Thailand U-22 coach Worrawoot Srimakha has denied the match-fixing claims after a report on irregular betting at three games at last month’s SEA Games.
“I just heard this from the press. It was probably just an observation from foreign media. But I can assure you that Thailand had nothing to do with it,” Worrawoot told media reporters, as quoted by Bangkok Posts.
“While I can’t speak for other teams mentioned but on Thailand’s part, I can honestly say that it is not true.
“Our target at the SEA Games was to win and we aimed to win every game there and to score as many goals as possible. Besides I trust my players would not do something like that.”
According to the Straits Times, analysts from three bet monitoring companies have raised concern about the suspicious betting behavior involving three matches, including Malaysia versus Laos, Vietnam versus Cambodia, and Thailand versus Cambodia.
However, those analysts suggested the irregular patterns were not conclusive proof of match-fixing but were enough to raise alarms among betting monitors.