S.Korea league 'could close over fixing'

SEOUL — South Korea's only professional football league could be closed down if it becomes embroiled in another match-fixing scandal, a government minister threatened Thursday.The K-League has been rattled for weeks by a match-rigging controversy, with 10 current players facing criminal charges so far and one more charged by military prosecutors. Another implicated player committed suicide.In future, teams whose players are implicated in match-fixing will be expelled from the competition, Vice Sports Minister Park Sun-Kyoo said after discussions with 16 club delegates and league officials."We will consider shutting down the K-League in the worst-case scenario," he warned.State prosecutors are due to complete a probe into the current scandal on July 7, he said.The meeting came after Choi Sung-Kuk, a former national team forward, this week admitted his involvement in throwing games while playing for a military soccer team last year.The 28-year-old Choi, now with Suwon Samsung Bluewings, is the highest-profile player to be implicated.Of the 11 players who have been charged, all but one have been banned for life from the K-League. They are accused of taking money from gambling brokers in return for allowing their teams to lose.Nearly all football players, coaches, referees and officials have now signed a pledge to root out match fixing and other illegal activities, while league officials have urged players to come forward in return for lenient penalties.Rumours abound about match-fixing in the K-League. Newspapers have said football clubs, who tend to hush up such scandals, have been silently expelling players implicated in match-rigging since last year.Players are exposed to growing temptation because illicit online gambling sites, many of them operated by crime rings in South Korea and China, have been growing exponentially, according to news reports. Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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