Three I-League clubs revealed approaches by punters: official

New Delhi: Three top Indian clubs have alleged that they were approached by international betting syndicates to fix I-League matches in the last few seasons, sources in the All India Football Federation said today.

AIFF official told PTI that the three I-League clubs revealed approaches by betting syndicates during the recent FIFA-INTERPOL workshop held here recently on the invitation of the national federation. "When asked by FIFA officials whether there were any approaches by suspicious people, three I-League clubs said they were approached," the official said. "They did not specifically said that there were match-fixing approaches, but of course they said they were approached by suspicious people," he said. "I don`t know why the clubs remained silent. They should have informed the AIFF at that time," he added. The official refused to name the clubs but said that all of them were based in Western India. Mumbai FC have already gone on record, saying they were approached by a Malaysian betting syndicate. AIFF senior vice-president Subrata Dutta had said during the workshop that there were some suspicions on the basis of hugely one-sided scorelines but no incident of match-fixing has been reported to the federation. "So far, there has not been any case of match-fixing. There were matches in which the scoreline could suggest some kind of malpractice. But there has not been any evidence or proof. There has not been any investigation of match-fixing."