Two former A-League football players will learn their criminal fate for deliberately receiving yellow cards in exchange for cash.<\/p>\n
Ex-Macarthur Bulls duo Clayton Lewis and Kearyn Baccus have admitted they manipulated yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Each has pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event and will face Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court for a sentencing hearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In agreed facts, Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, admit they were paid AU$10,000 (NZ$11,180) each by former club captain Ulises Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.<\/p>\n
Davila, who is accused of acting as a conduit between the Macarthur players and a Colombian criminal known as J Col, has not yet entered pleas to nine charges against him.<\/p>\n
But Baccus and Lewis say Davila orchestrated 50 suspicious bets in a game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.<\/p>\n
Davila was booked for delaying play by kicking the ball away and Lewis was cautioned for pushing an opponent in the chest, before Baccus earned his yellow for a poor tackle on a Sydney player.<\/p>\n
The agreed facts state the winning bets netted a payout of more than AU$200,000 (NZ$223,510).<\/p>\n
Baccus and ex-New Zealand international Lewis are not accused of placing any bets on the match.<\/p>\n
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.<\/p>\n
Engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Davila is due to face court again on September 25.<\/p>\n
After Clayton and Lewis entered guilty pleas, Macarthur issued a strongly worded statement that said “serious deficiencies” around integrity processes in Australian football needed to be addressed.<\/p>\n
“The systems in place are inadequate to protect clubs from risk and lack the responsiveness required to manage issues of this magnitude,” the statement read.<\/p>\n
“A comprehensive review and reform of integrity protocols is urgently required to safeguard the future of the game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two former A-League football players will learn their criminal fate for deliberately receiving yellow cards in exchange for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,67,111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-27324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}