The Courage of Conviction

The decision by the Federal Court of Justice in Leipzig to sentence disgraced referee Robert Hoyzer to two years and five months in prison is a victory for the soccer authorities who have made it their mission to clean up the game ever since the match-fixing scandal first rocked Germany in 2005.

Upholding the Berlin state court's original sentence handed down in November last year sends a powerful message to others intent on manipulating the game for their own financial gain: if you pervert the rules, you will be punished.

That message, in itself, is a step in the right direction. Long has soccer suffered from unscrupulous types bending the laws and slipping through loopholes to profit personally from the sport; one which relies mainly on the support of the honest, loyal fans who put their hands deep in their pockets every week to follow their team.

This conviction is rightly being seen as a victory in the battle against the petty crooks and gangsters who leech off soccer. But the question remains whether this victory in the long term will turn out to be a hollow one.

Legal gray area of sporting fraud

First, the legal basis for the decision remains shrouded in a deep, gray mist. A week before Hoyzer's conviction was upheld, both the prosecuting counsel and Hoyzer's defense team were questioning the legitimacy of convicting the former referee on fraud charges.

Both sides recalled previous cases where illegal betting and manipulation within a sport had led to a court trial; the examples being two German horse-racing scandals, one in 1961 and one in 1979. In these cases, the earlier was thrown out of court, the latter upheld with a conviction. The argument from both legal teams centered on the ambiguity of the law regarding fraud and sport. How could two similar cases result in two different verdicts? Surely if a law had been broken, both would result in the same punishment.

While it is obvious that Hoyzer committed a moral crime, it is less clear -- going by the letter of the law -- that he committed an actual crime. As prosecutor Hartmut Schneider said last week, what Hoyzer was guilty of was an act of "trickery but criminal liability does not come into it." Hoyzer, it seems, has become a victim of interpretation.

While this ambiguity remains, there is always a chance that future manipulators will be willing to take the chance that a court will see things in a different light. Until there is a clear law that lays out the specifics of the crime of sporting fraud and has a solid framework in place for convictions, there will always be people who are willing to take the risk.

Prison sentences for powerful wrong-doers

Second, for this conviction to continue to make waves in the soccer world, it must be made clear that no-one is above the law.

A 27-year-old referee convicted of throwing a few lower league games is one thing, bringing down powerful but corrupt people in the game is another. There is a danger that Hoyzer could become merely an example, one that can be easily dismissed by those with enough power and influence to avoid even stepping into a court room, let alone facing a conviction before the bar.

In the worst scandal in Italian soccer history this year, those involved were punished on a sporting and employment level and yet there have been no criminal convictions. While the clubs involved were dealt the blows of relegation and docked points, individuals like former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and ex-chief executive Antonio Giraudo were suspended from soccer for a maximum of five years, with a recommendation from the investigating committee to extend the ban for life.

Their crimes were similar to those of Ante Sapina, the ringleader in the Hoyzer case who was jailed for two year and eleven months, in so much as they exerted pressure on referees to influence matches. And yet, neither faces a prison term.

The conviction of Hoyzer will only be for the good of the game as a whole if it leads to wrong-doers -- whoever they are -- being held accountable to the law for their actions. Otherwise, the Hoyzer case will be remembered only as a face-saving exercise for German soccer.