Get tough on match fixers: AFL
The Age
Friday April 1, 2011
THE AFL has backed calls for up to a 10-year jail term for match fixers and revealed it looks at players' banking and phone records to check for unexplained wealth.AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson described sports betting corruption as "a massive threat that we cannot afford to take lightly".The calls for tougher laws to protect against match fixing have been backed by the National Rugby League and Cricket Australia.Federal Sports Minister Mark Arbib has told The Age criminal syndicates overseas are grooming potential future sports stars with cash gifts to compromise them with the aim of using them for criminal activity later on.The AFL has also been warned gamblers and illegal bookmakers may attempt to groom players for inside information through social networking sites such as Facebook.The AFL has strongly backed a New South Wales Law Reform Commission recommendation for a new "offence of cheating in relation to sports and event betting" that would carry a maximum 10-year jail term. The proposed offence would include bookies, gamblers or players fixing or influencing the outcome of matches or events during a match, and players deliberately under-performing or using inside information to place bets.Mr Anderson said the AFL ranked players with a gambling problem in a high-risk category for gambling-related corruption and said the league's new integrity database included banking details and phone records of players and officials.AFL Players Association spokesman Ben Hart said players supported a tough approach to match fixing but any new criminal offence should allow a proportional punishment related to the specific incident and not a mandatory 10-year jail sentence. He said players' banking and phone details should be collected only during investigation of a specific incident, not as a matter of course.Victoria is reviewing its laws in relation to protecting sport's integrity. Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien said he was open to looking at "whether specific offences need to be created to deal with integrity in sports, particularly in an era where sports betting has got a lot of influence".Monash University gambling expert Charles Livingstone called the AFL's safeguards "a system to catch dummies"."It is a system that is engineered to ensure it looks like they are really acting tough where in fact the only people who get caught are very small fish . . ."
© 2011 The Age
