AFC sets up internal task force

AFC General Secretary Dato’ Alex Soosay informed that the objectives of the task force will be to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to achieve the objectives, to educate the Member Associations on ways and measures to combat this menace and monitor and coordinate with everyone involved to fight match-fixing in AFC competitions.

The task force will also introduce and implement mechanisms to fight match manipulation in line with the objectives set out in AFC Statutes, AFC Code of Ethics and AFC Disciplinary Code.

“The two-day conference - ‘Match fixing – The ugly side of the beautiful game’ – which was held in Kuala Lumpur with the help of Interpol and FIFA raised awareness about the seriousness of this threat in our game. By setting up this task force, we would like to coordinate the education, training and implementation of measures through one platform,” he said.

“Some of our Member Associations, who have been facing this threat for long, have come up with novel ideas to combat match-fixing and have succeeded in controlling the threat,” he said referring to initiatives taken by Chinese Football Association (CFA), Football Association of Singapore (FAS), Korea Football Association (KFA) and Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

“The CFA banned 33 people, including two officials, club owners, referees and several star players for life recently which will surely send a strong message to the negative elements,” he added.

“The FAS initiated polygraph tests for players and this had a positive impact in their fight against match-fixing.”

Dato’ Alex asked all the Member Associations to join the fight against match-fixing and corruption.

“I would like all our MAs to follow the examples of these MAs and join this fight to strengthen the fair play in this game.”

“I would like to thank Interpol and FIFA for the successful organisation of the two-day conference in Kuala Lumpur,” he added.