ECB Introduce Fixing Amnesty

The ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) has responded to the Westfield case by offering an amnesty to players to report match-fixing approaches.

Witholding evidence and not coming forward to report an approach is an offence according to ECB regulations but the “reporting window”, which will run until 30 April, will give players a second chance to come clean without the threat of censure.

The information manager to the ECB’s ACCESS (Anti-Corruption Commission for Education, Standards and Security) campaign Chris Watts explained, “Information is critical in addressing the threat posed by corruption in sport.

“The decision of the board to provide a window for retrospective reporting of alleged approaches will greatly assist the ACCESS unit in compiling a more complete picture of the source and focus of approaches which may have taken place in the past.

“Individuals may not have thought these approaches were worthy of reporting at the time and, prior to the decision of the board, may have been concerned that the fact that they did not report such activity may have put them at risk of disciplinary action”.

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