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Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS) is a football club founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. RoPS participated 32 years in the Finnish Premier Division, (Veikkausliiga) since 1981. In 2021 RoPS withdrew from professional football and voluntarily relegated to the amateur Kakkonen third division. The club plays home games at the Rovaniemen Keskuskenttä in the Arctic Circle of Lapland.
RoPS have won the Finnish Cup on two occasions, in 1986 and 2013, and were runners-up in 1962. They placed third in the Finnish Premier Division in 1988 and 1989, before finishing as runner-up in 2015, losing out on the title by 1 point to eventual champions SJK. The club's most notable international achievement was reaching the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1987–88 against Marseille.
Match fixing allegations and scandal
Throughout the 2000s, RoPS became infamous for suspected involvement in match fixing.
In spring 2011 the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation started a large investigation into match fixing. On February 25 Singaporean businessman Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted match fixer, was arrested after entering Finland with a fake passport. The National Bureau of Investigation suspected that over 30 games between 2008 and 2011, mostly from the Finnish premier league, had been fixed or manipulated.
On July 19, 2011, the Rovaniemi Court of Appeal convicted Perumal and nine RoPS players of match-fixing. Altogether 24 games had been manipulated, and the intended score had been achieved in 11 of them. Perumal was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to return 150,000 euros deemed to be match-fixing profits. The bribes ranged from 500 euros offered to one player to a total of 80,000 euros offered to eight players. The highest total of bribes for one individual was slightly over 40,000 euros. The players received suspended sentences. The sentenced players were six Zambian and two Georgian players: Godfrey Chibanga, Chileshe Chibwe, Francis Kombe, Stephen Kunda, Christopher Musonda, Chanda Mwaba, Nchimunya Mweetwa, Pavle Khorguashvili, and Valter Khorguashvili.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Rovaniemi Football Academy (RFA) is the reserve team of RoPS. The team plays in Kakkonen in 2020 season. It is coached by Aleksi Tanner.
As of 14 September 2020
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Niclas Grönholm – 11
Echiabhi Okodugha – 5
Nchimunya Mweetwa – 13
José Manuel Rivera – 10
Glentoran
Vllaznia
Marseille
GKS Katowice
1. FC Magdeburg
Asteras Tripoli
Shamrock Rovers
Lokomotiva
Aberdeen
Graham Williams (1991)
Keith Armstrong (1993–94)
György Hamori (Jan 1, 2003 – June 23, 2004)
Tom Saintfiet (Jan 1, 2008 – April 7, 2008)
Valeri Bondarenko (April 14, 2008 – May 27, 2009)