Former Singapore League players jailed for match-fixing, says report

April 23, 2008

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Six footballers from former Singapore league side Liaoning Guangyuan have been sentenced to jail and fined for match-fixing, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Wang Lin, 20, was sentenced to four months in prison while the five other players were handed five months’ each for fixing matches in the S-League last season, said the Today daily.

Wang Lin, along with Li Xuebai, 30, Li Zheng, 26, Dong Lei, 26, Peng Zhiyi, 22, and Tong Di, 26, were also ordered to pay fines according to the amount they received from Wang Xin, then-manager of Liaoning, to throw matches.

The newspaper also said the six players, along with teammate Zhao Zhipeng, 26, accepted a total of 27,950 dollars (20,704 US dollars) from the manager to lose six S-League games last year.

Court officials could not be reached for comment on the report.

Zhao was sentenced to seven months in jail in February.

A judge later reduced the term to five months, saying Zhao was under the thumb of Wang Xin and had “no choice” but to fix a match, reported Today.

The prosecution alleged that Wang had placed bets on S-League matches through a friend in China.

Wang has since disappeared and is reportedly in China.

Liaoning have already been thrown out of the S-League and replaced for the 2008 season by China’s most successful club side Dalian Shide.

Early this month, Asian Football Confederation chief Mohamed bin Hammam called match-fixing a “cancer” that is destroying the game.

His comments followed allegations that two players of Maldives side Victory SC were approached to throw their AFC Cup match in Singapore against Singapore’s Home United.

The allegations are under investigation by anti-corruption officers and the AFC.

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