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It's no real surprise that players coming from poor countries are sometimes swayed to take bungs and "fix matches".

Especially when a similar example is - allegedly and according to the opinions of some - being set at the very top of the game...

Who is surprised? Across the world Football sold its integrity a long time ago. In this sport everything is for sale. So a few wandering mercenaries fix some matches so what? If the game had a soul there wouldn't be so many players playing purely for a quick buck. What kind of meaning does the Finnish league have if a club has seven Zambians in the team! ... and the Premiership is no better. There is no cause to be pious about this. For a foreigner playing in a foreign land for the casual entertainment of fans who probably can't remember what it's like to kick a football throwing a match is just doing business.

I personally would find it so difficult to let someone skin me or delibrately miss a chance to achieve a fixed result, these players obviosly have no love for the game and should be banned. Although given the diabolical odds bookies had out these days and the money they make as a result it not surprising that a match fixing is becoming more prevalent. Still it is FIFA's duty to focus on the players punishments and I think they should all be banned for life as it is the greatest crime in sport

Why does no one realise that banning players for life is a stupid idea. Especially the african ones who are so desperate for the money. The emphasis should be on catching the syndicates and shutting them down, not just mindlessly banning players when there are many more who will do the same. I know that fixing is morally wrong but its like catching a kid who carries and sells drugs and locking him up for life whilst ignoring the dealer whose behind it all

Banning players for life is exactly the right move. There will always be betting syndicates outside the jurisdiction of FIFA or national governments but without the co-operation of players and/or officials they have nothing to bet on.
This is not a problem about football selling out or something akin to the Qatar world cup bid and the alleged bribes. The evil here is outside football rather than within.

Remember the Nigeria v Argentina match where the ref found plenty of time to add on, and then found a penalty kick deep into the time he had manufactured?

That match was played earlier this year and it was obvious that the ref had a hand in deciding the final result. What happend afterwards? Did FIFA follow up on that one?

Corruption? I'm glad it's started to be picked up on. Soon we'll see the FA and UEFA looked in on. Elitism in sport is ruining the game, so that incidents like these [ ] stop going unpunished, and the playing field can be levelled. Match fixing is the tip of the ice-berg. FIFA needs re-structuring and top-bottom changes of personel. The fat cats clubs are too comfortable living off free-tickets to big matches.

Top blog though, glad to see someone at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ tackling the hard-hitting issues!

@2 - Congratulations on missing the point. I think Phil McNulty has an update on Ashley Young's ankle or Man City buying up the moon - you should head over there and have good rant and allow people here to have some proper discussion without dragging everything football related down to the lowest common denominator.

This story matters because it actually address some issues regarding the beautiful game outside that gloried plastic-fest, that is the Premiership. In many, or if not, all cases these players are earning an average wage and having to heavily support their families back home.

How do you explain the Africans that got stitched up in Singapore a few years ago? It was entirely justified to defraud them because they are Africans and are pretty much slave labour that will do anything for a few extra dollars? Bah. Ironic that two of the biggest scandals involving African players has not come from within Africa itself but rather from the exploits of two Singaporean businessman. These are the soulless mercenaries that are destroying football at this level, not the poor sods who are being exploited. They may be footballers, which is a good enough excuse to hate them because of Wayne Rooney's hair transplants, but they are also human beings living in very real and very human situations that is so far detached from English football.

Am I the only one thinking there are better ways dealing with this other than just banning them? These are just small fish and they can be replaced easily. We should offer amnesty for them to come clean, wear bugs so they can gather evidence against the bigger fish. When enough evidence is collected, send them to the authorities. I believe this will be more effective.

Will banning seven Zambian players from the Finnish league or arresting one man connected to gambling syndicates solve anything? Not a chance.

Cricket suffered with match-fixing in the 1990s, a bunch of major cricketers (including the captains of India, South Africa and Pakistan) were banned for life. Even still the events of Lords in 2010 and the subsequent investigations that it is almost impossible to clean any sport or walk of life of tainted individuals.

The only hope authorities have of retaining any hope is that ensuring that networks are put into place to educate players that such a thing is not good and severely punish all those found guilty.

We will never be able to eliminate human greed and, therefore, we will never eliminate corruption. The goal has to be to reduce it to near negligible levels.

Entirely agree with post number 10, in so far as expecting to be able to eliminate ALL the bad, corrupt or unsavoury things in football is a little like expecting to wake up tomorrow morning and read the headlines on every newstand saying "THERE IS NO MORE CRIME IN THE WORLD - RESOLUTION FOUND, IMPLEMENTED AND EXPECTED TO WORK AD-INFINITUM".

Not going to happen - right? Therefore the best that "football" can do (i.e. The Authorities, irrespectively of which one) is police it in a sound, structured manner, introduce laws or sanctions and put them on record so that everyone knows what the consequences (may) be. I say may, in brackets, because a little like common law, the same offence doesn't always carry the same punishment.

Of course we all want a clean game, with no match fixing, corruption and the like. The reality is that similar to athletics, it exists and we should no longer be suprised. Instead let's just deal with it as best we can.

If this subject was passed to the script writers of (say) The Fast Show, you can just see Simon Day taking a bung to avoid catching the biggest carp you've ever seen in the National Blindfolded Fishing Championships, whilst two shadowy characters are spotted busily looking up the odds of a substitute competitor coming on for the last 10 minutes of his stretch, and bagging a brace!

It's important to recognise that this is not primarily a 'football' issue...it's also a criminal one and part of a wider social problem. Fixing is difficult to regulate and police in a number of sports because match fixing is essentially set up by gambling syndicates linked to organised crime, mafia. Players are fixing matches because of financial inducement and threats coming from these individuals and these gangs. In some countries it is so endemic and links with mafia are so deep that it's difficult to have an 'open, honest' culture where sport is clean.

"We will never take any Zambians again - and I don't think any other Finnish club will ever take a Zambian player (again),"

I am the only one who has an issue with this statement. They find 7 bad eggs out of hundreds of Zambians (including Kalusha Bwalya and the Katongo brothers) who have played in Europe and acquitted themselves admirably and suddenly all Zambians are bad news. I am all for banning the 7 but don't tar all Zambians with the same brush. There are crooks from every country. Will they ban Italians, Greeks and Turks as well given the match fixing scandals in those countries involving their nationals? How about the Georgians who contributed 2 players to the shameful incident.This type of stereotyping is hurtful (I would know, I'm Nigerian) and does nothing to solve the problem. As others have suggested go for the big fish or the whole excercise is in futility.

Just read about this game , why wasnt this investigated , ok its an old one but OMG