Sunday, August 26, 2007

Fans accuse football players of accepting bribe

25 August 2007
By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia

Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Cambodian football fans smashed the windshield of the car transporting young Cambodian football players, accusing them of accepting bribe from a company which told the young players not to play the match against the Brunei team to their fullest.

During the 2007 ASEAN U-17 football championship, Cambodian players scored 2 goals against Brunei during the first half of the game, however, during the second half, the Cambodia team did not score anything.

Angry fans, as well as a group of other spectators who claimed to be witnesses, said that it was because the Cambodian players accepted bribes from an external betting company which prevented these players from scoring over Brunei by more than 2 goals. They said that was the reason why the score became to be. Several hundreds of angry fans attempted to beat up the Cambodian team, but the police was able to stop them on time.

Based on preliminary report, the anger caused the fans to smash two police vehicles, one car transporting the players, and one motorcycle.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here we go!. Corruption is every where, even in sport. If the allegation was true, what would be the future of football in CAmbodia?

Anonymous said...

Even if the allegations are true, why picked on the players? It is the coach and the organization behind it, who gets the money. Retarded Cambodian fans. Geeze.

Anonymous said...

This is U17 team. Riot? It is funny but come on. I am almost 100 % sure that it only happened because we think Brunei sucks. These people only appreciate the players, even when they bring pride to the country and won the match. I would like to see those idiots play on the field and not get their fucking lame asses kicked. That is one of our Khmer problems, just like to blaming everything, corruption, blah, blah, blah, and now blame the youth team of bribery too?