MADRID: Spanish police arrested 34 people, including low-ranking players, last month from a criminal network that fixed tennis matches in Spain and Portugal, authorities said.
All those arrested are Spanish and include six unnamed tennis players whose international rankings are between 800 and 1,400 in the world. Their Spanish rankings ranged between 30 and 300.
Players were offered sums of between 500 euros and 1,000 euros to fix matches, a police spokesperson said.
“Sometimes they promised 500 euros and in the end only paid 50 euros. The players were above all the victims,” the spokesperson added.
The investigation, which began in 2013, concerns at least 17 tournaments in five cities, including Madrid, Seville and Porto. In some cases, the players were asked to lose specific points or games.
The match-fixing network is estimated to have made over half a million euros from lower-tier tournaments in Spain and Portugal.
