HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court has sentenced two soccer players and a betting agent to up to 17 months in prison for bribery, match-fixing and illegal gambling in a prominent sports scandal. The two players, Brian Fok and Luciano Silva Da Silva, and the betting agent, Waheed Mohammad, schemed to fix results in the 2022-23 season to win money through illegal gambling, the city’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, which led the investigation, said in a statement Friday. Their acts included intentionally causing Fok’s team, Happy Valley Athletic Association, and Silva Da Silva’s team, Central and Western District Recreation and Sports Association, to lose matches, or manipulating the number of goals or corner kicks through fraud in the second tier of the Hong Kong league. The trio also placed illegal bets on more than 30 matches involving their teams based on pre-determined results and match-fixing arrangements, it said. The court also heard Fok had previously offered bribes, ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,276 to $3,828) to two other players to help rig results at a club in another league, but those players rejected him, the anti-corruption agency said. Fok received a 17-month prison term, while his two other co-defendants were each sentenced to 14 months and four weeks. Magistrate Peter Yu, who handed down the sentences, reprimanded the defendants for deliberately manipulating matches, undermining the integrity of Hong Kong sports and the principle of fair play, the statement added.
