Russian football players asked to fix world cup matches
Moscow: At least one in 10 football players in Russia, which would host the World Cup in 2018, has been approached at some point of time to fix a match, the FIFPro international players’ association has said.
The statistics was launched as part of FIFPro’s “Black Book”, a report into football issues based on an anonymous study of over 3,000 players in Eastern and Middle Central Europe.
Of 177 players in Russia who answered, 10.2 % said they had been approached to consider match-fixing, FIFPro said.
Russia was placed 4th in the list of 12 countries surveyed, behind only Kazakhstan, Greece and Bulgaria.
In complete, 43.2 % of players in Russia said they were conscious of match-fixing in their division, ranking Russia behind only the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Greece, FIFPro said.
Russia reported low levels of violence and bullying against players compared to other countries, according to the report.
The Russian Coaches and Footballers’ Trade Union was quoted in the report as saying that many players were frightened to speak out.
“In private conversations, the players were more outspoken about match-fixing but were hesitant to mention it in writing. Many foreigners were frightened to speak about violence within their clubs and very few clubs were helpful,” the union said.
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Feb 8 2012. Filed under