Tennis Player Daniel Koellerer Banned for Life for Match-Fixing

Tennis player Daniel Koellerer lost his appeal yesterday and is now banned for life from tennis for match-fixing. Koellerer allegedly approached other tennis players from October 2009 to July 2010 to fix matches. The tennis governing bodies found enough evidence to uphold its original ruling and handed down the first lifetime ban in the sport.

FBI Investigating Point Shaving at Auburn

News broke last week that the FBI has been investigating point shaving at Auburn University. Specifically the FBI has been investigating point guard Varez Ward with special attention to Auburn's 68-50 loss to Alabama on February 7th and a 56-53 loss at Arkansas on January 25th. As soon as Auburn officials learned of the information they reported it to the FBI, NCAA and the Southeastern Conference. Generally point shaving schemes involve more than one player so I will definitely be monitoring this case to see if anything else is discovered from this investigation.

2010 Soccer World Cup Warm-up Matches Controlled by Referees

FIFA reported earlier this week that the South African Football Association was duped into allowing an Asian match fixing syndicate managed by Wilson Perumal to appoint certain referees for certain warm-up international matches played in 2010 prior to the World Cup hosted by South Africa. Perumal has been convicted of match fixing charges in Finland since then. While matches and referees are investigated it just goes to show once again you never know where the fix is being controlled but almost certainly has to do with money. It appears all teams and countries show no evidence to manipulating games.

Soccer Match-Fixing Widespread in Eastern and Southern Europe

The BBC recently reported that match-fixing and other issues in Eastern and Southern Europe are more widespread than most believed. As reported by a survey by FIFPro, 23.6% of players are aware of match-fixing in their league and as high as 43.5% in Russia who will host the 2018 World Cup. They also stated 11.9% of players and as high as 30.3% in Greece have been approached to fix the results of games. The common link found was between players not being paid and fixing games. No matter the reason or level of play it always comes down to money as I always say.