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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia should legalize football betting to stamp out
match-fixing, a top coach said Sunday, after police launched a graft
probe into five of the 13 teams in the Malaysian Super League.
Steve Darby, chief coach of former Malaysian Cup
champions Perak state, told AFP profits from betting could be used
to improve the game.
“We cannot stop betting,” he said.
“Legalized betting will help [prevent match-fixing]. The money can
be ploughed back to provide better training facilities for the
players.”
Darby added he had written to the Football
Association of Malaysia (FAM) three times to warn about possible
match-fixing in the league after his players were approached.
Betting on football, a popular sport here, is
illegal but neighboring Singapore has legalized it.
Darby, from Liverpool, England made the remarks
as police and the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) arrested seven
current players from Sarawak state team and one former teammate
since Thursday as part of investigations.
Seven of them were later freed. However, the
39-year-old former Sarawak player from eastern Borneo Island has
been remanded for four days from Friday to assist the probe by the
ACA.
Sarawak is at the bottom of the league and face
relegation to the Premier League at the end of the season.
Darby said it was difficult to estimate how
widespread match-fixing was in Malaysian football.
The scandal is the latest blow to Malaysian
football, which has struggled to recover from a 1994 investigation
that saw 126 players questioned.
In that debacle, 21 players and coaches were
sacked, while 58 players were suspended by FAM for corruption.
Meanwhile, B. Satiananthan Nair, head coach of
Malaysia’s national team, said it was unlikely football betting
would be legalized in predominantly Muslim Malaysia.
-- AFP
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