McGuinness calls for gambling changes
by Darren Dunne, 01 November 2007
With reports of eircom League gambling on the rise, PFAI chief Stephen McGuinness is looking for measures to be put in place to keep players out of temptations way.
The FAI and Betfair have come together to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which will provide a two-way flow of information on betting activity.
The move will hopefully help flag suspicious betting patterns on eircom League games, sporting fixtures which a surprisingly large amount of money is being waged on.
Reports earlier in the season revealed €1.3M was staked on the Setanta Cup semi-final between St. Patrick's Athletic and Drogheda, and with a lot of eircom League clubs annual turnovers not reaching that figure, McGuinness wants some changes made.
"I would be opposed to single betting being available on every game," he told the Irish Independent.
"Particularly in the First Division where you have some amateur players and other guys on just €50 or €100 a week.
""It puts them in a situation where there is more money to be earned from betting on the outcome of a game," he adds.
"Certainly, we would not encourage any of our members to bet on games where they are involved and we would remove anyone from our union if they were found to be guilty of anything suspicious in that regard."