Liberec - Sports director of the Slovan Liberec Sports Club František Mysliveček, main referee Václav Zejda and football club delegate Christos Čanaklis are not quilty.

The Regional Court in Liberec acquitted all these men who were accused of alleged corruption linked to a football match between Liberec and Zlín in 2004.

According to the judges, the wiretappings in their case cannot serve as a testimony since they were acquired illegally.

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As there was no other evidence, all the accused had to be acquitted.

However, for the Football Association of the Czech Republic (ČMFS), wiretappings were enough to fine the football club Slovan Liberec together with four other professional football clubs (Viktoria Žižkov, 1. FC Synot, FC Vítkovice, SFC Opava) that were found guilty of influencing the matches.

They were eventually fined with as much as 20 thousand euro and their league score was reduced by six points for Opava and Liberec, nine points for Vítkovice and 12 points for Viktoria and Synot.

Carps or apples?

Ivan Horník, office holder in Viktoria Žižkov who was fined with 36,000 euro and had been barred from activities linked to football club management for 10 years, has doubtlessly become the symbol of the highly publicized case.

It was above all the phone tapping transcripts published by a number Czech media that gained extreme notoriety.

This was especially courtesy of the rude and vulgar, but sort-of humorous way the eavesdropped officials and referees talked to each other, using bizarre phrases in order to encode the real meaning of what they were saying. For example, sums of money were being referred to as "carps" or "apples".

The wiretapped transcripts were even staged as a standup comedy, which was broadcast on TV. 

Meanwhile, football fans dubbed the Czech premier footbal league the "Carp League".