Spanish police arrest 17 in fourth-tier match-fixing probe

Players and officials at a Spanish fourth-tier club were among 17 people arrested for alleged involvement in match-fixing, national police announced on Thursday.

A police statement said 11 of the arrests took place in Melilla, one of the two Spanish enclaves on the coast of Morocco, but did not name the club involved.

Spanish daily El Pais said the club was Huracan Melilla, the worst professional club in Spain last season, and the arrests were made in June.

Spanish media reported the other five arrests were in Malaga, across the Mediterranean on the Spanish mainland.

The investigation was launched in February, when several online betting companies warned of a large number of bets placed in Melilla "on specific results of football matches played by a team from the city", according to the police.

At the same time, LaLiga received an anonymous report alleging the same thing.

The club president is suspected of being at the head of the scam "involving trusted players", who in turn used third parties to place the bets.

Melilla played last season in the fourth tier of Spanish professional and semi-professional football which is divided into 18 regional groups.

They finished last in the Andalusian group, with just five points from 30 matches, the worst of any team in any of the groups.

They finished 20 points from safety, winning one match and conceding 119 goals while scoring just eight.

Spanish media reported that the matches attracting scrutiny came with the club already doomed to finish in the bottom two places in their division.

The police said they do not know how much money or how many matches were involved and they are not ruling out further arrests.

During the searches, the police said they also found