South Korean Olympic team grilled by prosecutors

Seoul: The captain of South Korea`s Olympic soccer team Hong Jeong-ho has been quizzed by prosecutors probing a match-fixing scandal that has engulfed the country`s professional league, local media reported on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old Jeju United defender, who has made nine appearances for the senior team, was questioned by prosecutors on Sunday and Monday but had maintained his innocence, the Yonhap news agency reported. "Hong told us last Friday that he had nothing to do with the case," an unidentified K-League official was quoted as saying in the report. "For the time being, we told Jeju to keep him on the bench."The K-League is grappling with the most embarrassing scandal since it was established in 1983 and the government has already threatened to shut the league down if it did not clean up its act. Ten players have been banned for life -- eight from the Daejon Citizen Club alone -- while another has been banned from the K-League for five years.Five more players have been detained and two of them, including international Choi Sung-kuk, have come forward under a K-League amnesty which offers reduced penalties and ends on Thursday. Bureau Report