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Remember the Czech Betting Scandal ?.. No, probably not.

Well, the Czech Football corruption scandal deepens on eve of new season writes Ian Willoughby of Radio CZech

In May the world of Czech football was rocked by its biggest corruption scandal ever, with several referees and club officials arrested over match-fixing allegations. Now, on the very eve of the new football season, the crisis has deepened.

Up to 14 of the 16 football clubs in the Czech first division have had some involvement with bribery, a police source told Friday's edition of the newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes. In the last two weeks, five referees and a senior official from Synot football club have been arrested on charges of match-fixing, in what is being described as the biggest scandal in the history of Czech football. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Czech football association, Jan Obst, said on Thursday he expected police to charge five to seven more people, most of them referees. Police are currently investigating every Czech league game played this season.

Czech police are investigating two more football officials who have been implicated in a bribery scandal that erupted last month. Prosecutor Pavel Pukovec told Czech Radio that football referee Petr Rehor is suspected of having agreed to accept a bribe to favour Synot in its match against Zlin in the top Czech football division. Meanwhile an official of Synot, Igor Stefanko, is being prosecuted for offering a bribe of 200,000 crowns (about $8,000) to the Slovak referee Eduard Cichy to influence a March 13 match at which Synot faced Teplice. So far, seven people, five of them referees, have been accused in the scandal. If tried and convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

Following earlier reports that investigations into corruption in the Czech league would intensify after Euro 2004, police have begun looking into allegations involving Teplice football club. Czech football became engulfed in what has been described as its biggest scandal ever in early May, when several arrests were made in connection with alleged match-fixing involving the club Synot.

On Friday the Czech football association announced that Synot would be allowed to stay in the first division next season. However, the club will be docked 12 points and must pay a fine of half a million crowns (over 16,000 euros).

The police have arrested three more football referees in connection with a bribery scandal which is being described as the worst in the history of Czech football. After a senior official at Synot football club and two referees were arrested last week, on Monday the police arrested three more officials on suspicion of fixing a match in which Synot beat Blsany. The police are looking into the results of every Czech first division game played since the beginning of the season last August

The results of this season's Czech first division will stand despite a match-rigging investigation, the Czech-Moravian Football Union (CMFS) said on Tuesday. Fifth placed side Synot has been implicated at the centre of a bribery scandal. A club official and five referees have been charged by police for taking or helping with bribes for a match that Synot won 2-0 against Sparta Prague. Ostrava won the league by five points from Sparta Prague. With other games under investigation, it was unclear as to whether the final standings would change but the league's clubs have confirmed the results for the season. According to CMFS Vice-Chairman Jaroslav Vacek, a disciplinary committee will meet later in the week to determine the fate of Synot, who qualified for the Intertoto Cup

The vice president of the Czech Republic's football federation, Milan Brabec, stood down on Thursday after being heavily implicated in a match fixing scandal that has rocked Czech football. However, he denied any wrongdoing. Mr Brabec's position became untenable after police taped telephone conversations between him and Ivan Hornik, the former manager of the club Viktoria Zizkov. Mr Brabec, the then head of the federation's referee commission, and Mr Hornik were heard arranging referees for matches involving the club in a bid to fix results during the 2003/2004 first division season. The match fixing scandal in the Czech Republic erupted in May when police charged Jaroslav Hastik, the sporting director of FC Synot, with trying to bribe match officials. Around 30 referees were then charged with attempting to fix matches as a result of evidence from phone tapping by the police.