Kuala Lumpur: World No. 19 Hans Kristian-Vittinghus of Denmark who has rejected an offer from a Malaysian man to throw matches in 2014, talked to Malaysian media NSTP Sports about the latest match-fixing scandal involving two Malaysian national professional badminton players.
“In 2014, I reported to Badminton World Federation (BWF) through their official website. I was then met with Thomas Lund (BWF’s secretary-general),” said Vittinghus.
“I also provided an official report in writing and all the conversations I had with the bookie. He was a Malaysian and not a badminton player,” added Vittinghus.
“That person worked for a brand and I do not want to mention, and his position at that company had given him the opportunities to go to many badminton related events.”
“From my understanding, BWF has informed police about this incident, but I have no idea about what had happened to that match-fixer.”
“I went public with the matter six months after I first reported the incident to BWF. So, they should have plenty of time to perform their investigation.”
“I feel that BWF has taken the matter seriously, but I didn’t follow up on this as I want to focus on badminton and not a criminal case. But I am willing to be a witness if that could be a help on the investigation.”
“I have been following this case very closely, and I am pretty sure I know who that two players are by now. I have several rounds of discussions with BWF over the last few years just to keep them inform about what’s going on. I believe BWF will maintain the integrity of the sport by getting to the bottom of this.”
In addition to Vittinghus, another Denmark player, Kim Astrup who currently ranked World No. 10 in men’s doubles together with Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, was also approached by a match-fixer in 2014 and was offered around 3,000 euro per game to fix matches in Singapore Open and Thomas Cup.
According to our sources, the current minimum “market price” for throwing a match is around $4200 Euro.
