Belgian tennis match-fixing trial postponed; 3 suspects detained in Kenya football

BOXSCORE | LYON (March 21, 2023) INTERPOL has released its bi-weekly "Integrity in Sport" which monitors major developments in corruption in sport around the world.

INVESTIGATIONS

- In Belgium, a high-profile match-fixing tennis trial of seven Belgian tennis players as well as the suspected ringleader, started but was postponed. The case involves at least 375 tennis matches and identified a network of over 180 players.

- Police in Kenya have detained three suspects for their alleged involvement in attempting to influence the outcome of a Football Kenya Federation Premier League match.

- A top tier La Liga football club in Spain is being accused by state prosecutors for corruption. The club is suspected of paying off the vice-president of Spain's referees' committee.

- In Spain, a former player of one of the country’s football club’s revealed that he was the target of a match-fixing attempt.



- The son of the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations was sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal to five years in prison after his involvement in a state-sponsored doping scandal.

- A Scottish football player and two friends have been cleared of defrauding a bookmaker. The trial heard that the player had exchanged messages in advance of a cup match in 2019 in which he agreed he would deliberately get booked. His friends had bet thousands of pounds online on the player being booked and made nearly £14,000. The jury believed the player's claim that he forgot about the agreement once the match began.- The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) suspended one the UK’s top snooker players’ following an investigation into irregular betting patterns.


- A feature articles exposes a connection between an English gambling platform company and the former CEO of one of Asia’s largest junket promoters.



- The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has today published its annual review of 2022, looking at the organisation's operations throughout the year from prevention and education, to sanctions and engagement. Overall in 2022, the ITIA published sanctions for four players concerning anti-doping charges, plus a further eight provisional suspensions. A total of 26 individuals were sanctioned relating to match fixing and betting charges. In 2022, the organisation received a total of 109 match alerts through its agreements with the regulated betting industry, slightly down on 2021 (113). Its education efforts in 2022 focused on players at the start of their career and the programme reached over 1,200 junior players who received information about the Tennis Anti-Doping and Anti-Corruption Programmes.



- In Argentina, a goal keeper from one of the country’s professional football clubs’ revealed on his social media platform that he was approached by a coach from another team, to influence the outcome of a match.



- Following the Chinese Football Association’s (CFA) announcement to invest into football, the country has stalled on its 2020 goals after a series of corruption scandals led to a government crackdown into the country’s sports figures.