Their guilt was based on a written statement by the Željo goalkeeper Ranko Planinić who decided to come forward some 14 months after the fact.
In his statement, Planinić claims on the record that his club threw matches against Hajduk and Trešnjevka towards the end of the 1963-64 season in return for financial compensation that those two relegation-threatened teams paid in order to avoid the drop.
On Friday, 27 August 1965, following a fifteen-hour investigative process, the Yugoslav FA's (FSJ) disciplinary body (disciplinski sud) presided over by Svetozar Savić handed out the following penalties: Disciplinary body president Svetozar Savić also announced that the investigation had revealed that Željezničar was paid YUD1.5 million by Hajduk Split, and YUD4 million by Trešnjevka for these matches.
[3] The draconian punishment caused widespread shock and approval among the Yugoslav public with each of the FSJ's six sub-federations except for SR Croatia's expressing strong support of the decision.
[3] Fans of Hajduk, Trešnjevka, and Željezničar organized street protests in their respective cities with the Split demonstration being the most attended.
After he blew the whistle, the tone and framing of press write-ups referencing Planinić in various Sarajevo and Split-based print media outlets ranged from dismissing his claims outright to insults, insinuations and speculation about his decision to come forward being made out of spite, hurt ego, or personal vendetta against his club because supposedly his summer 1965 off-season contract negotiations with FK Željezničar stalled or because he had lost the starting position in Željezničar's goal to teammate Vasilije Radović.