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Revision as of 10:57, 16 July 2018 by Wankazanka(talk | contribs)(→Current squad: rm Wato Kuaté, https://www.rops.fi/edustusjoukkueen-uutiset/4796-keskikenttapelaaja-wato-kuat-ei-jatka-rovaniemen-palloseurassa)
Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS) is a football club founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. In 2017 RoPS plays in the Finnish Premier Division (Veikkausliiga) with 30 years of history at top league (also before called "Veikkausliiga") since 1981. The club plays home games at Keskuskenttä in downtown Rovaniemi at Arctic Circle of Lapland.
Closest farm and co-operation team locally is Santa Claus from lower divisions, and both co-operate with youth teams.
RoPS won the Finnish Cup in 1986 and 2013, Runner Up 1962, and placed third in the Finnish Premier Division in 1988 and 1989 before finishing as runner-up in 2015 losing by 1 point to champion SJK. Its most notable international achievement was reaching the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1987–88 against Marseille.
Match fixing allegations and scandal
Throughout the 2000s, RoPS became infamous for suspected involvement in match fixing.
In spring 2011 the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation started a large investigation into match fixing. On February 25 Singaporean businessman Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted match fixer, was arrested after entering Finland with a fake passport. The National Bureau of Investigation suspected that over 30 games between 2008 and 2011, mostly from the Finnish premier league, had been fixed or manipulated.[1]
On July 19, 2011, the Rovaniemi Court of Appeal convicted Perumal and nine RoPS players of match fixing. Altogether 24 games had been manipulated, and the intended score had been achieved in 11 of them. Perumal was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to return 150,000 euros deemed to be match-fixing profits. The bribes ranged from 500 euros offered to one player to a total of 80,000 euros offered to eight players. The highest total of bribes for one individual was slightly over 40,000 euros. The players received suspended sentences. The sentenced players were six Zambian and two Georgian players: Godfrey Chibanga, Chileshe Chibwe, Francis Kombe, Stephen Kunda, Christopher Musonda, Chanda Mwaba, Nchimunya Mweetwa, Pavle Khorguashvili, and Valter Khorguashvili.[2]
Glentoran
Vllaznia Shkodër
Marseille
GKS Katowice
1. FC Magdeburg
Asteras Tripoli
Shamrock Rovers
Lokomotiva
