Friday, February 17, 2012
Malaysian Clubs Accused Of Match Fixing
Here we go again. Just when the national team was doing so well, back home in Malaysia the ugly spectre of match fixing is rearing its ugly head again with a number of teams in the Malaysian Premier league being investigated.
Pos Malaysia, MP Muar and NS Betaria, interesting name (!), are being looked at according to this report.
Two of the clubs seem to be having their arms outstretched as if to say what have I done.
I had planned on covering a lot more Malaysian football but now wondering if it's worth it.
I'm not naive. I know games are fixed in this part of the world be it through intimidation of match officials or plain simple fixing the result in advance. I've seen 14 minutes of injury time just so the home game can get a point from a game they deserved to lose.
Intimidating officials is quite an easy one to see through. For serial offenders just look at those teams who don't lose at home or manage to score a large number of goals in the final moments. Or just read through the lines of league tables.
Players and clubs know it happens of course but players, for fear of upsetting the folk who pay them, say nothing. The clubs of course have their own reasons to keep quiet.