January 15 – Widely publicised allegations of spot-fixing involving 13 English-based footballers has been dropped due to “insufficient evidence”.
The claims, which rocked English football at the time, were originally made in an undercover newspaper sting in December 2103, but the arrested players, who included a former Premier League striker, will face no further action when England’s Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
A CPS spokeswoman said: “A file was passed to the CPS in July 2014 from the National Crime Agency in relation to alleged football match-fixing in 2013. This case involved evidence in relation to 13 suspects.
“We have informed the NCA of this decision and they have written to the defendants announcing that no further action will be taken.”
The 13 footballers were arrested as part of an investigation into bribery and money laundering. Last April, seven players from Football League clubs based in the north-west of England were arrested in connection with alleged spot-fixing and another six re-arrested over the claims.
Spot-fixing is different to match-fixing in that it involves a player influencing a specific element of a match, for example by intentionally getting a yellow card or conceding a corner, rather than trying to fix the final score.
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