May wants to put an end to match-fixing in cricket once and for all

Head of the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) Tim May has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to take a strong stance on match-fixing in order to ensure that it does not happen in the future.

Recently, a sting operation lauched by India TV proved that umpires were also willing to match-fix if the price was right, and May noted that match-fixing was predominantly found in Twenty20 cricket.

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted May as saying: “FICA is concerned about the surge of T20 events, particularly in some countries where they are not equipped to provide the appropriate education to players. There are so many young guys being introduced to a landscape of potential corruption for the first time in their lives and have no clue how the corrupters may seek to ‘hook’ them, it should also cover ICC approving or providing on-ground surveillance at all such events, it should also cover some screening of franchise owners and administrators to ensure that corruption is minimised from the administration side.”

Former Australian batsman and commentator Dean Jones added that the ICC should use “cleanskin” players as bait to reveal which of their team-mates would be willing to match-fix.

“The only way you can stop it is if players do little secret deals with players and make out they’re part of the ongoing racket and see if they can catch someone, I can’t see any other way you are going to stop them unless you have the players agree to have full openness to all financial dealings,” Jones said.