The Football Association is investigating allegations of match-fixing over this month’s League Championship match between Derby County and Norwich City.
Derby beat the Canaries 2-1 on Oct. 4, but the game was reportedly subject to irregular betting patterns in Asia. The FA was known to be investigating a match, but its identity had not been confirmed until two British politicians asked questions about it in parliament on Thursday.
“We’re gathering the information and doing it very thoroughly — and thoroughness doesn’t mean doing that in a very short time and failing to be thorough,” FA chairman David Triesman said. “We’ll see what information there is and make an assessment at that point. The last thing we need is guesswork.”
Norman Lamb, who is a Norwich season-ticket holder, put forward a question on the subject to the government.
“When anything like this enters our game the whole thing’s destroyed because you lose trust,” Lamb told the BBC. “It’s important the FA investigates this as a matter of extreme urgency.”
The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, which reported the allegations last week, handed the FA a document detailing the unusual betting and also handed it to the Gambling Commission — the regulatory body for gambling in Britain.
Neither organization has jurisdiction over the Asian market, but both have a mandate to uphold the game’s integrity.
Derby took the lead at Carrow Road through a 26th-minute goal by Rob Hulse. Sammy Clingan equalized with a penalty in the 51st minute, before Nathan Ellington scored the Rams’ winner five minutes from the end.
The FA insists that the allegations will not tarnish soccer’s reputation.
“In general, I think the game has shown great integrity,” Triesman said. “I don’t think we have had the scandals which perhaps, historically, the people in the United States feel they have had around big sporting events. I don’t think we’ve suffered from that.”
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