An active male professional volleyball player on Friday turned himself in for his role in a widening match-fixing scandal, officials said, as prosecutors widened their investigation into the female competition.
The player, a member of the Samsung Bluefangs in the seven-team men’s division of the V-League, reported himself to the club officials. Samsung then informed the Korean Volleyball Federation, the local governing body of the sport, of the move, officials said.
Prosecutors in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, have already detained five active and former players of the club KEPCO 45 this week in the first volleyball match-fixing scandal in South Korea.
These KEPCO 45 players allegedly made mistakes on purpose to let their team lose in return for cash from a gambling broker.
The broker, also arrested, apparently reaped huge profits by betting against KEPCO 45, and the arrested players allegedly shared the broker’s winnings.
The Samsung player joined the team before the 2007-08 season and is a backup known for good receiving skills. He is suspected of having taken part in match-rigging schemes while he was serving in the military on the military athletic corps team, called Sangmu. Sources said the player admitted to having tried to fix results of two games last season while still with Sangmu, and once took a cash payment of 4 million won ($3,560).
An official with the federation said the governing body had asked individual teams to urge their players to confess for any match-rigging connections.
(Yonhap News)
