SYDNEY (AP) — A former club captain who was honored as the A-League’s player of the year has admitted his role in a lucrative match-fixing scheme and pleaded guilty to the charges in an Australian court on Thursday.
Ulises Davila, 34, was accused of being the ringleader of the betting scheme which involved him and two Macarthur Bulls teammates deliberately earning yellow cards to help guarantee a betting outcome.
The charges related to six games in Australia’s top-flight soccer competition across the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
The former Macarthur FC captain pleaded guilty to facilitating and engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
Eight charges against him, including that he directed and participated in a criminal group, were withdrawn by prosecutors in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court.
Davila is due to be sentenced Dec. 19.
During a match on Dec. 9, 2023 against Sydney FC, Davila and his teammates Clayton Lewis and Kearyn Baccus were handed yellow cards.
Davila was cautioned for delaying play by kicking the ball away, Lewis was carded or pushing an opponent in the chest, and Baccus was punished for a poor tackle.
Bets had been placed on the Macathur team receiving at least four cards during the game, according to facts agreed to by Davila’s teammates.
Winning payouts for the bets placed through a gambling site totaled more than 200,000 Australian dollars ($132,000). Davila paid Lewis and Baccus A$10,000 ($6,600) each for their roles in the betting scam, the teammates said.
Lewis and Baccus were handed good-behavior bonds and escaped conviction in September, with the magistrate finding the pair were “right at the bottom of the scheme.”
Lewis and Baccus emphasized they’d become involved at the request of Davila, who they claimed was “not only the captain of the team, but the captain of the scheme.”
All three players were suspended and later lost their contracts with Macarthur FC.
The club previously issued a statement that said “serious deficiencies” around integrity processes in Australian soccer needed to be addressed.
Davila was an elite youth talent who played at a youth World Cup for Mexico and was signed by Premier League club Chelsea as a 20-year-old.
He never made Chelsea’s first team, and instead played in a number of leagues, including in India, before arriving in the A-League in 2019 with the New Zealand-based Wellington Phoenix. He won the Johnny Warren Medal as the best player in the league in 2020-21 and then moved to Macarthur.