La Liga star Kike Salas arrested over match fixing accusations
Sevilla defender Kike Salas, has been arrested over accusations that he intentionally received yellow cards during the 2023-24 La Liga season.
Spanish police suspect the Spainard and two friends are involved in a betting scandal around yellow cards. They have reportedly made around 10,000 euros across thirty bets on the player getting booked.
The defender was shown the yellow card in 10 league games for Sevilla across the season. Seven of these were during the final nine games of the season after the team had secured their position and were not in any danger of relegation. This is when the highest number of yellow card bets were placed.
Salas received a yellow card in five of the last six games of the season. The one in which he was not booked, he left the game early due to an injury. However before leaving the pitch, he had six fouls called on him including one altercation with an opponent.
Sevilla FC has made a statement on the issue, noting that they will respect the judicial process but operate on the “presumption of innocence” of their player.
“The club, following what happened today in relation to our player Kike Salas, would like to place on record our full respect for the judicial process as well as the presumption of innocence of our player. The club would also like to state that we condemn any fraudulent activity in the world of sport and in particular those that may affect the integrity of the competition.”
Two other individuals were arrested alongside SalasSalas and the two friends thought to be involved in the betting scheme were arrested on January 14 but released pending a full police investigation.
If found guilty of betting fraud and match throwing, Salas will face a lengthy ban from La Liga (up to five years) on top of any legal punishments meted out by the judge, which could include up to three years in jail and a fine of up to 30,000 euros.
La Liga recently announced BitGet as an official cryptocurrency partner in some regions.
Featured image credit: Grok
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