Stricter penalties for match fixing announced

Sports suspected of having match fixing will no longer receive proceeds from Sports Toto, Korea`s lone legal association for sports betting, and bookies will face tougher punishment for illegal activities.

The Culture, Sports, and Tourism Ministry announced stricter measures against match fixing Tuesday. The National Sports Promotion Act says 10 percent of Sports Toto proceeds shall be allocated to a relevant sport but a new revision suspends the issuance of lottery tickets and a ban on the lottery from paying the proceeds to a sport implicated in match rigging.

Sports Toto is involved with five sports: soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball and golf. Last year, the Korea Football Association received 26 billion won (24 million U.S. dollars) from the betting entity to finance its budget of 90 billion won (83.3 million dollars), the Korea Baseball Organization 9.8 billion won (90.7 million dollars), and the Korean Basketball League 6.98 billion won (6.4 million dollars).

The Women’s Korean Basketball League got 4.04 billion won (3.74 million dollars), the Korea Professional Golfers Association 117 million won (108,300 dollars), the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association 141 million won (130,500 dollars), and the Korea Volleyball Federation 757 million won (700,930 dollars).

The soccer association hands out half of the lottery proceeds to the K-League and the remainder is spent on other purposes such as youth soccer and referee training. An accounting staff member of the association said, “If we don`t receive proceeds, we have to finance the cost by ourselves, which can make our financial situation difficult.”

Since a significant portion of the lottery proceeds are spent on the development of youth sports, however, the direct impact of the suspension will be felt by youths. Young athletes are likely to suffer damage from match rigging committed by adults.

A senior prosecutor who is probing the soccer match-fixing scandal said, “We`re investigating bookies who are suspected of involvement in illegal high-stakes bets and seeking their testimony.”

After an additional investigation, prosecutors will make their indictments and announce the results of their probe Thursday. Aside from two brokers who have been arrested, nine players of Daejeon Citizen FC and Gwangju FC and 10 financiers who provided bribes for match fixing will probably face prosecution.

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