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Europe's football was shaken by another betting scandal, with the epicenter located in a Latvian club. UEFA earlier announced that they had started an investigation into the 2018 July Europa League qualifying match between "Ventspils" and "Bordeaux," which was won by the French club with a minimal score of 1:0. After the investigation, UEFA found that in this match "Ventspils" had attempted to cheat and manipulate. For this reason, the Latvian team will be banned from participating in any UEFA organized tournaments for seven years. The match referee, Sergey Lapochkin from Russia, received even stricter punishment with a disqualification for a period of 10 years. The "Ventspils" officials also did not evade disqualifications: sports director Nikolai Djakin will have to miss out on football for four years, while president Adlan Shishchanov - for the remainder of his life.
