Robbie Slater warns of immeasurable damage if Australia drops guard on match-fixing FORMER Socceroo Robbie Slater says he would be shocked if there is match-fixing in Australian soccer but warned of potential serious damage to the standing of the sport here in the wake of revelations in Europe that a massive Asian criminal network had rigged hundreds of top-flight matches. Slater's comment came as Football Federation Australia moved quickly to reaffirm its commitment to protecting the integrity of Australian soccer against match-fixing and declared it was doing everything it could to ensure it didn't happen here. The football world was rocked after European police said a five-country probe had identified about 380 suspicious matches targeted by a Singapore-based betting cartel. Its illegal activities stretched to players, referees and officials across the world and at all levels of the game. Matches included two Champions League games, one of them in England, and World Cup qualifiers, netting criminals more than €8 million ($10.36m) in profit. VIDEO: Slater's warning "It is clear to us that this is the biggest investigation ever into suspected match-fixing," Europol director Rob Wainwright told a news conference in The Hague, adding that the fallout hit at the heart of the world game's reputation. Match-fixing is a significant threat to football involving a broad community of actors. Despite Singapore being on Australia's doorstep, the A-League and Socceroos have not been drawn into the scandal but Slater, a commentator with Fox Sports, said it was impossible to rule anything out. "I think anyone can," Slater said when asked yesterday if the sport in this country could be susceptible. My experience in France says it can happen to anyone. Corruption, it's not exclusive to one country. Australians are good sports, as we say, and we don't like cheats, so you'd love to think that's the case (Australian soccer not being involved in match-fixing). The A-League is a very new competition and I'd be very surprised if anything has gone on here, but when you look at the amount of competitions mentioned in this scandal you can't rule anything out. Of great concern to the worldly-wise Slater is the immeasurable damage that could be done, especially in Australia. "Other countries will survive because football is such a great culture," he said. If this is that deep then it can hurt the game in this country, not necessarily because something has happened here, but because Australians don't like cheats. This can have an effect on us for sure. Slater said he was not surprised by the latest revelations. He said his eyes were first opened to the presence of match-fixing when he played for Lens in the French first division in the early 1990s. I was playing there when the president of Marseille, Bernard Tapie, was jailed (he served five months) for bribing players of rival club Valencienne. Marseille won the game 1-0 but was subsequently stripped of the title. It was a massive story and blew French football apart. It really opened my eyes to these sort of things. FFA chief executive David Gallop admitted match-fixing "has the potential to cause serious damage to the integrity and image of any sport." "While our national code of conduct contains strong provisions relating to betting and match-fixing, as a governing body we have put significant processes in place to try and safeguard against betting and match-fixing-related issues," Gallop said. We have also taken steps to enter into product fee and integrity agreements with a number of betting operators in Australia and, most recently, we've commenced a partnership with Sportradar (which has expertise in monitoring football matches). We are determined in our efforts to eliminate the potential of match-fixing from football. FFA signed with Sportradar in December. The company's list of clients includes UEFA, the English, German, French and Scottish FAs and the Italian Lega Pro. Additional reporting: AFP