Four professional volleyball players implicated in a widening match-fixing scandal received lifetime bans from the sport on Monday.
At its disciplinary committee meeting, the Korean Volleyball Federation handed down the punishment to three players for KEPCO 45 and one player for Sangmu, the military team for conscripted players, for their alleged involvement in match-rigging schemes.
They will not be eligible to play or coach in South Korea.
Their teams are among seven men’s clubs in V-League, run by the federation.
A fifth player, who reported himself to the league for his involvement, will remain suspended until prosecutors announce findings of their investigation into the scandal, the federation added. The player, currently with Samsung Bluefangs, reportedly said he took part in match fixing while serving in the military with Sangmu.
Sangmu has been ruled out for the rest of the season, and will have its 10 remaining games this season count as losses.
So far, prosecutors have questioned five former and active KEPCO 45 players and one current Sangmu player for allegedly making mistakes on purpose in exchange for cash from gambling brokers.
Three of them have been taken into custody.
At least half of those players are believed to have tried to rig scores while playing for Sangmu in the past two seasons.
Park Sang-seol, secretary-general for the federation, said the decision was reached after reviewing prosecution’s investigation to date.
“To make sure professional volleyball can remain in place in the country, we had no choice but to impose severe punishments,” Park said. “Some have been taken into custody, and some have not. But we’ve looked at what prosecutors have learned so far and banned players for life.”
Park added three more current Sangmu players may also have been involved, and that the federation is working with military investigators to further look into the military team.
The federation will also impose lifetime bans on players who become implicated in the future.
As for already retired players, Park said the federation will seek to “keep them out of all federation activities and operations.”
Park said the federation is counting on players to turn themselves in if they have tried to fix matches in the past.
The V-League controversy comes barely a year after a similar scandal rocked K-League, the top-division football competition.
Dozens of active and former K-League players were indicted or found guilty. (Yonhap News)
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
