Football match-fixing ‘not wide-scale’

FA general secretary Alex Horne was among representatives from five sports – football, cricket, tennis and the two rugby codes – who attended a summit with Ministers in Whitehall yesterday for talks on tackling fixing.

It followed the arrest of six people, including Blackburn striker DJ Campbell, following an investigation into spot-fixing in football by the National Crime Agency.

Mr Horne, who was at the meeting with Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Maria Miller, said the “general consensus” was that fixing was not a widespread problem.

He insisted however that the FA took the issue seriously and will study measures against fixing already in place in cricket and horse racing.

Mr Horne said after the meeting: “The intelligence that we have says this isn’t a wide-scale issue at the moment but, again, we don’t want to be complacent.”