AFC forms task force against Asian match-fixing

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has announced the establishment of a task force to help combat match-fixing Asian football.

The announcement follows a recent AFC conference, held in conjunction with INTERPOL, into corruption in the sport.

In a statement, AFC General Secretary Alex Soosay explained that the task force would collaborate with all stakeholders and educate member associations on ways to combat the practice and introduce mechanisms to fight it.

The statement continued "by setting up this task force, we would like to coordinate the education, training and implementation of measures through one platform."

At the beginning of February, an Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report highlighted links between Australian sport while European anti-crime agency Europol said hundreds of football matches were fixed in a global betting scam run from Singapore.

Europol also identified about 680 suspicious matches, including qualifying games for the FIFA World Cup and European Championships, and for the UEFA Champions League.

Tan Seet Eng, a Singaporean also known as Dan Tan, has been accused of heading an organisation that fixes football matches worldwide.

This week has also seen AFC acting President Zhang Jilong announce that he will not be running for the permanent AFC Presidency, leaving four other candidates in the running to take over Mohammed Bin Hammam's former role.

Zhang's decision not to run leaves four candidates in the race to become the new President; with Thailand's Worawi Makudi running against Middle East nominees Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Yousef Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates and Hafez Al Medlej of Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Salman is part of the Bahraini royal family which is trying to contain continued violent unrest and political turmoil in the Arabian Gulf nation.

Makudi already has the backing of the 12 votes from Southeast Asia.

The AFC has 47 member associations in all.

Zhang has held the acting position since May 2011 when Bin Hammam was suspended and subsequently banned from all football activities by world governing body FIFA for bribery and corruption.

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