Sunday Mail (UK)

Kluivert’s debt led to blackmail

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66 Sunday Mail

Former Holland star Patrick Kluivert was blackmaile­d by a criminal gang af ter he amassed gambling debts of £900,000, according to reports in the Netherland­s.

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant report that K luiver t owed around €1million to the gang – now under investigat­ion for match fixing – while a coach at FC Twente from 2011 to 2012.

The former Ajax, Barcelona and Newcastle striker is reported to have betted on matches involving FC Twente which allegedly led to him being blackmaile­d as the gang applied “enormous” pressure on the Dutchman in order to recoup the debt.

Any link to illegal activity has been stringentl­y denied by Kluivert, who is currently director of football at Paris Saint- Germain, although he was called in to talk to police on a witness basis.

The report insists there is no proof Kluivert was involved in match-fixing or illegal betting and his actions were not deemed illegal at that time.

Kluivert’s lawyer Gerard Sprong stressed Kluivert “has had no criminal involvemen­t in the manipulati­on of football matches” and that he “is only a victim in this case”.

It is understood he was blackmaile­d until 2014 and this story came to light after five members of the criminal gang were arrested.

Kluivert – who scored the winning goal for Ajax in the 1995 Champions League Final at 18 – has yet to comment publicly about the case.

The Dutchman i s no stranger to controvers­y and only narrowly avoided jail at 19 when he was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving after crashing his friend’s high-powered BMW M3 sports car killing a man.

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