KARACHI: With the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) directing its member associations to hire integrity officers to curb the menace of match-fixing in the continent’s domestic leagues, the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has taken prompt action.

The PFF on Monday advertised for the post of ‘Integrity Officer’ in a step which might prevent teams from ‘throwing away’ matches during the Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL).

With no betting on local matches in Pakistan, the matches of the PPFL are ‘fixed’ between teams — influencing the title race or the relegation dog-fight.

“There is of course no money involved [since betting on games is banned in Pakistan] but there are some abnormally high scores and teams often give away matches to influence the league standings,” reliable sources told Dawn.

PFF seeks integrity officer on AFC directives

“It’s a large lobby involved in this fixing which includes players, coaches and even non-playing staff of the participating teams.”

The hiring of an integrity officer will hopefully put an end to that, PFF’s competitions director Pervaiz Saeed Mir reckons.

Although he refuses to admit that matches are ‘thrown away’ in the PPFL, Mir believes the ones who instigate throwing of games would be vary and there would be cut-throat competitive football in the league.

“The appointment will definitely put an end to any questionable results that have come up in the past,” Mir, who is expected to work closely with the officer, told Dawn on Monday.

“This is a very good initiative by the AFC as they will now try to curb fixing on a micro-level.”

The PFF advertisement, meanwhile, calls for a young applicant but it didn’t call for anyone with experience of working in an investigative capacity.

“We’re looking for a young applicant,” PFF secretary Col Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi told Dawn. “We’ll groom him because there is no point in hiring a retired army officer or any one with greater experience for that matter as the AFC will conduct seminars to groom the officer.”

The AFC has set a deadline of June 30 to appoint the integrity officers for its members with those hired reporting to the football governing body’s own integrity officer Hassan Haider Khan. Hassan is the son of PFF’s marketing consultant Sardar Naveed Haider Khan.

“Responsibilities of the integrity officer are to establish and maintain integrity initiatives within the MA [member associations], receive information related to match-fixing matters within the MA and conduct inquiries or investigations as an administrative ‘fact finder’ in coordination with AFC and relevant national law enforcement agencies,” AFC Director of MAs and Development Sanjeevan Balasingam said in a statement.

Asia’s vast illegal Asian betting markets have long been a hub for match-fixing with fixers usually targeting European matches amongst hundreds of games being rigged worldwide.

But the game’s growth in the continent has seen local matches being affected too.

Earlier this month, International Centre for Sport Security (ICCS) Research Programme chairman Laurent Vidal, in a report, said that numerous Asian football championships are ‘fixed’.

Last month, Vietnam Cup holders Vissai Ninh Binh were kicked out of the domestic league for the remainder of the campaign after 11 of their players admitted to taking money to fix a match in the AFC Cup — the continent’s second-tier club tournament.

Their alleged bookie, Dao Duc Loi, was arrested on May 13 while the players have handed their winnings, totalling VND800 million (US$37,950), to the police.

In June last year, three Lebanese referees were convicted by a Singapore court of accepting sexual services in return for fixing a game in the AFC Cup.

There have been no reports of matches being fixed in the continent’s marquee tournament — The AFC Champions League — but the alarming rate of fixing in the continent has led AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa vowing to tackle the issue.

“When talking about integrity in football, the fight against match-fixing rises as top a priority,” he said at last week’s Football Integrity and Security Summit in Doha.

“This issue has become a serious threat to the game, and calls for unity of the entire football system and relevant authorities to stop this menace.”

With each member association appointing its own integrity officer, this is the first step for Khalifa towards realising his aim.

“The AFC is focused on upholding the core values of football such as Fair Play, achievement by merit and the uncertainty of the outcome of matches and competitions,” an AFC statement released on Monday said.

“Match-fixing is a dangerous threat to the game, therefore, the AFC along with its Member Associations strive to protect the integrity of its competitions and enhance good governance across football in the region.”

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2014