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.
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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.
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