Four detained in China matchfixing probe: Xinhua

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained four soccer officials on suspicion of bribery in the crackdown on match-fixing in the country's troubled professional game, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Police arrested the four on suspicion of bribery but are still waiting for the prosecutor's decision whether to put them under formal criminal charge. According to Chinese law, the detention term could be extended to upto 37 days.

Xinhua said that according to the police, Wang Po and Wang Xin, then general managers of Shanxi club, demanded 200,000 yuan via middle men from Guangzhou's then deputy manager Yang Xu to fix a Jie A (second division) match on Aug 19, 2007.

Guangzhou needed to win the match to remain in the hunt for promotion to China's top flight, the Chinese Super League (CSL).

The Wangs, who have been detained with Yang and former Shenyang player Ding Zhe, subsequently bet on a high scoring result and the Shanxi club lost the match 5-1, police said.

Police said Wang Xin was suspected of manipulating several league matches since 2006 and was also wanted by Interpol for a match-fixing scandal in Singapore, Xinhua reported.

Wang Xin was the general manager of the Liaoning Guangyuan club, an offshoot of China's Liaoning FC which played the 2007 season in Singapore's domestic league. Ding was a coach at the club.

"During the investigation into Wang Xin's match-rigging scheme in Singapore, it was found that he also manipulated domestic matches through commercial bribery," the police were quoted as saying.

The probe into match-fixing followed several comments in recent months by top Communist Party officials on the need to clean up the professional game in China, which is widely perceived as being riven with corruption.