A former Premier League footballer has claimed players made thousands of pounds “spot betting” on games during his time in England between 1996 and 2008. The claims were published on various Norwegian news sites before being picked up by the U.K. press and they’re quite startling. The 39-year-old alleges that he and other Premier League captains made the bets every week and that players from Southampton, the club he was at, used staff to put bets on. It was usually on certain incidents, such as the first corner or throw-in, and he admitted that it was not something he was “proud of”.
“For a while we did this almost every week. We made a fair bit of money. We could make deals with the opposing captain about, for example, betting on the first throw, the first corner, who started with the ball, a yellow card or a penalty,” he said. “Those were the sorts of thing we had influence over.”
Lundekvam claimed that they did it “almost every week” but it never extended to the end result of the match in question. The defender also claimed that he knows it happened at other clubs as well.
“The results were never on the agenda. That is something I would never have done. We were professional competitors. Even though what we did, of course, was illegal, it was just a fun thing,” he added.
The original comments were made to Norwegian website VG and come as the country has been confronting its own issues with players attempting to fix games. Lundekvam himself retired from the game in 2008 after, according to The Sun, a period of cocaine and alcohol addiction put pay to his career.
Since online gaming industry sites have become more widespread since the turn of the century these types of cases are very often nipped in the bud. It’s down to the excellent regulatory system that exists in the U.K. and the advanced detection systems in place at many firms makes it very hard for people to influence matches.
