DAEGU (Yonhap News) -- Two active female volleyball players have been questioned over their alleged roles in match fixing, prosecutors here said Thursday, as they expanded their investigation into the sport‘s first match-rigging controversy.
Park Eun-seok, a prosecutor in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, said in a press briefing that two players from Heungkuk Life Pink Spiders in the V-League were summoned for questioning on Wednesday.
The V-League has seven male teams and six female squads.
The players, whose identities were withheld, allegedly took money from a gambling broker in exchange for deliberately making mistakes in games during the 2010-11 season.
Several male players, current and retired, have already been questioned and taken into custody over their suspected involvement in match-rigging attempts in recent seasons. Four active players have been banned from the sport for life. This is the first match-fixing scandal to hit the V-League, which was launched in 2005 in place of a popular industrial league.
“We have launched our investigation into female volleyball, but that doesn’t mean we have wrapped up our probe into the men‘s division,” Park said, adding that more female players suspected of match rigging will be questioned in the coming days.
Park said the female players will not be taken into custody, since they allegedly took less money from the broker and tried to fix fewer games than the male players.
Match-fixing allegations have also surfaced for baseball, the nation’s most popular sport. A broker arrested for his volleyball ties has testified about his dealings with baseball players, and the Korea Baseball Organization, the operator of the top league, has asked teams to do internal inquiries into allegations.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
