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10 persons including famous football functionaries were arrested in major action of the Greek police and the economic crimes unit. The arrested are accused of involvement in organizing 41 fixed matches, which were included in the list of UEFA. The court case is for 90 people and more arrests are expected later in the day.

The Greek police official statement says that the presidents of the football clubs Kavala Stavros Psomiadis and of Olympiakos Volos Ahileas Beos were captured. The remaining detainees are: George Tsakoianis - a shareholder of large stake in the Iliupouli football club, the veteran football player Dimitris Zavantias, the coach Nikos Pantelis, the manager of the Asteras Agrotikos football club Athanasios Dotsis, the president of the Iliupouli football club Nikos Halkos and the bookmakers Andreas Dimopoulos and Vassilis Karakulyas.
 
The ten people arrested are accused of betting fraud, money laundering and involvement in a criminal group. Today, they will appear before the prosecutor to testify. According to some sources, the list of those involved in illegal betting contains the name of the famous manager Angelos Travlos. The shareholder George Tsakoyanis was captured by the police in Thessaloniki, because they found two weapons with silencers, for which he had no permit.

The son of a chief figure of a basketball team, who is known to have bet against the football team the management of which involved his father, is at the central police station of Attica since last night.

According to journalistic sources, he bet 1.6 million euros for the loss of the "greens" in the match between Panathinaikos and Skoda Xanthi in 2008 and won 13 million euros, since the result was 3-2 in favour of the team from northern Greece.

The president of a big football club is among the 90 people included in the court file too. In a telephone conversation with a sports manager, which was recorded by the system of the National Intelligence Service, the president was sure of the victory of his team in an important championship match and defined it indirectly as fixed.

Charges are filed against the former president of one of the institutions organizing the championship and against a famous person, whose name was previously implicated in a match-fixing case.

The same is expected to happen to a businessman from the Athens suburb of Nea Smyrni, who was involved in the gang of the 216 "godfathers" of the night.

Since many of the persons accused in the case have won huge amounts from bets on the Internet the Greek authorities have requested assistance on judicial level from 8 countries to gather more clues.

The long list of the case contains also the name of a Greek footballer – a player in the national team and a big football club who consistently bet large amounts in betting houses for many of the 41 matches that are proven to be fixed. The list of suspects includes the name of one active basketball player who had frequent contacts with one of the 10 captured.

According to the International Football Federation UEFA, most of the fixed matches were from the second group and were played in the period 2008-2011.

According to some estimates, the total number of those involved in the case could reach one thousand. The testimony of four representatives of UEFA proved to be especially important to connect all the information and to initiate the criminal persecution. For security reasons, they presented them before a prosecutor in a secret room at the international airport in Athens. According to one of them, if a football player who cooperates with the organizers of the fixed matches stops doing it he would be subject to threats or even physical violence.

The International Football Federation submitted four folders to the Greeks. The matches in them are divided into the following categories "slightly doubtful," "doubtful," "very doubtful" and "corrupt."

The betting fraud detection system of UEFA did not detect so many fixed matches in any other country as in Greece. It is believed that the huge bets made helped reveal the fraud.

Some time ago, the Greek judicial authorities sent to the dock eight persons who bet amounts on fixed matches. The allegations against them are not for serious crimes because the profits were from slips below 15,000 euros.