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The ugly face of the beautiful game was revealed at a seminar on gambling at the Sporting Chance clinic in Hampshire this week.

The Independent has reported that a footballer playing for one of the Premier league clubs previously had accepted a bribe of £50,000 to wave off his gambling debts.

The footballer had serious gambling addiction and had incurred a huge loses and had a massive debt of £50,000 with a bookmaker, the bookmaker then came to an agreement with the player that he will wave off the debts if the player got himself sent off and also persuade three of his team mates to get booked.

The player has reportedly agreed to this and his team lost the match after which he sought proffesional help and also feels ashamed fpr his actions. But it is still unclear as to how the bookmaker made profits from the sending off and bookings, but it is assumed that the game in question was of great importance at that stage of the season.

This report comes a shock to the England football community as England never faced such allegations in the past, now it is clear that even England is not safe from corruption as in Italy, Germany and Poland, but here it is due to addiction and not institutional corruption which was the case in Italy.

Sporting Chance also claimed that many proffesional footballers are fighting against Cocaine addiction without the knowledge of their clubs.

Now FA need to serioulsy investigate these match fixing claims and firstly they need to confirm whether the match concerned took place in England, otherwise it would not be in their jurisdiction.

FA is active in supporting and funding programmes which educate the young footballers against these addictions and also provide proffesional help for those in trouble.

Sporting Chance is Britain's foremost treatment centre for sports people with addictive illnesses, FA partially funds sporting Chance and the other major backer is Professional Footballers' Association.

There is an urgent need for Premier League Clubs to educate their players about all these issues and Premier League also needs to back agencies like Sporting Chance.

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