KUALA LUMPUR: THE Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will meet Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) officials before it starts digging into allegations that several world-class badminton tournaments were fixed in the past.
MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Datuk Seri Mohd Shukri Abdull said the commission needed to establish the facts of the alleged cases before taking further action.
It was reported that among the matches that had been fixed by bookies included this year’s Malaysian Open held in January.
“I believe BAM has knowledge of these allegations and we will meet some time next week to discuss future action to be taken,” he told the New Straits Times yesterday.
Shukri said BAM and the Badminton World Federation (BWF) made the right call in referring the matter to the police.
This, he said, was because the police had a special unit to probe match-fixing.
The police had asked MACC to look into the case since it had elements of corruption.
In response, MACC director of investigation Datuk Mohd Jamidan Abdullah said the commission would investigate the case once the police handed over the case files to the commission.
On Sunday, BWF confirmed that it had reported attempted match-fixing to the police.
The issue of match-fixing in badminton came to light after the Danish Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday that two of Denmark’s leading players, Hans-Kristian Vittinghus and Kim Astrup, had told BWF that they had been approached by a Malaysian man through Facebook just before the Japan Open in June in an apparent attempt to rig matches.
Former national players Razif Sidek, Tan Chun Seang and Arif Latif also spoke of their knowledge of the problem.
Malaysian World No. 1 Datuk Lee Chong Wei said nobody would dare to approach him to fix a match.
Meanwhile, Olympic Council of Malaysia president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar described the scandal as a danger to sports that was bigger than doping.
Tunku Imran, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, said it was inevitable that gambling in sports lead to match-fixing.
“Match-fixing has always been there. It is well known in football, cricket and tennis, and I am not surprised that it has found its way to badminton.
“Everytime gambling is involved, there will be spot-fixing or match-fixing. This has to be stopped but it is going to be difficult.
“Even IOC recognises that match-fixing is a far bigger danger to sports than doping (by athletes),” said Tunku Imran yesterday after honouring 20 national athletes, who won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, at the OCM-Sports Toto Outstanding Athletes of the Games awards. Additional reporting by Devinder Singh