STEWART Regan has revealed the Scottish Football Association have become even more vigilant about corruption since a number of high-profile arrests in England last month.
The SFA chief executive insisted there was no evidence of any organised wrongdoing in the Scottish game but admitted it was impossible to guarantee that the scene was entirely clean as he helped launch an anti-corruption initiative called "Keep It Clean" at Hampden yesterday.
An integrity hotline has also been created allowing players, coaches, match officials, club officials and football administration staff to anonymously flag up any concerns and suspicions they have about issues such as match-fixing, betting patterns or doping.
When asked if he could be certain that the Scottish game was untainted, Regan said: "Who knows? We have no evidence at all to suggest that Scotland has any problems of the kind of match-fixing or integrity levels that we're talking about. We've got to separate our betting [issues] from match-fixing and spot-fixing, they are very different things."
Ian Black, the Rangers midfielder, and Ayr United striker Michael Moffat have both faced SFA charges for contravening rules by betting on football (Black was given a 10-game suspension, with seven of them suspended, while Moffat's hearing is tomorrow). But Regan stressed that betting was an entirely separate issue from match-fixing.
"We've had examples of betting on football," he said. "Betting isn't allowed under the Scottish FA rules. We're working with the league bodies and PFA Scotland to make sure that message is constantly reminded to the people that need to know it. From a match-fixing and spot-fixing point of view, there isn't any evidence of it but you can't be complacent just because there's no evidence.
"When we see arrests being made close to home your antennae starts to kick in and you start to think well what do we need to do to make sure it doesn't come into Scotland? We pride ourselves on the reputation of the Scottish game."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article