Former EPL striker jailed for match-fixing
Former Premier League striker Delroy Facey was found guilty of conspiracy to commit bribery.
LONDON - Former English Premier League (EPL) striker Delroy Facey was found guilty of conspiracy to commit bribery in a match-fixing trial on Wednesday.
He was sentenced to two and half years behind bars.
Facey, who made 10 EPL appearances for Bolton Wanderers in a journeyman career that included nine matches for West Bromwich Albion and ended at Hereford in 2012, was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court after a three-week trial.
Non-league player Moses Swaibu was also found guilty.
Facey, 35, had been arrested in November 2013 and pleaded not guilty.
The charges were part of a match-fixing investigation that has already secured the convictions of Singaporean Chann Sankaran, Sri Lanka-born Briton Krishna Ganeshan and Michael Boateng for paying footballers to influence the outcome of games.
Sankaran and Ganeshan were both jailed for five-years in June 2014, while Boateng received a 16 month sentence for conspiracy to bribe.
The court heard that Facey had acted as middle-man for the syndicate led by Sankaran and Ganeshan, although there was no evidence of any matches actually being fixed.