Footballers indicted for match fixing receive lifetime bans

SEOUL, June 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top professional football league on Friday issued lifetime bans to 10 players who were recently indicted for their connections with match-fixing schemes, handing out the toughest penalty in the league's 28-year history.
After a disciplinary committee meeting, the K-League said 10 of 11 indicted players will be permanently prohibited from playing in the league. The league will ask the Korea Football Association (KFA), the local governing body of the sport, to keep these players from taking up other football-related posts.
The decision came after the players were indicted last week for allegedly accepting money from gambling brokers in exchange for offers to help their K-League teams lose on purpose.
Eight of the 11 indicted players were from the same club, Daejeon Citizen. It was the first match-fixing scandal to rattle the K-League, which was founded in 1983.
One player, Kim Jung-kyum of the Pohang Steelers, was indicted for betting on his own team's game after receiving a tip from a player on the opposing team that match fixing would occur. Kim received a five-year ban from football.
Kim was among 10 players indicted by prosecutors in Changwon, about 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul. An 11th player, former national team member Kim Dong-hyun, was indicted by military prosecutors, since he is in the midst of his military service with an athletic corps team named Sangju Sangmu Phoenix.
"We made the decision, determined that this would be the first and the final match-fixing scandal in the league," said Kwak Young-cheol, head of the disciplinary committee. "For the 10 players directly involved in match fixing, we decided to permanently ban them from the game regardless of the degree of their participation."
The league imposed separate penalties on the players' teams. Daejeon Citizen, for instance, will lose 30 percent of its share this year from the sales of Sports Toto, which operates the nation's only licensed sports lottery. Professional sports teams receive portions of revenues from lottery ticket sales. For Daejeon, the loss would amount to about 270 million won (US$248,670), according to Kwak.
Gwangju FC and Sangju Sangmu Phoenix, which each have one player banned, will each lose 10 percent of their lottery shares. Since Sangju is an expansion team that joined the league in 2011, the penalty will take effect next season, Kwak said.
The Steelers weren't slapped with any penalties but received a "stern warning," Kwak said.
Kwak said the committee took into account the findings of its internal probe plus a prosecution investigation. He said he invited players to attend the disciplinary hearing to make their case, but no one came.
Asked whether penalties on clubs weren't too lenient, Kwak replied, "We determined that players acted on their own in this case, and we decided not to punish team officials or coaches."
Moving forward, the K-League will amend regulations governing corruption in football so that teams will be held more accountable for their lack of oversight, Kwak said.
jeeho@yna.co.kr