|
|
Change Your Life! |
ACB to appoint corruption investigator |
|
News |
May
6, 2000 MELBOURNE, MAY 5 (AP) - The Australian Cricket Board will appoint an independent investigator to examine allegations of bribery or match fixing, cricket's national governing body said Friday.
The decision comes in the wake of an International Cricket Council emergency summit in London earlier this week, called in response to admissions last month by South African skipper Hansie Cronje that he received money from an Indian bookmaker.
The ICC appointed a committee to investigate claims of match fixing or bribery in the international arena, empowering the investigators to impose life bans on players found guilty of match fixing.
An ACB spokesman said the Australian special investigator would be appointed within two to three weeks. Several candidates were being considered but no names would be made public until the appointment was made, he said.
The ACB also announced that Australian players and officials would have to sign a written undertaking before every international match declaring they were free from any influence of gambling.
ACB chief executive Malcolm Speed said his board would call for a unilateral conference with administrators of other professional sports to discuss corruption.
Speed said the ACB wanted to cast "as wide a net as possible" to ensure all players and officials were impregnable to any influence from illegal gambling influences.
Australian skipper Steve Waugh said the national team supported the initiatives of the ACB and the ICC.
"We want the public to know that every time we walk on to the field we are giving 100 percent, that every game is fair dinkum," he said.
On Thursday, the South African government appointed retired judge Edwin King to head a commission of inquiry into the scandal that has rocked cricket.
The commission was expected to open Monday and report its finding in June.
Cronje admitted to receiving U.S. dlrs 8,200 from a bookmaker to provide information on an England-Zimbabwe match, part of a one-day triangular series in South Africa in March.
The admission came after police in India filed charges against Cronje and his teammates Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom for allegedly fixing a match in a limited-overs series against India.
The Indian police case was based on audio tapes of a telephone conversation in which police say Cronje discussed payments for himself and others in return for throwing a match.
The cricketers have said they are innocent. |