Lanka Premier League team co-owner arrested over match-fixing allegations

[p]The suspect, identified as Manjot Kalra, was arrested at a hotel in Colombo as he was "about to pay" a player 9.5 million rupees ($28,700), Inspector Supun Vidanage of the Sports Investigation Unit said.[/p][p]He said Kalra would be produced before a magistrate soon.[/p][p]The player had alerted police when he was first approached about 10 days earlier, Vidanage said, without naming him.[/p][p]The sixth edition of the T20 domestic tournament [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/cricket/galle-marvels-GQjmZEom/jaffna-kings-0tYVWWQl/?mid=Odpz9Mcd"]is set to open on Friday night[/a] in the capital Colombo with a match between the [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/jaffna-kings/0tYVWWQl/"]Jaffna[/a] and [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/galle-marvels/GQjmZEom/"]Galle[/a] teams. Kalra is a co-owner of the Jaffna team.[/p][embed guid="314e621d-f345-4142-a9fd-7ab0f669cf0e" url="https://x.com/LPLT20/status/2077772204444733930" social-type="twitter" /][p][b]The tournament has been marred by allegations of corruption.[/b][/p][p]In January, a Sri Lankan court handed the British owner of an LPL team a four-year suspended sentence over match-fixing.[/p][p]Bangladesh-born Tamim Rahman, owner of Dambulla Thunders, admitted to attempting to influence a player and organise betting.[/p][p]Rahman was handed a four-year jail term, suspended for five years. He was also fined 24 million rupees.[/p][p]The conviction was in line with a strict 2019 law aimed at preventing corruption in sports in Sri Lanka.[/p][p][b][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/cricket/sri-lanka/lanka-premier-league/"]Follow the Lanka Premier League with Flashscore.[/a][/b][/p]