the park with his kid.