by Wong Ho Lap
Background
20 years ago, the sudden and detrimental economic downturn declined the development of Hong Kong football league. Withdrawal of giant sponsors and lack of government support, it became the dark age in Hong Kong football history. Few days ago, ICAC announced that five Hong Kong professional football players were arrested due to the alleged match fixing in the reserve division game. (ChinaDaily Asia, Oct 2016) Surprisingly, the amount of bribery was only 90k HKD. Indeed, it was the tip of iceberg in Hong Kong football league. A young footballer was sentenced because of bribe offering to his teammates on the match against Russia’s national youth team in 2011. (ChinaDaily, Dec 2011) Frequent corruption scandal sends the alarming signal to the society about the future development in our football league.
Match fixing
Match fixing could vary in different types. The most common one is to control the result of sports games by offering any benefits to related parties. For example, illegal gambling group forced the players to pay less effort or attain the determined result they required. Besides, football club manager may corrupt official personnel in the sports association to gain advantage in player transfer or draft pick in match schedule. These acts are both considered as violation of rule and adversely influence the fairness of the game.
Incentive & Opportunity
1. Low wages for Hong Kong football player
According to the statistics, average salary of football player in the Premier League is around 25k to 30k pounds per week. (Onaverage, 2016) Compared to Hong Kong football league, normal players were only paid around 10k HKD for their monthly salary. (Asia Pacific Daily, Oct 2016) “Lifespan” for a professional football player is very short that they could only play for around ten to fifteen year in the professional games. After their retirement, it is extremely hard for them to switch their job or adopt a new working environment due to low education level. In severe condition, they also need to pay heavy medical expense on their injury without the financial support from football club. With such large financial burden, Hong Kong football players are hardly tempted by the financial benefit provided illegal gambling group.
2. Lack of monitoring function
In the above case, it is often that the player in the team denounces the offenders to the club management and ICAC. It indirectly showed that the football association doesn’t have effective control on preventing the corruption in football league. They should act as the gatekeeper to work closely with club management and police to detect suspicious player. They should also provide a whistle-blowing channel for player and management to update with potential risk from bribery. Loosing control from football association help the player easily escape from prosecution and foster the corruption problem among football league.
3. Low public awareness
Social media and football fans are one of the watchdogs to prevent player commit fraud. Since the popularity of football league dropped gradually, few people are willing to buy the ticket and even the television company forfeits the broadcast right for the match. Compared to European league like Premier League and La Liga, mass media pay less attention on the news in local football. Low public awareness provides opportunity for players to misbehavior or act very inappropriately.
Legalization loophole
1. Illegal to bet on Hong Kong Football
In Hong Kong, only Hong Kong Jockey Club is authorized to conduct betting on football match but they are not allowed for the bet involving Hong Kong teams to prevent match-fixing problem. Due to geographical location advantage, illegal gambling group in Mainland China transferred their target to Hong Kong football league and also its reserve division. They pretended as the audience and recorded the full match video in the stadium to provide football league statistics for illegal bookmaker. To predetermine the fixture result, they started from persuading the mainland player in the team and required them to act as an agent to corrupt other players. Although the government prohibits the illegal gambling on local football, they still have no effective measure to eradicate the offshore gambling as well as the corruption problem involving the mainland gangster.
2. Current legalization cannot eliminate the root cause
Under Prevention of Bribery Ordinance section 9 paragraphs 1 & 2 (2016), any person or agent provide or receive any benefits without reasonable excuse to perform any work in relation to his affairs or businesses will be viewed as guilty in corruption. In the real case, ICAC can seldom charge the mastermind behind the crime. Only the players were found guilty on corruption and penalty for football bribery is too light that the judge only sentenced the offender for jail on several months.
3. Long investigation time from ICAC
Before lodging the accusation, ICAC need to obtain sufficient and reliable evidence such as financial condition of player, misbehavior act in the game, potential or tangible benefit received and illegal transaction between two parties. Football player may have already left the team and returned to his country during the investigation period. Inspection of illegal transaction may be very hard as the bribe was in cash basis and involved very little amount of money. Meeting between illegal agent and player may take place in Mainland China. Not alike as the standard code of conduct in business world, it is too subjective to judge the behavior and performance of football player. All these conditions increase the difficulty for ICAC to prosecute illegal football player.
Recommendation
1. Legalization for bet on local football league
Since it is hard to cope with offshore betting problem, the government could authorize Jockey Club to conduct the bet on local football league. It can minimize the flow in capital on illegal offshore betting. As they offer the gambling odds on the match, they also hold the responsibility to analyze the player behavior. In addition, government can restrict the usage on profit from football gamble such as subsidize all football clubs to improve their financial condition.
2. Establishment of third party organization to monitor the football club
A third party organization should be independent on monitoring the management of football club and behavior of football player. They should also allow a private channel for player in the club for disclosing any fraud or bribery inside the club. They need to work closely with police and other party to investigate any risk on bribery and educate the player how to reject those offers.
Reference:
ChinaDaily Asia (Oct 6, 2016) ICAC confirms bribery case of 5 soccer players Retrieved from http://www.chinadailyasia.com/hknews/2016-10/06/content_15506935.html
ChinaDaily (Dec 20, 2011) HK footballer sentenced for bribery
Retrieved from http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-12/30/content_14360877.htm
Onaverage (2016) Average Premier League Salary Retrieved from http://www.onaverage.co.uk/money-averages/average-premier-league-salary
Asia Pacific Daily (Oct 7, 2016) Senior Hong Kong football official cries foul over “negligent” government plan to take back land from club Retrieved from http://en.apdnews.com/asia-pacific/macau-taiwan/503854.html
Prevention of Bribery Ordiance, S9(1)&(2) (2
Filed under: Academic Year 2016 - 2017 
