Saiz interviewed by Spanish police over match-fixing allegations

Early reports today claimed Samu Saiz had been arrested over a match-fixing scandal, but it now seems that for the time being he is merely helping police with their enquiries.

Both Sky Sports and the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Phil Hay have both been told that he isn’t one of the 11 players arrested so far, but he has been to a police station to give a statement. The allegations involve SD Huesca, who he left to come to Leeds in the summer of 2017.

Initially the investigation surrounds a match in May 2018, when Huesca played GimnÃ stic de Tarragona in a vital game in the Segunda division. Huesca had already achieved promotion before the match, which GimnÃ stic won 1-0 to guarantee they wouldn’t go down.

All this took place while Saiz was at Leeds, which explains while he hasn’t been arrested. But it seems that a number of other matches might be involved, which the police must think he knows something about.

One player who definitely has been arrested is Raul Bravo, who is now 38 years old. If you’ve forgotten Bravo’s time at Leeds, he spent six months with us on loan from January 2003, playing only six games in the process.

Saiz is currently on loan at Spanish club Getafe, though that spell hasn’t worked out and Getafe are not interested in converting that deal into a permanent transfer. And even before today’s news it had already converted that he won’t be coming back to Leeds, so interest in this affair is entirely how it will affect our efforts to offload him to another club in his native land.

The biggest reported offer so far is £2.5m from Valencia, which falls well short of the £6m Leeds were hoping to get, and that is believed to have come before the news of the investigation broke today.

While there is any likelihood that Saiz could face police action over this affair it’s doubtful that any club will want to risk their cash by making a permanent signing, so let’s hope that our plans in the transfer market this summer weren’t partly dependent on getting an incoming transfer fee for Saiz.

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