The Cabinet on Thursday said it is planning to establish mechanisms to prevent illegal gambling and match-fixing at the professional and amateur levels.
Top officials at the Sports Administration under the Ministry of Education have convened meetings in recent days with the national basketball association and executives representing the nation’s top basketball leagues: P.League+, T1 League and the Super Baskeball League (SBL), Cabinet spokesman Lin Tze-luen (林子倫) said.
These meetings focused on how to implement policies and install mechanisms to combat illegal gambling and match-fixing. Discussions were also held with various sports clubs, schools and affiliated organizations to come up with effective ways to deter people from betting on games and enticing players and officials to rig the results, Lin said.
Photo: CNA
“The Sports Administration has drafted plans for a working platform for cross-ministerial agencies to collaborate on fighting illegal gambling in the nation’s professional and semi-professional leagues, mandatory regular meetings to provide updates and reports to monitor possible match-fixing in baseball and basketball by underground gambling operators,” he said.
“Officers from these agencies would cooperate with law enforcement authorities to check and evaluate possible match-fixing activities, with follow-up work to oversee the platform’s effectiveness,” Lin said. “Then after that, we plan to expand the measures to cover amateur games, to link up the work with professional leagues.”
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) on Wednesday presented his report on law enforcement and public security issues. He requested that cross-ministerial agencies implement measures and actions for different stages of the league season, including needing to set up special task forces, introduce “monitoring teams” to check into suspicious game activities and questionable results, Lin said.
“Measures must be taken for league officials to impose heavy fines and punishment on players caught embroiled in rigging results. Premier Chen stressed we must clean up to restore to a healthy environment for our nation’s major sports,” Lin said.
“Chen asserted that government agencies and sports bodies would do everything to stop the recurrence of match-fixing which has tainted Taiwan’s professional sports, and impeded their healthy development,” he said.
In October last year, authorities carried out raids and arrested SBL players Wu Chi-ying (吳季穎), Ko Min-hao (柯旻豪) and several other players and team staffers in a match-fixing scandal that rocked Taiwan’s basketball community.
Taipei prosecutors said evidence indicates that many players along with coaches, underground bookmakers, team trainers and medical staff were involved in betting on SBL games, colluding with other players to fix the results for gambling syndicates.
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