The FA "has been accused of a 'dereliction of duty' after failing to question three non-league clubs about suspicious betting activity on a number of games," according to Dan Roan of the BBC.
Billericay Town, AFC Hornchurch and Chelmsford "all came under scrutiny from the FA after bookmakers stopped taking bets on several matches involving the clubs in the Conference South last season." The FA "promised to act and told clubs to 'remind players and officials of their responsibilities under the rules.'"
But the chairmen of all three Essex clubs said that "none of them have been questioned or even approached."
The former head of the FA's compliance unit, Graham Bean, said the governing body's failure to contact the clubs was "disgraceful and a dereliction of duty." Billericay Town Chair Steve Kent "now wants the FA to conduct a thorough investigation." Kent: "I am calling for the authorities in this country to investigate the possibility of match-fixing at our level of football." Concerns "were raised at the FA and within the betting industry when irregular amounts of money were gambled on certain Conference South matches last season."
For example, hundreds of thousands of pounds were "placed on Billericay's away match at Welling in November, the vast majority of it on Asian betting exchanges." Kent said,
"It was a phenomenal amount of money. There was more money bet on our game than on the Barcelona game [that week]" (BBC, 10/2).
