S.Korea's K-League signs anti-corruption pledge

[unreal.livejournal.com]

South Korean football players, coaches, referees and officials signed a rare pledge to root out corruption after a player suspected of involvement in match fixing committed suicide.

K-League officials on Wednesday said the pledge was signed by 1,100 people after an urgent two-day meeting aimed at eradicating match fixing and other illegal activities.

Players promised not to accept offers from gambling brokers and engage in any behaviour affecting the outcome of games.

The meeting came two weeks after the country's top professional league was hit by a match-fixing scandal, leading to the arrests of five players and two suspected fixers.


A 29-year-old midfielder for third-division professional league team Seoul United was found hanging Monday in an apparent suicide. In a note found in his hotel room, he apologised for his alleged role in the scandal.

Rumours abound about match-fixing in South Korea's professional football league. Newspapers say football clubs tend to hush up such scandals and have been silently expelling players implicated in match-rigging since last year.

Players are exposed to growing temptation because the country's illicit online gambling sites, many of them operated by crime rings in South Korea and China, have been growing exponentially, news reports said.

The Korea Football Association said Wednesday it would launch a new committee to investigate corruption.

Source: AFP

Basicly some sort of follow up to this