Three A-League players charged over alleged betting corruption

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Three senior A-League footballers have been charged over an alleged betting corruption scandal. ABC grandstand's Ned Hall says these developments are damaging to the league.

Transcript

00:00 It's a terrible timing as well for the A-Leagues.

00:04 They've got their semi-finals this weekend, both of which have sold out.

00:07 MacArthur FC not involved at this stage of the season.

00:11 But the fact that there is some evidence of manipulation of events happening in matches,

00:18 that is a real concern for it.

00:20 If you look around, I had a quick search around earlier on a betting app earlier just to see.

00:27 If you look at the A-League semi-finals, there's over 75 markets that you can bet on within

00:31 that.

00:32 English Premier League matches over 150 potential markets and around 200 per NRL match and 160

00:39 in the AFL.

00:40 So there are so many separate markets away from the actual result of actual matches that

00:46 people can put bets on.

00:48 And this is where sport, not just football, all sports have become more susceptible for

00:54 putting irregularities in their contests.

00:57 What sort of checks and balances are in place to try and stop any misdemeanors?

01:06 Well Sports Integrity Australia obviously play a big role in this country as well.

01:11 I think there's an education aspect to it as well to talk to players about these things.

01:16 But I think as we just saw in the press conference before from the police in New South Wales,

01:21 the high level police operations now are keeping a very close eye on betting markets.

01:26 And a lot of betting markets you can see where there is any irregularities and there's a

01:32 lot more money going in on certain areas that you wouldn't expect.

01:35 For instance, it should be fairly noticeable if there's a larger amount of money being

01:39 put on the number of bookings in a particular match.

01:42 And these sort of irregularities and manipulation should be able to be picked up through the

01:47 betting markets.

01:48 But as we're hearing as well that there's an overseas component to this.

01:52 It really does involve an international cooperation now between police and sort of authorities

01:58 around the world to try and keep on top of this because it's not an Australian thing.

02:02 It's not based in any one particular country.

02:04 It's a global issue these days.

02:06 You can bet on sports in all sorts of countries.

02:09 And so where this arises from, it's very hard to keep track of.

02:12 And Ed, what sort of guidelines and regulations does the FA have around players in these circumstances?

02:21 Well, betting on matches is taboo for football, but also most sports as well.

02:27 You cannot bet on the sports that you are participating in and there's fairly heavy

02:31 penalties to be handed out for players who do.

02:33 We've seen in the English Premier League, Tonali, the Newcastle United players facing

02:37 a very lengthy ban there for betting.

02:39 And Ivan Tony, an England international, who's just come back from a long suspension for

02:43 Brentford for betting on matches that he was involved in.

02:46 So the guidelines are fairly clear.

02:48 There shouldn't be any sort of difficulty there for players to understand at all.

02:52 You don't have bets involved in matches that you're involved with.

02:56 But also having any connection with people who are involved in betting gear is also a

03:01 no-no as well.

03:02 And I think in the past, there have been a number of players who've been caught up in

03:05 this who basically it ends their careers.

03:07 I think that's a key thing to look at here as well.

03:09 A lot of the time, it can literally end your career if you are caught up in any of these

03:13 betting scandals.

03:15 In terms, as I say, these are just allegations, so we're not going to talk about this specific

03:20 case.

03:21 But in terms of matches being driven in a certain way by sports people, how high up

03:29 in the past have they gone in terms of the level of the game?

03:34 Well, probably the most notable one is the spot fixing scandal with the Pakistani cricketers

03:40 back in 2010, where three players actually served jail time.

03:44 And that was related to the number of wides bowled in a match.

03:48 So again, it's often not the outcome of matches themselves that are being manipulated.

03:54 It's events within the matches that are far more easily manipulated than the overall result

03:59 of the match.

04:00 In that, Salman Butt, who was the captain of the Pakistan side at the time, he got a

04:03 10-year ban from the game, served 30 months in prison as well.

04:07 Mohamed Amir had seven and five-year bans respectively.

04:10 So that's elite test cricket, and it's got to that level as well.

04:14 We've also seen spot fixing issues within cricket in the IPL.

04:18 That's been a problem in there in the past too.

04:20 But I think 10, 11 years ago as well in the NRL, there was an issue there as well with

04:24 the foot player Ryan Tandy, who was also caught in a separate issue with spot fixing.

04:28 So I think the number of markets that are available for all sports now mean that all

04:33 sports are open to this sort of manipulation by people who could stand to make a lot of

04:38 money from it if they know that they're getting a particular result out of a game.

04:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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