Australia is considering stiff penalties of up to 10 years in jail for anybody involved in match-fixing and corruption in sport, sports minister Mark Arbib said on Friday. Arbib has been working with state ministers to establish a national framework to deal with gambling-related corruption, a problem highlighted by last year's spot-fixing scandal involving Pakistani cricketers.
"We want to make sure that we do everything possible to send a message to those people who want to be involved in match-fixing that there will be jail time, and it won't be a light punishment," he told ABC radio. "What we're doing now is we're focused on people who intend to manipulate sport for profit through illegal activities. "We're looking at uniform sentences across the country.
"We're also looking at codes of conduct that get implemented across sports so players, coaches, officials understand what is right, what is wrong." There have been relatively few cases of corruption in Australian sport but sports gambling, which was worth A$2.8 billion ($2.99bn) in 2008, is a major growth industry.
The Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports - which represents the national bodies in rugby, cricket, Australian Rules, soccer, tennis and netball - earlier this year called for a national law to battle the problem. The Australian Olympic Committee has also been lobbying the government to establish an independent national sports betting authority to investigate cheating and fraudulent conduct.
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