ALLEGATIONS of poaching of school athletes in Fiji for the sake of winning school competitions has come under Government’s microscope.
Through the Fiji National Sports Commission, Government will soon put a stop to this.
This was revealed yesterday by commission chairman Peter Mazey during the ‘Keep Crime Out Of Sport Plus’ regional seminar in Nadi.
Mazey said schools allegedly luring promising athletes from other schools, from maritime islands and rural areas, had been of concern for sometime.
He said unfair selection of athletes, fielding over-aged athletes, match-fixing and many other complaints surrounding sports competitions in Fiji would be addressed in the near future.
“The Fiji National Sports Commission is now working round-the-clock with other stakeholders to ensure the issue termed ‘manipulation in sports’ is addressed,” Mazey said.
“Secondary schools is the worst. Complaints about Coca-Cola Games, the Deans Trophy final, bringing in over-aged athletes and those who did not even attend those schools and many others.
“These sort of things are happening. They are being talked about in meetings and conferences. While there are lots of hearsay about match-fixing and these sort of problems, we don’t know because we don’t know how to identify the problem. This is what this seminar is about.
“In Fiji, we are a small island country. We all know each other. We are responsible to our communities, so these kinds of things could happen.
“We have to be honest in dealing with sports; we have got to stop this.” Mazey said the commission would now look at setting up an independent body to investigate complaints from members of the public.
He said there was no law in place that exactly covered the manipulation of sports in Fiji, but the Crimes Act had certain clauses in it that could cover it.
“There is no proof. It is happening in Fiji, but we hear of it happening.
This is not just manipulation. We are talking about crimes in sports.
“We are all working together with our New Zealand counterparts, with our Pacific Island neighbours because we realise it’s an overriding problem that exits across borders. We need to work on that, and as sports people are playing in most countries, we need to look after them, we need to protect our athletes from manipulation.”
