By William Walker.
The “golden whistle” of China and three of his cohorts have been found guilty of corruption following a three year investigation into alleged match fixing according to state-run news agency Xinhua. The corrupt football referees, known collectively as “black whistles” were found guilty at a court in Dandong, Liaoning Province and will serve prison terms averaging five years each.
Lu Jun, perhaps the most renowned referee in China, who officiated the 2002 South Korea and Japan FIFA World Cup and the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, was sentenced to five and a half years for his part, having taken more than £80,000 in bribes.
The Chinese Football Association (CFA) as recently as December last year ceded that “corruption exposed flaws in the administrative system and imperfections in the supervision mechanism” and vowed to tackle it in a series of trials. Along with such high profile officials as Jun several former members of the CFA were sentenced, including CFA vice president Yang Yimin and CFA Referee Committee director Zhang Jianqiang.
Match fixing and corruption in sport, not solely in football, has long been a contentious issue in countries the world over, with such high profile cases asPakistancricket captain Salman Butt. Elsewhere investigations into organized crime involving match fixing at Turkey’s top football leagues in which more than sixty people have been detained is ongoing.
The investigations will not stop there, however, as the “big fishes” are yet to be tried, claims Xinhua. In a year that will see state elections inIndia, theUSandFrancecorruption is a hot topic and we can expect to see a lot more of these high profile allegations come to court.
