Gabi Fernandez

Madrid: Japan coach Javier Aguirre, Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera, Atletico Madrid captain Gabi Fernandez and 38 others have been named in an alleged case of match-fixing involving a La Liga match in the 2010-11 season.

Spain’s anti-corruption prosecutor filed its case in a Valencia court on Monday following a probe into Real Zaragoza’s 2-1 win at Levante on the final day of the campaign, which meant Zaragoza avoided relegation.

Mexican Aguirre was coach of Zaragoza at the time, while Spaniards Herrera and Gabi were both playing for the club.

Gabi scored twice for Zaragoza in that match, one of them a strike from 30 yards, and the victory saved his team from relegation to the second tier of Spanish football, with Deportivo La Coruna finishing in the final relegation place instead.

Former Zaragoza president Agapito Iglesias and the club itself were also named as defendants, along with the rest of the players from both teams.

In its court filing published on Monday, the prosecutor alleged that the Levante players were paid a total of $1.2 million in cash to deliberately lose the game.

Zaragoza first made bank transfers to its players and officials, including Aguirre, Herrera and Gabi, and they then took money out of their accounts in cash and passed it on to the Levante players, the prosecutor said.

The judge overseeing the case will now rule on whether to proceed with prosecution.

Some months back, Gabi had told a state prosecutor that he was simply doing what he was asked to by the club.

The player reportedly admitted to investigators that he had received a payment of £65,000 from his club.

He said that the same day he repaid the money to the president Agapito Iglesias, insisting that he did not know the purpose of the transactions but assumed it was to do with club business. He said: “I did what Agapito asked me.”

In June 2013, the Spanish league president, Javier Tebas, included the Levante versus Zaragoza match in a list of nine matches that the league was investigating for possible match-fixing.

A Spanish newspaper had reported that Gabi said in court that he had made no personal gain from the result of the match, which ensured Zaragoza remained in the Primera Division, because he had already agreed to rejoin Atletico at the end of the season. For the record, Atletico, the reigning La Liga champions are one of the co-owners of the Atletico de Kolkata.

A Real Zaragoza official said it had no comment to add to a September 25 statement that said it was “completely unaware” of events being investigated by the public prosecutor. The match occurred under a different board of directors, the official added.

Earlier, Zaragoza had said that it had “no knowledge of any circumstances connected to the investigation” but that it would “cooperate with any requests” made by the prosecutor.

A Levante spokesman had declined to comment.

Match-fixing is a crime in Spain and can lead to prison sentences for individuals and a club being banned from official competition.

Levante still plays in the top flight. Zaragoza have played in the second division since being relegated in 2013.

Monday was also the day when the Champions League draw was announced.

Having seen the draw, Atletico captain offered his first thoughts about the pairing with Bayer Leverkusen, who currently lie third in the Bundesliga.

“We’re both teams that compete very well. It’s going to be a complicate tie and in February when we face them, we’ll have to see how straightforward or not it will be. Obviously we've not underestimated anyone in the last three years and we’re not going to do that now.”