Platini stresses Liverpool innocent as UEFA hunt matchfixers

MICHEL PLATINI yesterday confirmed Liverpool’s 8-0 thrashing of Besiktas in the Champions League is not part of UEFA’s investigation into matchfixing allegations.

The UEFA president admitted that online betting is becoming a major threat to the game and revealed he personally met with European police and politicians to assist with “protecting the game”.

Speaking in Dublin at the official launch of the FAI’s new headquarters at the National Sports Campus, Platini expressed his concern at the vast sums of money bet on European games.

He insisted: “There is nothing in that (Liverpool v Besiktas), nothing.

“We have some games under investigation, and one is more important than the other. We have some teams but not a huge amount of games. But there is no national association and there are some clubs which come from the Intertoto Cup.”

Platini added: “This is a big danger for football, but we have an early warning system, to protect the game against the amount of money coming from Asia, from betting.

“We are here to protect the game. I went to Brussels six months ago and came back one week ago to ask the European police to take care of the sport because there are so many things we cannot do anything about.

“Violence, racism, betting — there are many dangers for our sport so we asked to help. I asked the politicians in Europe to help us to protect our game too.

“Who is responsible? The president? the club, the referee, the defender, the goalkeeper, the forward? Who can you go to see who is responsible? It is very complicated but we need to get a solution with the politicians or police. It is a huge problem with the sport.”