Football: Uefa bans 2 officials for life

NYON (Reuters) - Two officials have been given life bans by Uefa for an attempt to fix the result of a Europa League match last month, European football's governing body said.

Armenian referee Andranik Arsenyan and assistant Hovhannes Avagyan, who officiated in the match between Finland's Inter Turku and Faroe Islands side Vikingur, were suspended for life by the Uefa Control and Disciplinary Body.

In an earlier Armenian Football Federation hearing, Arsenyan and Avagyan admitted having tried to manipulate the outcome of the second-leg fixture, which ended 1-0 in favour of Vikingur.

Uefa's betting fraud detection system - which monitors more than 32,000 matches across Europe, including all first and second-division games, cup ties and Uefa competition fixtures - had detected suspicious betting patterns around the match which prompted an investigation.

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