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The disciplinary action comes after the Turkish Football Federation suspended 1,024 players from professional leagues on Tuesday as part of an investigation into betting.
Following this move, the matches of the third and fourth divisions of Turkish football were postponed for two weeks.
Al-Mali wrote in a post on Instagram: “I want to clarify that the reason my name appears in this file is that about five years ago, a bet was made on a match for my former team, without my knowledge or participation.”
“Since that day, I have had absolutely nothing to do with betting or this case.”
The scandal first made headlines on October 27, when the head of the Turkish Football Federation, Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu, said hundreds of referees were linked to betting accounts.
Haciosmanoglu claimed that out of 571 referees working in professional leagues in Türkiye, 371 had betting accounts and 152 were actively betting.
He said that the group included seven referees and 15 first-class assistant referees in Türkiye, in addition to 36 “classified” referees and 94 lower-level assistants.
The TFF president added that the 10 judges each placed more than 10,000 bets. One umpire placed 18,227 bets, while 142 umpires bet on more than 1,000 games. Some judges place only one bet.
Like players and coaches, match referees are prohibited from engaging in betting activities under Turkish Football Federation regulations, as well as those of FIFA and European governing body UEFA.
Turkish prosecutors recently issued arrest warrants for 21 people – including 17 referees and two football club presidents – as part of a major investigation into betting and match-fixing.
BBC News Turkey also confirmed the arrest of Murat Özkaya, the president of Super League team Eyübspor, as well as six referees and one other person.
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