Businessmen and footballer guilty of match-fixing

[SibeiKuaiLan]

Businessmen and footballer guilty of match-fixing

17 June 2014

Hakeem Adelakun, left, was cleared. The jury is still considering the case against Moses Swaibu and Michael Boateng, right, was found guilty

Two businessmen and a footballer have been found guilty of being involved in a plot to fix the results of lower league football matches.

Chann Sankaran and Krishna Ganeshan, both from Singapore, were convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery.

Former Whitehawk FC defender Michael Boateng was found guilty while Hakeem Adelakun, who also played for the club, was cleared of the same charge.

The jury is still considering the case against footballer Moses Swaibu.

Sankaran, 33, of Hougang Avenue, Singapore and Ganeshan, 44, of Hawthorn Road, Hastings, East Sussex, were described during their trial as the "central figures" in efforts to influence the outcome of matches in League Two and the Conference South in November last year.

Mr Adelakun, 23, of Thornton Heath, south London, told the jury at Birmingham Crown Court that he knew nothing at all about any plot to fix matches.

Boateng, 22, of Davidson Road, Croydon, south London, and Mr Swaibu both played for the Brighton-based football club.

Mr Swaibu, 25, of Tooley Street, Bermondsey, south London, denies a single count of conspiracy to offer, promise or give a financial advantage

 

[SibeiKuaiLan]

Two businessmen found guilty over match-fixing in England

LONDON Tue Jun 17, 2014 1:49pm BST

(Reuters) - Two businessmen were found guilty of conspiracy to commit bribery on Tuesday in relation to England's biggest football match-fixing scandal for some 50 years.

Chann Sankaran, 33, a Singapore national, and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, 44, who has dual UK and Singapore nationality, were convicted at Birmingham Crown Court, a court spokesman said.

The jury cleared footballer Hakeem Adelakun, 23, who used to play for Whitehawk FC in Brighton, of the same charge and is still considering verdicts on fellow former Whitehawk players, Moses Swaibu and Michael Boateng.

Swaibu and Boateng are charged with conspiring to offer, promise or give a financial advantage to other persons. The three players have denied all charges.

The court spokesman said sentencing for Sankaran and Ganeshan would not be decided until the jury reached verdicts on all five men.

The men were among seven people arrested last November on suspicion of being connected to an illegal betting syndicate based in Singapore that was involved in match-fixing in English lower league football.

Sankaran and Ganeshan were charged in November and the three footballers faced charges in December.

The same month, the National Crime Agency launched a second probe into alleged corruption in English football after a Sunday newspaper claimed a player told an undercover reporter that he could guarantee certain events in a match.

The investigations are highly embarrassing for English football, which prides itself as the largely unsullied birthplace of the game.

The last major match-fixing scandal in England occurred in the mid-1960s when 10 players were found guilty.

Earlier last year, an inquiry by European police forces, Europol and national prosecutors uncovered a global betting scam run from Singapore.

About 680 suspicious matches, including the European Champions League and qualifying games for the World Cup and European Championships, were identified in the investigation.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by John O'Brien)