China’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has detained 23 culprits who engaged in a pre-matoch fixing in Hong Kong, News About Nigeria reports.
11 out of this number have been reported to be players from Happy Valley, one of Hong Kong’s oldest football clubs currently in the First Division league.
The men were arraigned for alleged fixing of results in the Hong Kong football’s second tie, in a bid to bet on the team and make money.
Reports suggest that the 11 players were offered HK$10,000, equivalent to $1,200 for each game, depending on their impact.
The investigation which started a year ago by the anti-graft body (ICAC) is said to have included offences such as bribery, manipulation of match results, and illegal gambling.
ICAC principal investigator Kate Cheuk in a press conference on Tuesday said the operation is the highest by the agency in recent years.
“This operation is the largest in recent years carried out by the ICAC against match-fixing.”
She noted that the players were going to be paid based on how well they faked their performances or manipulate results on the field of play.
“It’s not about how well they played but how well they faked (their performance) or how much they could help manipulate the results,
“The suspected footballers would either play passively so their team would lose to a weaker rival, or they sought to achieve a certain score that was unpopular and at high odds, Cheuk added.
She further said once this is done, the group and some of the players then bet on those results in an illegally organised scheme for profits.
Cheuk told newsmen that an investigation is still on to know the total amount of money involved in the scheme.
