A well-known Chinese referee confessed in court to accepting bribes for fixing games, including a Sydney FC fixture from two years ago, amid a series of corruption hearings involving top football officials.
Huang Junjie admitted to accepting more than $250,000 in bribes to fix two international friendlies as well as six Chinese club matches between 2005 and 2009, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
One of those matches was a 2009 fixture between A-League club Sydney FC and China's Shanghai Shenhua.
The veteran of more than 20 years - who in 2009 was among three short-listed for best Chinese referee of the year - also confessed to accepting bribes from his colleague Zhou Weixin to sway results, the report added.
Zhou is facing charges of corruption as well as bribing civil servants.
The tainted matches that Huang officiated include a 2007 exhibition match between English Premier League champions Manchester United and China's Shenzhen FC.
Corruption hearings against some of China's top footballing officials kicked off Monday with Zhang Jianqiang, the former head referee of the Super League, in court to face charges of accepting match-fixing bribes totalling $409,600.
Referee Lu Jun, who had previously officiated World Cup and Olympic football matches, will stand trial Wednesday while about 20 other former officials and referees are to face the courts later this week.
The hearings are part of a crackdown on corruption that have reached the top echelons of the game in China, and led to the downfall of the head of the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
AFP
Tags: sport, a-league, soccer, sydney-2000, nsw, australia First posted December 21, 2011 07:27:26
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