HANOI, Jan. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam' Investigation Agency has just decided to prosecute a former head coach and a former player of a local soccer club for rigging matches at the 2000-2001 national tournament, local newspaper Labor reported Tuesday.

    Under the decision of the agency under the Ministry of Public Security on Monday, the former coach of the Pjico Song Lam Nghe Anclub, Nguyen Huu Thang, and the former player, Nguyen Phi Hung, were prosecuted for the charge of organizing gambling.

    Thang, who was the club's coach assistant at the 2000-2001 national tournament and recently relieved from the head coach postby the club, confessed that he gave cash to two other local teams so that his club could win the tournament's championship easily. Hung, a club member at that time, bribed another team.

    Hung, who has not turned up as requested by relevant agencies during their investigation process, is likely to be hunted for by local police shortly, said the report.

    In 2004, Hung was suspended from playing for five years because he was charged with organizing playing cards. Any form of gambling,except those designated for only foreigners and overseas Vietnamese, is illegal in Vietnam.

    Besides involvement in their club's match-fixing scandal, Thang and Hung allegedly asked several members of the national U-23 soccer team to fix a qualification match against Myanmar at the 23rd Southeast Asian Games in November 2005 in the Philippines.

    Regarding the match-fixing case at the regional event, seven members of the national U-23 soccer team have been prosecuted for either gambling or organizing gambling, of them four have been detained.

    In addition to match-fixing cases with the deep involvement of bookies, the police have recently uncovered many cases, in which local clubs bribed referees and their opponents so that they got promoted, won championships, or did not have to be relegated in national tournaments.

    Since August 2005, local police have uncovered some 50 local corrupt referees, as well as managing directors and coaches of some clubs. To date, 19 out of 60 local referees and teams' officials who have allegedly involved in match-fixing over the past two years have been prosecuted. Enditem