28 January 2005	Friday	17 Zilhaj 1425

FRANKFURT, Jan 27: German referee Robert Hoyzer admitted on Thursday that he had fixed matches and offered to co-operate with the investigation into the country's biggest football scandal in over 30 years.

"The allegations against me which have been raised in public are in essence true," the 25-year-old Hoyzer said in a statement released by his lawyers. "I deeply regret my behaviour and apologise to the German Football Association (DFB), my refereeing colleagues and all football fans."

Germany's football community reacted to the confession with disgust, while Berlin prosecutors said they had received a complaint highlighting a suspected link with Croatian gamblers.

Volker Roth, head of the referees committee of both the DFB and UEFA, was visibly shaken at a news conference in Frankfurt and said steps had to be taken to prevent a repeat of the affair.

Rudi Assauer, commercial manager of Bundesliga club Schalke 04, described Hoyzer's action as "a slap in the face for German football". News of the scandal broke on Saturday evening when the DFB announced that Hoyzer was under suspicion of rigging Hamburg SV's Cup defeat by Paderborn SC in August last year after betting on the result.

Hamburg took a 2-0 lead but went on to lose 4-2 after Hoyzer sent off striker Emile Mpenza in the first half for insulting him and awarded two penalties to the regional league side. Meanwhile, DFB will in future assign referees to matches with just two days' notice to help prevent further match-fixing cases.

Volker Roth, head of the DFB's referees committee, announced the change as part of a series of measures agreed on the same day that referee Robert Hoyzer confessed to rigging games. Hoyzer is under investigation by the DFB and Berlin public prosecutors for fixing as many as six matches. -Reuters