Romanian Referees Taken Into Custody On Bribe-Related Charges

The court approved the anticorruption prosecutors’ request to place Serea and Martis into custody for 29 days.

The ruling may be appealed.

Serea and Martis, currently detained by anticorruption prosecutors, were taken into custody Friday. Serea is under investigation for bribe taking and Martis for accessory to bribe taking and offering.

Before the beginning of the court session, Serea told the press he is not guilty, while Martis made no statement.

The financer of Romanian football team FC Arges, Cornel Penescu, and the former general manager of SC PIC SA Pitesti, Liviu Facaleata, were also heard by the Arges Anti-Corruption Department Friday morning.

Although the two made no statements at the time, legal sources say that their hearings might be connected to Serea and Martis’s case.

According to the National Anticorruption Department, on March 18, 2009, Serea received $21,000 from Penescu through Martis and Facaleata. In exchange for the money, Serea, the referee of the FC Arges-FC Steaua match on March 20, 2009, was to help the team financed by Penescu win and to apply disciplinary sanctions only to the other team’s players.

Serea, 41, was demoted to Romania’s second referee division in April, 2009, on account of his poor performance during the Romanian Cup semifinal match between CFR Cluj and FC Vaslui.

Martis was included on a list of 13 First League referees for the 2009-2010 season who were allegedly involved in Penescu’s graft case.

On April 16, Penescu was arrested in the „Football Bribery” case, on charges of influence peddling, bribe offering and setting up an organized crime group. He will be tried under arrest together with Facaleata and the former Central Referee Commission president, Gheorghe Constantin.

According to investigators, the organized crime group also included high-ranking officials of the Romanian Football Federation, several referees, the former president of FC Arges, and others. Investigators said that between 2006 and April 2009, the group committed several serious corruption crimes, in order to obtain financial or material benefits.