Greek FA denies bribery allegations

The Greek FA has denied media reports they offered to bribe Armenia to lose Saturday's Euro 2004 Group Six game.

The Greek FA has denied media reports they offered to bribe Armenia to lose Saturday's Euro 2004 Group Six game.

Greece won the match 1-0 to move within striking distance of automatic qualification for the tournament in Portugal.

"It seems the performances of the national squad have caused problems to many who didn't expect it," the Greek FA said in a statement today. "Greece played fair and won.

"The Greek FA has asked UEFA to investigate this case in its totality and charge those responsible for damaging the name of our country and football association," it added.

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The Greek FA also said it would file lawsuits against those responsible for "attempting to violently damage the effort of the national squad to qualify".

Greek media reported Armenian FA chief Ruben Airapetian saying that his officials had been approached by a go-between acting on Greek orders trying to fix the match. The reports said a bribe of €1 million was offered.

Armenia had no chance of qualification for Euro 2004 before the match against Greece. They are fourth in the group with four points from six matches.

A UEFA spokesman said Europe's soccer body was investigating the accusations.

The win against Armenia put Greece top of Group Six with 15 points, four points in front of favourites Spain and five ahead of Ukraine.