By Kim Rahn
Dozens of athletes have been booked for match-rigging and illegal gambling allegations.
Officers at the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said Tuesday that 26 former and current athletes allegedly placed illegal bets on Internet gambling sites from 2009 to March of this year.
A former professional basketball player, identified only as Park, and a judoka, identified as Hwang, were booked without physical detention for match fixing and illegal gambling.
Hwang allegedly asked Park to deliberately miss shots in a game so that Park’s team would lose in February and Park allegedly agreed to do this. Hwang and Park allegedly bet 1 million won and 3 million won on the game, respectively. Park retired after the season.
Police also booked 11 former and current basketball players, 12 judokas and one wrestler without detention for allegedly placing illegal bets on gambling sites. The bets ranged from 1 million to 400 million won.
They include SK Nights player Kim Sun-hyung, a member of the national team who allegedly participated in illegal gambling about 50 times between 2009 and 2010 during his college days.
Police questioned him the previous day about the allegations. Kim earlier appeared in a televised campaign against illegal sports gambling.
Besides the 26 players, another three are now serving in the Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps, so police informed the Army about the results of the investigation.
“They said that they accessed the gambling sites in the computer rooms in their barracks or by sneaking their smartphones into the barracks,” an officer at the police agency said during a media briefing.
Police are expanding the investigation to the gambling site operators. They also suspect that match-fixing and illegal gambling may have taken place in other professional sports.
Officials of the Korean Basketball League said they would hold a meeting soon to discuss disciplinary action of the players involved.
Earlier, police investigated former Anyang KGC head coach Jeon Chang-jin over similar allegations. He has been under probe since May for placing illegal bets at the illegal gambling site Sports Toto on three occasions against his own team during the 2014-2015 season when he was leading KT Sonicboom.
He allegedly made his team lose by benching players who were playing well instead of those who played poorly.
Police referred the case to the prosecution in July, asking it to indict him without detention.