The French Financial Crimes Prosecutor's Office has announced that it is investigating suspicions of a match in the Paris Saint Germain match against Red Star in the Champions League on October 3.
The French sports daily L'Equipe reported on Friday that the European Football Federation (UEFA) had drawn the attention of the French authorities to the suspicion that the match could be manipulated on the basis of information gleaned from a "reliable source".
The source told the continental union before the game that a senior Red Star official was planning, with the participation of a number of players, to put a bet close to 5 million euros on the victory of Paris Saint-Germain by five goals, which led to the opening of the investigation.
PSG beat Red Star 6-1.
The financial prosecutor's office said he could not confirm or deny the story of L'Equipe, but Red Star denied the allegations in the newspaper's report.
"With great anger and resentment, Red Star strongly denies allegations of a match in the Champions League match against Paris Saint Germain and strongly denies involvement of any club official in illegal acts," Red Star said in a statement.
"The claims of L'Equipe may cause serious harm to the reputation of our club," Red Star said. "The European Football Federation, as well as the authorities in Serbia and France, must fully investigate these suspicions to reveal the truth."
Paris Saint-Germain also denied any wrongdoing and said the club would respond to investigators.
"The club categorically denies any direct or indirect connection to these allegations," the French champions said in a statement, denying any contact by investigators of club officials.
Lecipe writes that the authorities have not yet discovered any evidence of manipulation and that all possibilities are open to manipulating the results and even fabricating lies.
The European Football Confederation (UEFA) told Reuters it had never commented on the probabilities or investigations into allegations of match-fixing in order not to damage the investigation.
