RoPS

RoPS

Full name	Rovaniemen Palloseura
Founded	1950
Ground	Keskuskenttä, Rovaniemi
Ground Capacity	4,000
Chairman	Risto Niva
Manager	Juha Malinen
League	Veikkausliiga
2015	2nd
Home colours Away colours

Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS), also known as Rovaniemi, is a football club, founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. In 2015 RoPS plays in the Finnish Premier Division (Veikkausliiga). The club plays home games at Keskuskenttä in downtown Rovaniemi.

History

Keskuskenttä, home ground of RoPS

RoPS won the Finnish Cup in 1986 and 2013, and placed third in the Finnish Premier Division in 1988 and 1989 before finishing as runner-up in 2015. 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.

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. and ^[2]

Domestic history

European history

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1987–88	Cup Winners' Cup	1R	Glentoran	0–0	1–1	1–1(a)
		2R	Vllaznia Shkodër	1–0	1–0	2–0
		Quarter-finals	Marseille	0–1	0–3	0–4
1989–90	UEFA Cup	1R	GKS Katowice	1–1	1–0	2–1
		2R	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	2Q	Asteras Tripoli	1–1	2–4	3–5

Notes

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

Honours

Finnish Cup (2)

1986, 2013

Ykkönen (2)

2010, 2012

Current squad

As of 9 February 2016

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

No. Position Player 2 DF Akseli Kalermo 3 DF Jarkko Lahdenmäki 4 MF Antti Okkonen (captain) 5 DF Janne Saksela 6 DF Juha Pirinen 7 MF Mika Mäkitalo 8 MF Robert Taylor 10 FW Jean Fridolin Nganbe Nganbe

No. Position Player 11 FW Aleksandr Kokko 16 MF Ville Saxman 21 FW Aapo Heikkilä 44 GK Ricardo 47 DF Juuso Hämäläinen 86 DF Abdou Jammeh TBA GK Tyler Back TBA MF Eetu Muinonen

Available youth players

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

No. Position Player 12 GK Juhani Kangas 14 FW Jarkko Luiro

No. Position Player 15 MF Juho Hyvärinen

Managers

References

External links

• Official website (Finnish)