Six people have been arrested including a former Premier League player as a part of an ongoing investigation on suspicion of fixing English football games, according to Exclusive reports from The Telegraph.
The alleged members of the betting syndicate were thought to be held at a police station in the Midlands, and it includes at least three current players from lower leagues and the former Premier League footballer turned agent, Delroy Facey.
“Six men have been arrested across the country as part of an NCA investigation into alleged football match fixing. The focus of the operation is a suspected international illegal betting syndicate,” said the NCA on Wednesday night, reported by The Guardian.
The Telegraph reveals following an undercover investigation that match fixers from Asia were targeting games across Britain. One internationally known fixer claimed that lower league matches could be fixed for as little as £50,000, while can correctly forecast the outcome of three games played by the same team.
The operation was conducted by National Crime Agency and it is the first time in decades sufficient evidence have been found by the police to hold those suspected who were trying to fix a match, following a succession of similar scandals abroad.
In February, we reported here that 380 matches have been fixed in entire Europe in the last four years, according to findings from continent’s police agency Europol.
In that report, they uncovered an organized crime syndicate based in Asia that had great criminal networks throughout Europe. Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol suspected that criminal conspiracy can also permeate the English game.
The very suggestion of English football games susceptible to match fixing, will give a serious headache to the Football Association, which fiercely defends the integrity of the game. One of the fixers claimed that he could rig games and potential gamblers make hundreds of thousands of pounds by using the inside information on Asian-based betting websites.
The Telegraph adds that match fixers target players and officials to rig the result of games so that they can earn thousands of pounds by allowing others to bet on the predetermined outcome.
The thing is there was an underneath suspicion that a syndicate of gamblers are working in Britain with connection to fixers sitting in Asia. Nick Garlic, a senior official at Europol had criticized the Football Association’s commitment, earlier this month, to tackling corruption and said he believed match fixers had worked in Britain.
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