Football’s spot-fixing problem is getting out of hand

The advent of social media, few restrictions on direct access, a rise in live streaming and poor wages make football susceptible to fixing even as cricket becomes harder to fix.

“Blatant”. “Blatantly”. The adjective peppered a 50-minute Zoom chat with Minerva Punjab FC team owner and sports activist Ranjit Bajaj, and in a 35-minute conversation with Dempo FC’s CEO Pradhyum Reddy, he used the adjective three times in the span of a 63-second response to a question.

Bajaj was referring to two videos he posted to social media on 19 February, and a resulting thread that cites chapter and verse, and takes names, to yet again twin “fixing” with “football” in one sentence.

The inciting incidents occurred during a Delhi Football League fixture pitting Ahbab FC against Rangers FC. Ahbab, …

Author

Prem Panicker

Prem Panicker has been a journalist for over 30 years. From daily newspapers to weekly magazines and digital news portals—he was one of the seven journalists who were part of the Rediff.com start-up team—he has written and edited features extensively across mediums and publications. Since quitting his job at Yahoo in 2014, he has been working as a freelance writer and editor, as well as teaching narrative journalism.

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