LONDON -- A couple of months ago the newspaper allegations that Liverpool's then-goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar took bribes to "throw" matches burst upon European soccer like a bomb at an embassy tea party.


The astonishment of players and fans was only equaled by the press' feeding frenzy, and the authorities reacted at once. The Football Association and police ordered immediate investigations, promising answers, hearings and decisions on criminal charges "within weeks."


Since then nothing has been heard, save periodic murmured announcements of delays. Even the usually boisterous British tabloids have been silent, leaving us all in tantalizing ignorance. How widespread was bribery in soccer? What is happening to the investigations? Did Brucie do it? The questions we yearned to have answered were left hanging.


Until now, that is. This column has not been idle since it arrived in the motherland, and after an investigation of its own can now provide answers to two of those questions and a good steer on the other. Be warned, however. Some of what follows is not suitable for those of a nervous disposition.


First the inquiries. The key one is that by the special unit set up by Hampshire police. Six officers have now been at work for several months and still face "long, hard, boring policework for an extensive time," in the words of their official spokeswoman.


As if that was not enough to slow the pulse, another police source told me that the unit was investigating no other player; nor had they gone, or planned to go, overseas, which is strange considering that the Sun newspaper's original allegations said Grobbelaar and possibly the entire English game was being subverted by "a shadowy Far Eastern betting syndicate." When you talk to police sources, "enthusiasm" is not a word that comes to mind.


Meanwhile, at the FA, its "quite separate inquiry" is "very active," "moving forward" and "hoping for some kind of result" -- all of which is soccerspeak for the off-the-record reality, i.e. we ain't gonna say nothing till the cops finish their ponderous work. The fact that neither inquiry is examining other players indicates either incredible negligence, which I doubt, or that there is not much of a bribery problem in Britain. This is not something that could be said of other parts of Europe.


The year 1992 was particularly ripe: Marseille was stripped of the French title and relegated to the Second Division after paying two rival players to take things easy. In Poland, four clubs were fined for fixing two games on the last day of the season to ensure that Legia Warsaw won the title. Third-placed club Lech Paznan was given the title, but further inquiries were hampered by a fire at the Polish FA offices which destroyed papers connected to the case. And in Turkey, Galatasaray won the league with an 8-0 victory over Ankaragou, whose goalkeeper disappeared after the game and has never been seen again.


This, however, is as nothing compared to the shenanigans in Malaysia. Just before Christmas, no fewer than 40 players were arrested on suspicion of match fixing, a goalkeeper was murdered for taking money from two competing betting syndicates to throw the same game in different directions and a forward is reported to have got into his car after a game to find a cobra sitting in the passenger seat -- a present from his disgruntled gambling ring.


It is here, according to one source, that soccer betting has reached its apotheosis: "You may have one syndicate who has bought up the defense and another which has bought up the attack. You then get one half of the team desperately trying to get the ball in their own net while the other half are trying to miss at the other end."


But back to Grobbelaar and the big question. As this column pointed out months ago, if the allegations are true (bribed him five times, only once got the result they wanted) we are dealing with the world's most incompetent betting syndicate. The final outcome? My guess (which, unless my sources are misleading me, is rather more than that) is this: the police take months longer to finish their work. They pass the papers to the prosecution service and they find no case to answer. The FA then huffs and puffs about technical breaches of its rules before also finding him not guilty.