Soccer news, sport headlines, fixed news
Pakistan match-fixing claim: what is spot-fixing?
The News of the World named bowlers from their team who they alleged agreed to deliver no-balls to order. A 35-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers.
Spot-fixing differs from outright match-fixing in one crucial regard - whereas match-fixing sees the entire result of a sporting contest manipulated, spot-fixing relates to specific incidents within the game.
As such, it can take just one member of a team to facilitate a fix, rather than requiring the complicity of key players, making a con harder to detect as well as more cost-effective.
The News of the World claims concern the timing of no-balls, with certain Pakistan bowlers alleged by the newspaper to have deliberately overstepped the crease on pre-determined occasions.
Markets on no-balls and wides are among those which may be easy to manipulate, with little effort required to produce 'errors' at the prescribed moment.
