The referee is the hero of the biggest bribery scandal in Swedish football
A 15-year-old football referee receives a text message in which the Djurgarden coach offers a thousand kroner for the boys’ team to lose.
But the man does not belong to Djurgården.
Attempting bribery is far from his worst crime.
In the podcast “The Hunt for the Boy,” Sportbladet tells the unexpected story of a hidden computer, earpiece, and photos that no one will be allowed to see.
This is part 1 of 2.
A man in Stockholm tries to bribe up to 20 referees for matches for a boys’ soccer team.
But 15-year-old Fabian Fico makes noise.
Then begins the search for an important coach who lied about everything.
One Friday evening in September 2019, football referee Fabian Fico received a text message. It’s from Erbilin, a leader in Djurgarden, who is trying to bribe the 15-year-old.
“If you choose for the match result to be positive for us (teams), you will receive additional match compensation. I was promised SEK 1,000 if that was the case,” the letter reads.
Fabian refuses, but still fears his involvement in professional crimes. What does such an infinite person who is not ready to commit other crimes say? How does the briber make sure that the boy does not go to the police?
I’ve seen movies where people get into a vicious circle. First, you do a small job that is used as leverage for you to do worse. So I was afraid I’d end up in a spider’s web, says Fabian, now 18, on the Sportbladet podcast Searching for Coach Boy.
An unlikely discovery
The next morning, Fabian Fico still went to Östermalm’s IP address and judged children aged 13-14. All the while, he was looking around, searching among the leaders and fathers for Airbelin, but finding no suspects. and does not face. The boy contacts the coaches of both teams, but none of them claims to know the sender.
After that, Fabian prefers to forget what he went through. On Saturday night, he worries for his safety and doesn’t want to unnecessarily provoke the man who sent the message.
But he will not hide. Despite the annoyance, he searches for Djurgården to find out what happened.
Ola Danhard at that time was in charge of the youth and soon noticed that there was no one named Erblin in the association. He believes that no one is trying to bribe a referee without reason, but the most obvious reason cannot be applied here, because there are no bookmakers that allow 14-year-olds to bet on matches.
So there must be something else behind it.
At first we hardly believed it was true. We haven’t heard of this at the youth level. But no one had written their name into the text message, so we started thinking someone else had benefited from Diorgaard’s victory, Dunhard says.
What follows is an exciting discovery – and a wholly unlikely perpetrator. Hear it all in “The Hunt for the Boy Coach” below.