Soccer Players in Hot Water Due to Match-Fixing

Two soccer players have found themselves in hot water due to their participation in the manipulation of games. One betting agent has also been convicted with them.

The Trio Was Convicted of Match-Fixing

The individuals in question include soccer athletes Brian Fok and Luciano da Silva, as well as betting agent Waheed Mohammad. Fok is a Nigerian national and a former Hong Kong U-23 center-back, while da Silva is a Brazilian center-back.  

The trio was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to cheat at gambling. In addition to that, Fok has been slammed with three counts of offering an advantage to an agent. The three men were convicted last week, in the West Kowloon Court.

The conviction follows investigations that determined that Fok, during his time at Hong Kong FC, had offered money to two of his fellow athletes as long as they deliberately lost. According to the complaints, he even tried to persuade one of the players not to participate in a certain game. Unfortunately for him, neither of the two players he approached agreed and instead testified against him in court.

Fok tried to dismiss the allegations as fabrications, but that claim was ultimately rejected.

In any case, the trio has yet to be sentenced.

A Prison Sentence Might Be Inevitable

Fok was also accused of conspiring with da Silva and Mohammad to also influence games involving Happy Valley (which Fok played for at the time) and Central & Western (which da Silva played for at the time).

This scheme led them to place fraudulent wagers on over 30 manipulated games where Fok would send signals to others involved in the scheme in order to inform them when to place the advantaged bets.

While the defense tried to seek a community service order, citing the obvious end of Fok’s soccer career due to the case, the court made it clear that a prison sentence was inevitable.

Hong Kong Abandons Basketball Betting

In other news, Hong Kong recently abandoned its plans to launch basketball betting, at least for now. For context, the region allows state-run wagering on horse races and soccer, as well as lottery gaming,d but generally prohibits all other kinds of gambling.

While the basketball betting idea had caught on, it was ultimately abandoned due to concerns related to the proliferation of prediction markets.