South Korea footballers face lie-detector tests

  • Author, Lucy Williamson
  • Role, 大象传媒 News, Seoul

South Korea's football league is introducing lie-detector tests to battle corruption in the sport.

A match-fixing scandal among the country's top players was uncovered recently, and has continued to spread through the industry.

Players from six teams are now under investigation.

The K-League is taking a carrot-and-stick approach to tackling this huge scandal, introducing new sanctions but also raising the players' minimum wage.

All players suspected of wrongdoing will now have to take a polygraph - or lie-detector - test.

Sweetener

There will also be sanctions for clubs found guilty of match-fixing and a series of seminars on preventing corruption. It will compulsory to attend the seminars and any player who misses them will be suspended.

But there is a sweetener too: the K-League said it would double the annual minimum wage for players, apparently in an attempt to remove temptation.

The minimum wage is currently around $11,000 (拢6,900) - less than half the national average income.

So far 46 players and 11 gambling brokers have been charged in the match-fixing scandal.

Prosecutors allege the players took money in return for making deliberate mistakes in at least 15 matches last year.

Ten players have so far been given lifetime bans.