According to the Courier Mail, referee Ali Sabbagh and his assistants Ali Eid and Adballag Taleb were charged before a district court for “corruptly” receiving sexual gratification “as an inducement” to fix the match they were to officiate on Wednesday.
The three men had been scheduled to officiate a match between Singaporean side Tampine Rovers and Indian side East Bengal but were abruptly dropped and subsequently questioned by officers from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).
In a statement given yesterday the CPIB said that they had acted on “prior incidents of of match fixing” which the three men had been involved in.
“Subsequent investigations revealed that the trio corruptly received gratification … in the form of free sexual service from three females,” said the CPIB statement.
The tiny East-Asian country has something of a history of match fixing and corruption in general despite protestations to the contrary from the CPIB.
“Singapore has always adopted a zero tolerance approach towards corruption, and match fixing of any form is not condoned in Singapore,” it said.
As for what lies in store for the three Lebanese officials no one has said yet, but I can’t imagine it’ll be pretty. The Singaporean Justice System is awfully fond of caning people.
Image: Getty
