News:
June 13, 2018
Following an exposé by investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw on an alleged wide scale corruption in Ghana football, Member of Parliament for Bawku Central constituency, Mahama Ayariga has suggested the possible involvement of betting companies in match-fixing in the country.
“Sports is an industry. I just looked at the Deloitte and Tush report on the English League and they said that in 2017 the profit made was about 2 billion pounds. Ghana that has such a high reputation for football could be making hundreds of millions annually,” he said in reference to Sports betting.
Mr Ayariga made the allegation on Citi Fm last Saturday when he appeared on its News Analysis programme, The Big issue.
“Once betting companies emerged and people started betting on almost every match from local, national and international, winning a match became crucial and so the categories of people who had an interest in the outcome of a match, moved from just ordinary owners of the team to some financial entities on the side.”
“So very often it may not even be the team that is taking steps to corrupt the referee to achieve a certain outcome, [but] it may be a certain bet company analyzing the bet on that match seeing that if a particular team lost, the betting company will be losing so much money so they would sidestep the team and find a way of reaching out to the officials to corrupt them to produce a certain outcome so that they can lessen their financial burden on the basis of the bets that have been made on that day in relation to that match,” Ayariga explained.
The MP urged the security agencies to investigate such issues and ensure that Ghanaians are not shortchanged.
Ghana has witnessed increasing numbers of betting companies across major cities and towns in the last couple of years with increasing patronage by especially young people.
By ChristianKpesese/ ghanamps.com