1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,880
Speaker 1: Last year, overseas gamblers bet a whopping two hundred and

2
00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:08,480
Speaker 1: twelve million dollars on our domestic men's football league I

3
00:00:08,520 --> 00:00:11,719
Speaker 1: Know Who Knew for two hours every Saturday. New Zealand

4
00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:14,319
Speaker 1: is the only country in the world providing live sport

5
00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:17,600
Speaker 1: to the Asian gambling market. That should be on our

6
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:22,040
Speaker 1: bumper sticker. Andrew Scott Homan is General counsel for Professional

7
00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:26,520
Speaker 1: Football Footballers Association with me tonight, Andrew, Good evening, pym

8
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:29,920
Speaker 1: Aria Ran, how are you very well? Thank you? There

9
00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,199
Speaker 1: is some concern this might open our players up to

10
00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:34,800
Speaker 1: match fixing. If you heard anything about that.

11
00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:38,280
Speaker 2: Oh yes, this has been a concern that New Zealand

12
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:40,760
Speaker 2: as a country has been aware of now for gosh

13
00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:44,640
Speaker 2: well over ten years, and as you say, we unfortunately

14
00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:49,320
Speaker 2: present this. Rather I suppose appealing cocktail to match fixers

15
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,559
Speaker 2: from Asia in that our time zone allows us to

16
00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,600
Speaker 2: be the monopoly provider of live products for a couple

17
00:00:56,680 --> 00:00:59,840
Speaker 2: of hours every weekend. But also it's the amateur nature

18
00:00:59,880 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 2: of our competition. Our players and our match officials, our

19
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:07,640
Speaker 2: referees don't get paid for playing, and therefore they can

20
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,720
Speaker 2: be much easier to bribe or convince to do the

21
00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:13,160
Speaker 2: wrong thing. That's also a problem that we have as

22
00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:13,680
Speaker 2: a country.

23
00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:15,640
Speaker 1: So it sounds like a perfect storm. Do we know

24
00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:20,120
Speaker 1: if any players are being approached to do something dodgy?

25
00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,360
Speaker 2: Well, mercifully, what we do know is there have been

26
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:27,000
Speaker 2: no reported cases of actual match manipulation, so no one's

27
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:31,120
Speaker 2: actually done the wrong thing today. But yes, we do

28
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:36,039
Speaker 2: have regular reports about approaches being made. Some of them

29
00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:40,080
Speaker 2: are quite kind of speculative, that might be what's at

30
00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:44,160
Speaker 2: message from someone saying, would you be interested in match fixing?

31
00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:49,320
Speaker 2: But others are way more sophisticated and involve people claiming

32
00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:52,720
Speaker 2: either that they are agents representing clubs in Asia or

33
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,040
Speaker 2: Europe that can offer a player a trial at the

34
00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,280
Speaker 2: end of the season if they do a favor in return.

35
00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 2: So there's a real mixture. We're fortunate though that generally

36
00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:07,760
Speaker 2: our players report those advances and we've got a really

37
00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:10,920
Speaker 2: good partnership between the sport that's New Zealand football, but

38
00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:14,320
Speaker 2: also the police. The New Zealand Police are great in

39
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,680
Speaker 2: following up on those reports and trying to get to

40
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:18,919
Speaker 2: the bottom of exactly who this might be.

41
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:21,280
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose the ones who report to you haven't

42
00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:23,600
Speaker 1: accepted the bribes but the ones who have accepted the

43
00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:25,079
Speaker 1: bribes probably wouldn't, would they.

44
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:29,160
Speaker 2: That's the danger. And there's another danger as well that

45
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,600
Speaker 2: the naivety of some of our players means they may

46
00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:35,840
Speaker 2: not even realize that they're being set up. They may

47
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 2: actually think that this person that they're dealing with is

48
00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:41,880
Speaker 2: legitimately a coach or an agent for a foreign team

49
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:45,799
Speaker 2: that could be the greatest opportunity of their footballing career. So, yeah,

50
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:49,519
Speaker 2: you're right, it's very difficult to know for certain exactly

51
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,200
Speaker 2: what the kind of threat level is in the country.

52
00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 1: Andrew, appreciate your time. Andrew Scott Holman Homan rather the

53
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,799
Speaker 1: General Council Professional Footballers Association.

54
00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:00,760
Speaker 2: For more from Hither Dupless, see Allen Drive.

55
00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:04,240
Speaker 1: Listen live to News talks 'b from four pm weekdays,

56
00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:06,640
Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio