ASIA TOUR 2013 ANNOUNCED
Posted on: Thu 07 Feb 2013
Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce the details of our 2013 Here to Play, Here to Stay tour of Asia, which will see us play matches in Thailand, Malaysia, and for the first time, Indonesia.
We will play games in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. The first team last visited Asia in 2011 as we began our preparations for a season which ended with Champions League and FA Cup success.
The year's first match is against a Singha Thailand All-Star XI in the Singha Cup on Wednesday July 17 at the Rajamanagala National Stadium in Bangkok, which will act as a celebration of our partner's 80th anniversary.
We then travel to Kuala Lumpur to face a Malaysia XI at the Shah Alam Stadium on Sunday July 21.
We make our debut in Jakarta on Thursday July 25 against an Indonesia XI at the 88,000-seater Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, as we compete for the BNI Cup, marking our relationship with Bank Negara Indonesia, which has issued more than 60,000 Chelsea-branded payment cards since August 2012.
Upon announcing the tour, Chelsea Chief Executive Ron Gourlay said: 'It is fantastic that we will be returning to Asia for what promises to be an excellent pre-season tour.
'South-east Asia remains home to an ever-growing and passionate Chelsea FC support and it gives me great pleasure that we will again be able to experience that wonderful hospitality. In particular I look forward to visiting Indonesia for the first time, a country where we have an extensive fanbase that is eager to see Chelsea play.
'I am sure we will face strong opposition in packed stadiums as we celebrate the successes of some of our important regional partners and we will once again leave an important legacy in terms of the community work we conduct during the tour and for long afterwards.'
As well as helping us reach our supporters in the region, this summer's trip will also see us continue the important community work we have undertaken across Asia, with a Chelsea FC Soccer School, incorporating a Blue Pitch facility, due to open prior to our arrival in Indonesia.
This will provide a centre for local coaches to help further the development of grassroots football in the area, following on from similar projects in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Korea and Singapore, as well as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.
Chelsea also has several dedicated local language websites and Twitter and Facebook feeds serving our Asian fans, which attract around half a million page views each month.
Ticket news for this year's Here to Play Here to Stay tour will appear here on the official Chelsea website in due course.
Visit the On Tour section for more details.
www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3067967
Singapore calls for ‘concrete evidence’ in game-fixing probe
Posted on February 7, 20130 Comment
SINGAPORE: Singapore police said Thursday they needed hard evidence to crack down on match-fixing cartels, after coming under pressure to arrest suspected ringleaders of networks which targeted hundreds of football games in Europe and beyond.
Police said authorities had supplied information about Dan Tan Seet Eng, a key suspect who is wanted by investigators in Rome, and that they were working with Europol following revelations that Singapore-linked networks rigged or tried to rig 680 games worldwide.
“The authorities in Singapore are assisting the Italian authorities through Interpol in their investigations into an international match-fixing syndicate that purportedly involves a Singaporean, Dan Tan Seet Eng,” police told AFP in an email.
In a separate statement, police said they were seeking more information from Europol, which detailed its findings this week after a major investigation, and that they were working with authorities in several countries.
“Syndicated match-fixing is a complex global problem that can only be effectively eradicated if all countries work together to combat the scourge,” the Singapore police said.
“This requires law enforcement agencies to proactively share information and intelligence so that concrete evidence can be gathered to support enforcement actions on the ground.”
Europol said some 380 of the games were in Europe, and included Champions League ties, World Cup and European Champions qualifiers, and top-flight fixtures from around the continent, linking the conspiracy to ringleaders in Singapore.
Dan Tan is the subject of an Italian arrest warrant and reports say he has been accused in German court documents, and named in investigations in several countries. He is suspected of being one of about five Singaporean ringleaders.
Singapore has come under pressure to explain why key suspects such as Dan Tan remain at large, with Interpol secretary Ronald Noble telling the Straits Times newspaper that the small, wealthy country’s “reputation would continue to suffer” until arrests are made.
Singapore has long been considered at the heart of international football match-rigging after fixers learned their trade in the local and Malaysian league before venturing into Europe in the 1990s.
According to reports and investigators, they provide money to local operators to fix games, and then place clandestine bets on Internet gambling sites, mainly based in Asia, with potential winnings running to millions of dollars.
Singapore’s Wilson Raj Perumal, who claims to be an ex-associate of Dan Tan, is believed to have been a key informant for the European probe and the cracking of Italy’s “calcioscommesse” scandal following his arrest in Finland in 2011.
Interpol told AFP its match-fixing task force currently has 28 members working in Singapore, which is also the site of a new Asian base for the global police body.
With so much activity going on for so long, some observers are wondering how key suspects remain at large in Singapore.
“A question that really must be asked is why so little is being done to question Singaporean individuals allegedly involved in such a global match-fixing operation,” Neil Humphreys, a Singapore-based football commentator, told AFP.
“More pertinently, the issue has not received quite the same front-page media attention that it has in other football-popular countries, despite the obvious fact that Singapore is allegedly home to the ringleaders of the world’s biggest match-fixing syndicate.”
Humphreys is the author of “Match Fixer”, a fictional work about a former striker for an English football team who tries to salvage his career in Singapore, only to plunge into a world of vice.
The latest match-fixing revelations come at a troubling time for sport, after Lance Armstrong confessed to drug-cheating his way to his seven Tour de France titles. On Thursday, Australia revealed doping was widespread among its athletes. -AFP
football.thestar.com.my/2013/02/07/singapore-calls-for-concrete-evidence-in-game-fixing-probe/