Skenderbeu players after scoring againts Flamurtari in its home stadium of Korça, southeast Albania on 9 February 2018. Photo: Jurgen Dino/LSA

UEFA’s Ethics and Disciplinary Inspectorate has recommended a 10-year ban from UEFA competitions and 1 million euros fine for Albania’s top soccer team, KS Skenderbeu, over alleged match-fixing, Albanian media reported on Thursday.

Skenderbeu has won five championships since 2011 in Albania and qualified for the UEFA Champions League beyond the preliminary phase in 2015, becoming the first Albanian team to achieve such a feat.

However, Skenderbeu’s luck has not lasted long because UEFA’s Betting Fraud Detection System had in meantime flagged about 50 matches that it suspected had been fixed.

Acknowledging the sentence suggested by the inspectors, Skenderbeu stated on its Facebook page that it still hopes to avoid the worst, and that its lawyers are working on it.

The UEFA Betting Fraud Detection System uses probability rules to identify possible correlation between betting and matches results.

The system flagged about 50 matches played by Skenderbeu since 2010, making this team the champion in terms of the number of matches suspected of fraud.