A German referee told state prosecutors he was paid more than 50,000 euros (US$65,000) to fix soccer games and implicated other referees and players in the scandal, a newspaper reported Friday.
Two people were arrested Friday evening in the case.
The referee, Robert Hoyzer, said he was present when other referees received money from a Croatian-controlled betting ring in Berlin and had heard of players getting paid, the respected Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
Hoyzer admitted receiving money for rigging three games, the report said.
The article came from the newspaper's chief investigative reporter and was distributed to other media late Friday in advance of publication in the Munich-based national daily on Saturday.
A spokesman for the Berlin prosecutor's office declined to comment on the report.
But the spokesman, Michael Grunwald, said two people were arrested on suspicion of fraud during raids on four premises in Berlin, including the cafe where Hoyzer allegedly met with gamblers and bookmakers.
No other details on the arrests were immediately available.
The newspaper quoted Hoyzer's lawyer, Stephan Holthoff-Pfoertner, as saying the betting ring first gave Hoyzer "small presents'" without asking for anything in return.
"When they had him by the hook, they started asking for favors on the soccer field," the newspaper quoted the lawyer as saying.
Earlier Friday, another newspaper, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, reported the president of the German soccer federation (DFB) as saying that players could have been part of the scandal.
"Even this cannot be ruled out any more," DFB president Theo Zwanziger told the newspaper.
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