A senior authority of the ICC’s anti-corruption unit feels that making match-fixing a criminal offence in India will be the “absolute best thing” in a nation where the police are “working with one hand tied behind their back” without any tough law.
Legitimate specialists have been supporting for a considerable length of time they need to condemn coordinate fixing in India, the absence of which has implied that the hands of specialists have been tied with regards to examining defilement in the famous game.
“At the moment with no legislation in place, we’ll have good relations with Indian police, but they are operating with one hand tied behind their back,” ICC ACU’s coordinator of investigations, Steve Richardson, was quoted as saying by ‘ESPNcricinfo’.
He added, “We will do everything we can to disrupt the corruptors. And we do, we make life very, very difficult for them as far and as much as we can to stop them from operating freely.
“But the legislation would be a game-changer in India. We have currently just under 50 investigations. The majority of those have links back to corruptors in India.
“So it would be the single-most-effective thing to happen in terms of protecting sport if India introduces match-fixing legislation.”
With India set to have two ICC world occasions in the following three years, Richardson encouraged the Indian government to outline an enactment on coordinate fixing like its neighbour Sri Lanka, which turned into the main significant cricket-playing nation in South Asia to condemn the degenerate practice in 2019.
“India has got two ICC global events coming up: the T20 World Cup (in 2021) and the World Cup in 2023,” Richardson pointed out.
Both Richardson and BCCI’s ACU head Ajit Singh were a piece of a board conversation regarding the matter of ‘Does India need a match-fixing enactment?’ as a feature of the Sports Law and Policy Symposium hung on June 20.
A few thoughts from the @SportsLawIndia symposium on should India introduce match fixing legislation. https://t.co/md3POfG9de
— Steve Richardson (@Steve_Rich100) June 20, 2020
More than the players, Richardson focused on that such a law would hinder the corruptors, who he said were correct presently uninhibitedly moving around.
“I could actually deliver to the Indian police or the Indian government now at least eight names of people who are what I would term serial offenders, constantly approaching players to try and get them to fix matches,” Richardson said.
“…they have my great sympathy because they try as professionally and hard as they can to make the existing legislation work, but the reality is it wasn’t framed with sports corruption in mind.
“So the reason that there is an imperative for legislation specific to match-fixing – yes, it is about the players, but more importantly it is about those outside the sport who corrupt the players and are organizing and pulling the strings of these networks.
“Those are the people I would like to see dealt with under match-fixing law.”
Singh, a former Indian Police Service officer, agreed that there had been “no adequate law to cover match-fixing”.
Richardson said that betting and corruption should be seen separately because betting is legal in many countries.
Also read : Bangladesh’s Tour of Sri Lanka Postponed Due to COVID-19 Crisis: ICC
