Europe’s match-fixing problem highlighted by players’ survey

LONDON — European soccer’s challenge in eradicating match-fixing has been highlighted by a large number of players in Cyprus and Malta telling the world players’ union that they have been approached to fix games.

FIFPro says 40.5 per cent of the 235 respondents to its player survey from Cyprus reported being aware of fixing in their league and 18.6 per cent said they had been approached to fix a game.

FIFPro received responses from 112 players in Malta, with 18.2 per cent of players saying they were aware of fixing and 15.5 per cent reporting being approached to fix a match.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin told The Associated Press last month that “match fixing is killing the game,” and said “we haven’t done enough” to clean up the game.

The global survey of players by FIFPAro lacked responses from soccer’s biggest leagues in England, Spain and Germany or Asia.

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The Associated Press