As many as 60 Canadian Soccer League (CSL) games are alleged to have been fixed since May, according to a report produced by the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS), reports the Daily Telegraph. The ICSS report concludes that this year’s CSL, a summertime tournament based in Ontario, appears to have been organised ‘for the primary purpose of perpetrating an organised betting fraud, with match-fixing the means to achieve this’.

According to the ICSS report, ‘Canadian Soccer League (CSL) 2015 Season’, 42% of this season’s First Division games have shown signs of suspicious betting activity. It identifies 44 suspicious figures between 10 May and 7 September. The ICSS confirmed the conclusions of the report, and said that a media statement would be issued today.

The Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) voted to expel the CSL from membership last year. ‘It was determined that the Canadian Soccer League did not fulfil its member obligations and violated rules and regulations of the Canadian Soccer Association, resulting in its expulsion and the cancellation of all rights in relation to the national governing body’, read a 28 February 2014 statement. However, this expulsion was three years after a CSL match was identified as one of 47 allegedly rigged by Croatian Ante Sapina, who was jailed for five and a half years by a German court in May 2011. Spain had already been jailed in 2005 for his part in referee Robert Hoyzer’s fixing of German football matches. The CSA and CSL have both been approached for statements.