iGaming Business – Alex Horne, general secretary of the Football Association, the sport’s governing body in England, believes ‘fixing’ matches is not a widespread occurrence in the English game, but has warned against complacency in the fight against match fixing and corrupt betting.
Horne was among representatives of football, cricket, horseracing, rugby league, rugby union and tennis who attended a summit on Tuesday morning with UK government officials, including Culture Secretary Maria Miller.
The meeting took place against the backdrop of a major scandal to emerge in English football, with six people, including Blackburn Rovers striker DJ Campbell, having been arrested following an investigation into ‘spot-fixing’ by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
According to the Press Association, Horne said after the meeting: “I think the general consensus around the room was this isn’t a big issue. The intelligence that we have says this isn’t a wide-scale issue at the moment but, again, we don’t want to be complacent. It’s clear that, as Britain, we are very proud of our sporting product, of the sport that we play in this country and we all want to do all we can to protect the integrity of that sport.”
The former Portsmouth player Sam Sodje has also been arrested following a sting operation by The Sun newspaper where he is videoed saying he earned £70,000 to get red carded during one match. Commenting on the match- and spot-fixing developments of the past two weeks, Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association, told iGaming Business that while it was difficult to evaluate the scale of the problem, the claims made by the likes of Sodje had to be taken with scepticism.
“You have to wonder how much betting has to go on for it (paying someone £70,000) to be worthwhile,” Hawkswood said.
