Police investigating Celtic game regarding match fixing

Police are investigating a game between Celtic and Hamilton from last season after a SPFL player was arrested earlier this week for a suspected case of matcch fixing.

The entire Scottish football community was shocked earlier when Hamilton Academical’s Dougie Imrie was arrested after an irregular betting pattern was reported. The match in question was one between Celtic and Hamilton when the Hoops walked out with a 3-0 victory.

The incident came in the 82nd minute in the game when Imrie picked up a yellow card for a challenge on Celtic captain Scott Brown. And it appears that an unusually high number of people had bet on Imrie being booked. But the thing is, the Hamilton Academical man is not someone who is a stranger to the referee’s book.

In 483 matches in Scottish football, Imrie has picked up a staggering 118 bookings. On average, that is one in every four games. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that people expected him to be carded in the game. It is also worth noting that while Imrie was arrested, he was not charged.

The Hamilton man appears to be confused by his arrest and the nature of the investigation itself. At the end of the day, it was more likely that he would get booked against a team like Celtic than get on the scoresheet.

As reported by the Daily Record, Imrie said:

"“If you were going to bet on anything, it would be me getting a yellow card. It happened all the time. The odds would’ve been pretty short. There’s some players who just need to look at the referee the wrong way and they get booked. That was me.“I played the game in a committed fashion and always gave my best for my clubs. I’d never jeopardise that. The money talked about is the bookies paying out £11,000 on stakes of about £5000 and the betting pattern involving about 15 people.“Divided by 15 people, it means you’re only talking about a few hundred pounds each. It’s nonsense to think I’d contemplate wrecking my future, reputation and even the risk of going to jail on something like this. I’d like to think at the end of the police probe I’ll receive an apology but I’m not holding my breath.”"

Gambling has been an issue that has surrounded Scottish football for some time now with Ladbrokes and William Hills sponsoring the competitions. But it does not look like this recent investigation has any ground to stand on.