LEAGUE SHAME

Match-fixing probe leads to multiple arrests

FORMER players at a League of Ireland club are at the centre of the match-fixing scandal that has rocked Irish football.

Ten people, seven of them footballers, were arrested yesterday in a dawn swoop by gardaí from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau. Five were released last night without charge.

Most of the arrests took place in Limerick, with others in Cork and Dublin. It’s understood that the outcome of three matches involving the club in 2019 have been identified as unreliable.

The arrests are an extension of the Garda investigation launched by the Anti-Bribery and Corruption Unit in 2019 following concerns expressed by the FAI and UEFA over irregular betting patterns.

That probe saw gardaí enter the club’s training grounds in September 2019 and seize mobile phones belonging to players. Having watched the games in question, detectives suspect that deliberate fouls took place, which ensured players were sent off.

They noted bets were placed on teams to lose

games by a certain number of goals and that large numbers of home fans in one part of the country were successfully betting on their own team to lose in a number of games.

This fuelled suspicions the matches had been fixed and that those placing the bets knew in advance about the outcome of the fixtures.

The FAI declined to elaborate on the arrests, or their implications, yesterday. ‘The FAI, in conjunction with UEFA, remains committed to a zero tolerance policy on match fixing. As this is now a legal matter we will be making no further comment,’ said the FAI.

Meanwhile, Shamrock Rovers can go seven points clear at the top of the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division with victory over struggling UCD at the Belfield Bowl tonight (7.45).