‘22-year penalty not long enough’

IPOH: A 22-year punishment seems like a long time but football coaches feel that players found guilty of match-fixing should be banned for life.

The ban should stay if the players were found to have done so out of greed, said Steve Darby, who pre­viously coached Johor, Kelantan and Perak.

“If the players actions were motivated by greed, then a life ban should mean life, and not lift (the ban).”

However, Darby said players who were blackmailed into fixing matches could possibly be given a reprieve, adding that match-fixing was a complex situation.

“The players are merely foot soldiers. You need to catch the gene­rals,” he said.

Having coached clubs and national teams in Asia for over 20 years, Darby claimed he had seen a fair share of games being thrown.

He said he had reported many cases but claimed that he never received a reply from the governing bodies.

Vietnam, he said, had been coming down hard on match-fixing as the Vietnam Football Federation realised that it was killing their V-League.

Earlier this month, a Vietnamese footballer who played for Vissai Ninh Binh FC was jailed two-and-a-half years for fixing an AFC Cup match.

Eight other members of the Vissai Ninh Binh FC team were suspended up to 27 months for manipulating the result of the match against Kelantan in March 2014.

A bookie was also jailed 30 months at the trial in northern Ninh Binh province.

Darby said the Asian Football Confederation had produced booklets on match-fixing but questioned whether these had reached the players and officials.

Another coach, who declined to be named, said he was disappointed that the ban on some of the players who used to play under him had been lifted.

“I know of three footballers who had accepted money from bookies. You trusted them but they played you out,” he said.