No justice for Leeds Utd but progress from UEFA on matchfixing

Despite losing my seat in the European elections, I have followed up the petition that over 12,000 people signed and tried to press UEFA as far as I could.

First, I had the following written response from UEFA:

“We have received your letter and the petition regarding the 1973 Cup Winners Cup Final between Leeds United and AC Milan. This is obviously a subject that is of enormous importance to many people, and we acknowledge and thank each person who took the time to sign this petition. We of course understand the frustration involved, but our room for manoeuvre is constrained by UEFA's Disciplinary Regulations (Article 7), which clearly dictate the statute of limitations. In the case of a game that took place more than 35 years ago, we have long passed the legal time frame in which any action could have been taken.

The fight against match-fixing is a high priority for UEFA and we can only look to the future to put a stop to it. From our perspective, if the results are fixed in advance then football has no further reason to exist. Because of this we are implementing, with all 53 national associations of UEFA, a new system that will monitor some 30,000 matches as from next season - and we are determined to root out the problem.”

Then, I followed this up by travelling to Geneva to meet a number of UEFA officials at their headquarters. I must say that their response was actually sympathetic, and were very impressed by the number of signatures, but they feel constrained by the legal situation. I understand that a few years ago, they took action against Anderlecht when it was discovered, over ten years after the event, that they had bribed a referee in a European match (against Nottingham Forest). However, Anderlecht went to the courts and won against UEFA when the court ruled that the events had taken place too far back (and beyond their statute of limitations of, at that time, 10 years, which they had raised to 20 years, but the court ruled that they cannot raise it and then discipline a club after the original deadline had expired). The same would certainly happen again if they tried to re-open an event of more than 36 years ago. Even most criminal offences have a much shorter cut-off period. I got the impression that they would not be averse to taking on AC Milan (who, let us not forget, have a record of misdemeanours), but that they genuinely feel that their previous court defeat prevents them from doing so.

UEFA did explain to me at great length the measures they are now taking to try to prevent match-fixing (be it through referees or players) happening again. This includes, among other things, monitoring betting patterns, working with the police to infiltrate gangs, bringing in more severe penalties for those who get caught, trying (with difficulty) to regulate players agents, and so on.

Small consolation for those of us who believe the 1973 result should be reversed, but at least they are making serious efforts to stop such things happening again.