Top local football league announces restructuring in light of match fixing

By Yoo Jee-ho
SEOUL, July 11 (Yonhap) -- The top local professional football league said Monday it will improve the welfare of its players and hand out severe punishments for corruption in response to a recent match fixing scandal.
As part of restructuring measures, the K-League said it will raise the minimum wage of players and that clubs whose players are involved in match rigging will suffer tough penalties.
Public and military prosecutors have indicted 46 active or former K-League players for their ties to match fixing. They allegedly received cash from gambling brokers in exchange for making mistakes on purpose and helping to rig results in games last year and this year.
The K-League and the Korea Football Association (KFA), the national governing body of the sport, have banned 10 of the players for life from all football-related activities. This was the first match fixing scandal to batter the K-League in its 28-year history.
"We will introduce a pension plan for players and strive to improve rights and welfare for players," the league said in a statement. "The minimum wage will be doubled from the current 12 million won (US$11,350) to 24 million won starting next year."
The indicted players included some high-profile names, but most of them were little-known, middling players with low salaries. Investigators have said these players might have been more tempted to take a lump sum of cash from brokers to engage in match fixing schemes. Some players allegedly took or were offered more money than their annual salary.
The league said it will continue to work with related agencies, such as the KFA and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, to establish cooperative relations with FIFA and Interpol and better deal with match fixing.
To prevent further match fixing, the K-League will also adopt a polygraph testing system, currently in use in the Singaporean league, on those suspected of match fixing.
Among other changes, the league will introduce a promotion-relegation system starting in 2013. Widely used in international football competitions, the system will see bottom feeders in the top competition relegated to the second-division league, and high-ranked clubs from the lower-tier league promoted to the first division.
The 16-team K-League had previously tried to introduce the system but champions in the second-tier competition, the National League, had balked at the promotion in 2006 and 2007 for financial reasons.
Ahn Gi-heon, secretary general of the league, said a club licensing system will be introduced to set up qualifying standards for the first and second divisions.
"The size of a first-division competition as demanded by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is 12 clubs," Ahn said. "We will try to meet that number after discussing the matter with the KFA."
The league also set out measures to handle the aftermath of match fixing. It said all clubs will be asked to submit their plans to prevent match fixing, including detailed schedules for lectures to players, and be required to attend the league's seminars on corruption prevention.
Players or coaches who don't show up for the sessions will be suspended, the league said.
"We're working on amending rules so that if match fixing recurs, teams will be put at a great disadvantage," the statement said. "Teams will be relegated to a lower-tier league, will lose points in the standings, or will be stripped of their rights to play in the AFC Champions League (the top continental club tournament)."
jeeho@yna.co.kr