Sileks football club threatened to withdraw from the Macedonian championship after several clearly rigged games whose goal seems to be to keep Belasica, the team from Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s stronghold of Strumica, in the First League.
Sileks asked the Football Federation to stop the championship until the cases of fraud are fully investigated. Sileks and Belasica are in direct competition at the bottom of the league and Sileks faces dropping out into the Second League if Belasica’s incredible winning streak continues.
Belasica was able to beat highly placed Akademija Pandev and first placed Shkendija. In the latter game, a 2:1 Belasica win, a Shkendija player scored a comical own goal which raised concerns that the games are being rigged to help Belasica stay in the first league. Shkendija has a comfortable lead at the top of the table and losing three points to lowly Belasica won’t hurt it much in the long run, but the game destroyed any confidence in the league.
We have a staged championship. It is pre-determined who will be the champion which teams will play in the Euro cups and who will drop out. On one hand we have the referees and on the other, we see teams give up on their points. Regional and European sport media are reporting on the irregularities in the Macedonian First League and if the Federation remains silent, it is tacitly approving of the irregularities, Sileks management writes in a press release.
Social media are rife with speculation that the cigarette smuggling boss Bajrus Sejdiu, who Zaev’s Government released from prison, has purchased a stake in Belasica and that he is influencing the outcome at the bottom of the league.
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