The embezzlement case at the Football Federation of Macedonia is widening, and the figure behind it is heavy - around 3 million euros allegedly vanished from the institution that is meant to run Macedonian football. The prosecution has secured four more suspects who had previously been out of reach.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption, two of the new suspects were brought before a judge today - one was ordered into custody, the other given measures to ensure his presence - while the remaining two will appear in court tomorrow. With this, the number arrested in the case climbs to twelve people.

The investigation covers suspicions of embezzlement and money laundering in the period from January 2015 to October 2019. According to the prosecution, a former president of the Federation allegedly appropriated over 127 million denars, and another former president over 53 million denars. The head of finance, meanwhile, allegedly manipulated the accounting records, falsifying invoices for services that were never performed.

"The evidence shows that the services billed by the FFM were never provided," the prosecutor stated. That is the sentence that exposes the whole mechanism - money that went out for something that never existed.

For a football nation where the national team rarely reaches the big stages, and young players look for a way out through foreign clubs, this is a blow below the belt. When the institution that should be building pitches and academies becomes a place for emptying the till, the question isn't only who will answer for it - but how many generations of players were left short-changed while the money went to the wrong address.