Get to the root of match-fixing - Khairy

The 'big guns' behind match-fixing must be addressed and punished to solve the problem as a whole, said Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy said the arrest of three Malaysian Indian Sports Council-Malaysian Indian Football Association Football Club (MISC-MIFA) players is just a tip to hunt down the syndicates.

"I hope the recent crackdown will continue and get to the root of match-fixing. The players are only agents of illegal syndicates. Usually these syndicates are tied to illegal sports gambling and these are the people that we need to go after.

"The real disease is the syndicates who are behind match-fixing, the players should be punished if they are involved but what we want is a link from there to the syndicates themselves," he said.

Khairy told this to reporters after witnessing the exchange of documents between the Malaysian SEA Games Organising Committee (MASOC) and AirAsia here, today.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) last week arrested the three players, including an import player from MISC-MIFA, for suspected match fixing.

Khairy also urged more state football associations and clubs in the M-League to cooperate with police and MACC to curb match-fixing activities in the sports by informing the authorities about suspicious behaviour of players.

When asked about legalising sports betting to solve match-fixing, the minister said that the vast majority of the Malaysian population are against it when a debate about the issue was hosted in 2003.

"Of course there are pros and cons on legalising sports betting in terms of regulating it and getting revenue from tax but the vast majority of Malaysians are not willing to accept another form of betting in the country," he said. -- Bernama