Upping the anti: ICC’s corruption unit hands out 8-year bans to UAE cricketers Ahmed & Hayat

On 29 June 2021, the International Cricket Council (ICC) published another significant decision in the area of cricket match fixing, banning two United Arab Emirates (UAE) cricketers, Ashfaq Ahmed and Amir Hayat, for a period of eight years each under the ICC Anti-Corruption Code for Participants[1] (the Code) for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for match-fixing. 

This decision follows three other recent decisions where players and a team owner in the UAE have been sanctioned for alleged match-fixing conduct. In April this year, Qadeer Ahmed, the UAE medium pacer, received a five-year ban for breaches of the Code,[2] a month after the former UAE captain Mohammad Naveed and batsman Shaiman Anwar Butt were both banned for eight years for attempted match-fixing[3].  Around the same time, Deepak Agarwal, owner of the Sindhis franchise, a team in the UAE T10 League, was banned from participating in cricket for two years after obstructing an ICC Anti-Corruption Unit (ICC ACU) investigation into match-fixing.[4] 

These cases make plain the ICC’s current focus on the UAE, and its desire to root out match fixing within sport in the country.  Indeed, whilst the ICC Anti-Corruption Tribunal (ICC Tribunal) tribunal in its decision characterised the Ahmed and Hayat case as being less serious in nature, career-ending sanctions were imposed on both players, signalling the ICC ACU’s intent to impose heavy sanctions on a wide range of actors found to be manipulating the sport in the region.[5]