December 23 – Malaysian authorities have imposed lifetime bans on five players and three officials for match-fixing in their domestic league.
All eight represented Kuala Lumpur and include Slovak coach Stanislav Lieskovsky, who apparently left the club in July, assistant manager Rosli Omar and team official Shaari Jani. The five players named in local reports were defenders Jeremy Danker, Hafizi Roslee and Fadhulah Yunsiar, midfielder Khairul Anuar and goalkeeper Phoo Kai Lun.
Malaysia, like much of south-east Asia, is home to illegal gambling cartels that have been responsible for a string of global match-rigging scandals. Fears of match-rigging in the country itself surfaced in May last year and in one game in particular angry fans waved banners with slogans such as ‘Bookie detected’ and ‘Bookie 5 – Fans 0’.
The Malaysian FA are understood to be considering employing Sportradar, the Swiss-based fraud detection agency, to help detect foul play.
Sportsradar were recently taken on by the Asian Football Confederation to monitor their matches after helping to uncover a string of incidents, the latest being a syndicate in Australia, which led to four players and one official being banned by FIFA.
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