Six people have been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into an international match-fixing ring targeting English lower league football matches. The suspects, thought to be held at a police station in the Midlands, reportedly include current players and the former Premier League footballer turned agent Delroy Facey.

The arrests, made by the new National Crime Agency over the past two days, mark the first time that police in the UK have amassed enough evidence to arrest those involved in seeking systematically to fix matches to make money in the vast illegal Asian betting markets.

"Six men have been arrested across the country as part of an NCA investigation into alleged football match fixing. The focus of the operation is a suspected international illegal betting syndicate," said the NCA on Wednesday night. "The NCA is working closely with the Gambling Commission and the Football Association. This is an active investigation and we are unable to provide further detail at this time."

The arrests are believed to relate to non-league football and follow an undercover investigation by the Daily Telegraph that suggested fixers from Asia were targeting matches in Britain. In a series of covert conversations recorded by the newspaper over the past fortnight one of the arrested individuals claimed that lower league matches could be fixed and correctly forecast the outcome of three games played by the same team. It quoted him as saying the price for fixing a match in England was £50,000.

Over recent years an epidemic of match fixing has been uncovered in European football. Largely fuelled by unregulated betting markets in Asia, the ease and speed with which bets can be placed over the internet and mobile phones and the globalisation of crime, sport and betting, arrests have been made across the continent. In February Europol said it was probing 380 suspicious matches in co-operation with police forces across five countries. Recently attention has turned to Asian gangs thought to be targeting lower league matches in England, with millions of pounds wagered on a single non-league tie.

According to international betting monitors, some nondescript non-league matches were attracting as much money as a Barcelona game. The fixers are thought to focus on the goals scored market, betting on a minimum number of goals and bribing teams or players to concede.

Earlier this year UK bookmakers stopped taking bets on matches featuring AFC Hornchurch, Billericay Town and Chelmsford City due to integrity concerns. In March the FA told all the Conference South clubs "to remind their players and officials of their responsibilities under the betting and integrity rules of the FA". But the FA was criticised for not doing more to investigate the issue.

Former player-turned agent Delroy Facey is among those who have been arrested on suspicion of match-fixing. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images Sport

In Australia, four British players who spent part of last season with clubs in the Conference South have been arrested and charged for alleged fixing in the Victoria Premier League this year. They have been suspended by Fifa and are due in court later this month.



An FA spokesman said on Wednesday night: "The FA has been made aware of a number of arrests in relation to an NCA investigation. We have worked closely with the authorities in relation to these allegations. The FA will make no further comment at this time due to ongoing investigations."

The Football League's chief executive, Shaun Harvey, said it had not been contacted over the investigations. "The threat of corruption is something the Football League and other football authorities treat with the utmost seriousness. The integrity of our matches and our competitions is the bedrock of the domestic game."