The Dutch football association will investigate allegations of corruption in a number of suspicious first division games, KNVB director Bert van Oostveen told NRC Handelsblad on Friday. It also plans to coordinate with police and the public prosecutor's office in order to fight bribery in the football competition.

The German authorities last week revealed they had found evidence of fraud and manipulation in 200 European football games. Germany has been conducting a thorough investigation into fraudulent gambling practices in professional football for the past year. Dozens of arrests were made in the past few days in Germany, China, Switzerland, Italy and Britain. According to the German public prosecutor's office at least nine countries are involved; the Netherlands is not among them.

Chinese gangs

But the KNVB decided to investigate a number of games anyway after talks with Canadian investigative journalist Declan Hill and Karl Dhont, the official in charge of the fight against corruption at the European football union UEFA. "Both experts voiced similar suspicions about a number of games. It was reason enough for us to take the case very seriously," said Van Oostveen.

In an interview with NRC Handelsblad, Declan Hill, author of The Fix: Soccer & Organized Crime, said a number of matches have been 'sold' in the Netherlands as well. Hill said "an extremely reliable source" in the Asian gambling industry told him Chinese gangs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam have bribed players in several first division clubs to fix the outcome of matches. "My source named away games of three clubs, but there might be more," Hill said.

According to Hill, a number of Dutch games, down to the junior league, are being closely watched by Asian gamblers. He suspects Dutch club managers and coaches are involved in the game fixing. "Exactly how this is done will have to be further investigated, but based on my own findings in the Italian Serie A, its is likely that coaches and managers have ordered their players to fix matches."

Suspicious spending

It is not the first time it has been suggested that foreign gambling syndicates have been manipulating Dutch football results. Football magazine Voetbal International investigated suspected fraud at ADO The Hague after several players there began spending suspicious amounts of money. Houses were paid in cash and players were driving around in cars far above their paychecks. The ex-girlfriend of one former player gave incriminating evidence to police, but the prosecutor's office found no evidende of bribery.

According to Justin Franssen, a Dutch lawyer who represents the British online betting company Betfair, "fraud in sports is hard to avoid. It's like with manipulation of share prices: the best you can do is catch a few individuals."

Betfair monitors bets placed on its website 24 hours a day, and reports suspicious patterns to the competent authorities. In 2007 and 2008 Betfair informed the Dutch football association that unusually high amounts of money were being placed on two games in the Netherlands: Roda JC vs. Willem II (1-0) and FC Groningen vs. NAC (3-1). The KNVB informed the public prosecutor's office, but again the investigation revealed no wrongdoing.

Journalist Hill suspects the Chinese gambling syndicates are behind match-fixing in the Netherlands. He advised Van Oostveen to "throw all the Chinese with cellphones out the stadium". But the KNVB decided this was unpractical. Van Oostveen: "You can't simply throw people out based on their appearance - no matter how suspicious their behaviour."