Danish badminton duo admit to being approached to fix matches by Malaysian bookie

It seems like the scourge of matchfixing, which was till date limited to cricket and football matches, has hit Badminton too, as two prominent Danish players have revealed recent attempts to get them to fix matches.

Singles world number nine Hans-Kristian Vittinghus and doubles player Kim Astrup revealed to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation that they were offered to fix games on a popular social networking site by a Malaysian man, who also claimed to have earlier fixed matches in the Singapore Open and Thomas Cup.

"It's against everything I stand for as a badminton player. I was never in doubt that the (Badminton World) Federation should be notified immediately, and today I'm happy that we had him reported," said Vittinghus to a leading tabloid.

Though Astrup, who was offered approximately 3000 euros to alter results, which also involved some of his own games, said he was not surprised about match fixing in the sport, still he was surprised that it was taking place at the highest level.

"Occasionally one sees results that seem unbelievable, but here there's real evidence that match fixing takes place," added Astrup to the tabloid.

Malaysian badminton authorities (BWF) released a statement which said that they were co-operating with the police in an investigation into the matter.

"BWF is very satisfied that the players who were contacted about the match-fixing offer completely rejected it and also reported the case through the BWF 'whistle blower' system that has been set up precisely to handle such incidents," read the statement.

Both the BWF and Malaysian police were unavailable for further comment.

The last time that Badminton saw a match fixing saga erupt was during the 2012 London Olympics when eight women's doubles players were disqualified for deliberately losing their group games.