It was confirmed last week that Dougie Imrie had been arrested but NOT charged with regards to an alleged match fixing incident.
According to Record Sport – the arrest is surrounding a game Imrie played with Hamilton at Celtic Park last year when the bhoys soundly beat the Accies 3-0.
The police arrested Imrie after they picked up on a suspicious betting pattern on the game that day centered around the player getting a yellow card.
Imrie was booked late on in that game for his tackle on Scott Brown, at the time, no one batted an eyelid as the Celtic captain usually gets battered at some point during the game.
RecordSport writes: Imrie said he’s confused over what has sparked the probe as it centres on a match played more than a year ago on January 26, 2019, when Accies were beaten 3-0 by Celtic.
He picked up a yellow card in the 82nd minute for a bad foul on Scott Brown. In 483 matches in Scottish senior football, he was booked 118 times – once every four games.
Imrie is pleading his innocence and feels harshly treated by the whole thing.
Imrie Said: “If you were going to bet on anything, it would be me getting a yellow card. It happened all the time. The odds would’ve been pretty short. There’s some players who just need to look at the referee the wrong way and they get booked. That was me.
“I played the game in a committed fashion and always gave my best for my clubs. I’d never jeopardise that. The money talked about is the bookies paying out £11,000 on stakes of about £5000 and the betting pattern involving about 15 people.
“Divided by 15 people, it means you’re only talking about a few hundred pounds each. It’s nonsense to think I’d contemplate wrecking my future, reputation and even the risk of going to jail on something like this. I’d like to think at the end of the police probe I’ll receive an apology but I’m not holding my breath.”
Dougie had many things seized in the early morning raid on his house, like sim cards and anything that may prove his guilt or innocence. We must stress he’s not been charged at this moment, setting up a match fixing angle at Celtic Park wouldn’t be the most clever thing someone has ever done.
We’ll bring you any more on this as we get it.
