Corrupt Ref May Go Free

A federal appeals court in Leipzig was expected to rule on the Hoyzer case on Tuesday, but the court has now decided to wait until Dec. 15, after the state prosecutor Hartmut Schneider surprisingly said that the disgraced soccer referee's conviction should be overturned.

Last year, a lower court in Berlin sentenced Hoyzer to almost two-and-a-half years in prison. The German Soccer Association, the DFB, also banned Hoyzer for life from the sport after he admitted to conspiring to fix matches in the German Cup and in the Bundesliga's lower divisions.

Common trickery not illegal

Hoyzer was convicted along with several others of being an accessory to fraud, but prosecutor Schneider argues that what Hoyzer did does not technically qualify as fraud.

"It's an instance of common trickery," Schneider said, "but there's no way we can criminally prosecute it."

Schneider cited the precedent of a man who was accused of fraud in 1961 after placing lightning-quick bets on horse races whose outcomes he already knew. The man was found innocent. "That's why I came to conclusion in this case that their convictions should be overturned," added Schneider.

The judge was highly critical of the Berlin court that convicted Hoyzer last November, calling its verdict "remarkably superficial."

40 pages of small print

It may seem extraordinary that a conviction could be overturned in a case that might appear open and shut to laymen. But asking prosecutors to look over the judicial logic of convictions is a basic element of the German legal system.

"A state prosecutor is always asked to review appeal cases," Berlin-based criminal lawyer Barbara Petersen told DW-Online. "And while it's rare that one should ask for a guilty verdict to be overturned, it has happened in the past."

The fact that Hoyzer was convicted of fraud also opened up a range of legal questions.

"Fraud is one of the most complicated corpus delicti that we have," Petersen said. "There are more than 40 small-print pages of commentary in the criminal code qualifying what it is. This case is also quite out of the ordinary, so it's no wonder that there are so many opportunities to call the verdict into question."

In other words, although Hoyzer acted dishonestly, it's not clear from a legal perspective precisely whom he defrauded -- and that could be the basis for a not-guilty verdict.

Strange penalties and bizarre red cards

Hoyzer attracted the negative attention of soccer fans and investigators alike after refereeing a German Cup match between first-division Hamburg and third-division Paderborn in August 2004. Hoyzer awarded two controversial penalties to the underdogs and sent one of Hamburg's players off with a disputed red card. Paderborn went on to win the match 4-2.

In early 2005, while under investigation, Hoyzer admitted to conspiring to fix that and other matches in conjunction with a ring of gamblers who had placed large bets on the unlikely outcomes.

His confession sparked outrage among fans and fears among the sport's functionaries that the image of German soccer had been badly tarnished ahead of the 2006 World Cup.

Defense went home happy

But Hoyzer's defense lawyers have argued that while their client's decisions on the pitch may not have been on the up-and-up, there was no way he could guarantee a specific match result and thus he did not technically "fix" matches.

Hoyzer's defense team was delighted with the course of Tuesday's proceedings.

"The court showed that it was skeptical," lawyer Thomas Hermes said. "We hope that it decides in our favor."

Meanwhile, Schneider urged betting companies to re-write their legal conditions of business to help prosecutors press charges of fraud in cases of attempted match-fixing.