The sad tale of Mario Cizmek: victim of match fixing

Monday 06 February

Almost a year ago Mario Cizmek confessed that he had participated in match fixing. Now, the former Croatian youth international has been sentenced to 10 months in prison. He was one of 24 players in Croatia sanctioned for manipulating games.

Mario Cizmek is not in prison yet; he is awaiting the final verdict. ‘After twenty years of football, do I have to finish my career this way?’ he said. ‘The question is whether I will ever set foot on a football field again as a professional or as an amateur.’

The minute Mario Cizmek publicly confessed that he was involved in match fixing, his life changed. ‘When I was still playing, I could go out for coffee and always find five or six so-called friends at my side. They would hug me and slap me on a shoulder. When I was out in the streets, people turned their heads to look at me. Now, the situation is different, all those people turn away when they see me coming. Now I realize how cruel people can be. This is a good lesson for me that will help me in the rest of my life.’

‘I am guilty. For the hundredth time I can only repeat that I will take responsibility.’

Mario Cizmek is guilty, but he is no crook. He is also a victim. He had a 16-year career as a professional footballer in Croatia, and during that period he always had to wait for his salary, that is, if he received it at all. That was not the case at his last club, FC Croatia Sesvete. Mario and his teammates were kept waiting for months, and received nothing.

Because Mario Cizmek was self-employed – like many players in Croatia – he had a legal obligation to pay all taxes and social contributions himself, which proved difficult without money. His debts grew and grew. Then someone he thought he could trust mentioned the possibility of earning some cash by manipulating a match. In the end Cizmek fixed 6 matches.

‘It is hard to describe how I felt when I intentionally missed the ball for the first time, as if I was spitting on my entire career…’

‘But when you are drowning, you try to clutch at straws in the end. You think it will only be that one game.’

‘Then one turns into six.’

‘By the seventh game I said to myself, I will not do it anymore, even though I still had not paid off all my debts.’

‘But it was too late.’

‘Manipulating matches was the worst move of my life.’

Mario Cizmek did not get rich. He had to pay off his debts with the money he earned from match fixing. The only people who received big money were the people who initiated the match fixing. Bitterly, Mario Cizmek concludes: ‘The footballers' sentences were almost the same as the organizers', those who earned a lot from this match fixing…’

Mario Cizmek's tale is an example of how vulnerable professional footballers can be. When clubs stop paying your salary, and the debts keep piling up, then match fixing organizers will know how to find you.

In its “Eastern Europe Black Book” that FIFPro will present on Tuesday 7 February, FIFPro will prove the correlation between non-payment and match fixing.

Unfortunately, that will be much too late for Mario Cizmek. Prison awaits him.

‘I need to prepare for ten months in jail. I am at the beginning of a difficult struggle’, says Cizmek. ‘It is not the worst thing in the world, though. My wife said to me "If I can stay in a shelter for three months because of the war, then you can stay in prison." She might be right.’