RoPS

RoPS

Full name	Rovaniemen Palloseura
Founded	1950
Ground	Keskuskenttä, Rovaniemi
Ground Capacity	4,000
Chairman	Risto Niva
Manager	Juha Malinen
League	Veikkausliiga
2013	Veikkausliiga, 11th
Home colours Away colours

Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS), also known as Rovaniemi, is a football club, founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. In 2011 RoPS played in the Finnish Premier Division (Veikkausliiga), but it was relegated to Ykkönen as the lowest-placed team at the end of the season. The club plays home games at Keskuskenttä in downtown Rovaniemi.

Achievements

RoPS won the Finnish Cup in 1986 and 2013, and placed third in the Finnish Premier Division in 1988 and 1989. Its most notable international achievement was reaching the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1987–88.

Match fixing allegations and scandal

Throughout the 2000s, RoPS became infamous for suspected involvement in match fixing.

RoPS lost the 2004 league match against Tampere United 5–1 after a suspiciously poor performance by the club's Serbian goalkeeper, Ratko Marijanovic. The Football Association of Finland concluded that there was no reason to investigate.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008 Der Spiegel claimed that the 2005 MyPa–RoPS league match had been fixed. MyPa won the match 4–1, and the name of RoPS midfielder Adrian Pelka was mentioned. That match was his last for the club. Der Spiegel alleged that at least two of the goals could be attributed to Pelka's poor performance.^{[citation needed]}

British betting agencies reported unusual betting on Helsinki club Atlantis to be defeated in their match against RoPS in autumn 2006. The match was a 2–2 draw, but Atlantis goalkeeper Aleksandr Mistshuk was later convicted of receiving a bribe. No RoPS players were involved in the investigation.^{[citation needed]}

Unusual betting activity was reported in 2008 for the match between RoPS and VPS Vaasa, and Estonian defender Aleksandr Kulik was later sacked. At the time, Valeri Bondarenko, Kulik's former coach at Estonian club Trans Narva, was manager of RoPS and was implicated in match fixing in his home country, Estonia. Earlier in the season, RoPS had already sacked Ukrainian goalkeeper Nikolai Pavlenko, whose performance in their match against Espoo club FC Honka had aroused suspicion. Jouko Kiistala, then CEO of RoPS, said in a radio interview that the club will would no longer hire players whose mother tongue was Russian. Bondarenko was sacked in May 2008.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[2]

Sentenced players

• Pavle Khorguashvili
• Valter Khorguashvili
• Godfrey Chibanga
• Chileshe Chibwe
• Francis Kombe
• Stephen Kunda
• Christopher Musonda
• Chanda Mwaba
• Nchimunya Mweetwa

European cup history

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1987–88	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1R	Glentoran	0–0	1–1	1–1(a)
		2R	KS Vllaznia Shkodër	1–0	0–1	2–0
		Quarter-finals	Olympique de Marseille	0–1	3–0	0–4
1989–90	UEFA Cup	1R	GKS Katowice	1–1	0–1	2–1
		2R	AJ Auxerre	0–5	0–3	0–8
1990–91	UEFA Cup	1R	1. FC Magdeburg	0–1	0–0	0–1
2014–15	UEFA Europa League	1Q

Notes

• 1R: First round
• 2R: Second round
• 1Q: First qualifying round

Season to season

Current squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Saku-Pekka Sahlgren 2 DF Lassi Nurmos 3 DF Jarkko Lahdenmäki 4 MF Antti Okkonen (captain) 5 DF Janne Saksela 6 MF Ndukaku Udoka Alison 7 MF Mika Mäkitalo 8 FW Jani Virtanen 9 FW Mika Lahtinen 10 MF Nicholas Otaru 11 FW Aleksandr Kokko

No. Position Player 12 GK Oskari Forsman 15 DF Arttu Härkönen 16 MF Ville Saxman 17 MF Olli Pöyliö 18 MF Juuso Majava 19 MF Santeri Kumpula 20 FW Simo Roiha 21 MF Mbachu Uchenna Emenike 23 DF Antti Peura 45 MF Petteri Pennanen 80 DF Faith Friday Obilor

Managers

• György Hamori (Jan 1, 2004–June 23, 2004)
• Mika Lumijärvi (June 23, 2004–June 30, 2005)
• Matti Vikman (interim) (June 30, 2005–Dec 31, 2005)
• Tom Saintfiet (Jan 1, 2008–April 7, 2008)
• Valeri Bondarenko (April 14, 2008–May 27, 2009)
• Mika Lumijärvi (May 27, 2009–Oct 6, 2009)
• Zeddy Saileti (Oct 6, 2009–Dec 31, 2009)
• John Allen (Jan 1, 2010–Aug 9, 2011)
• Matti Hiukka (Aug 9, 2011–Dec 31, 2011)
• Kari Virtanen (Jan 1, 2012–)

References

External links

• Official website (Finnish)