Twenty-Four Lebanese Footballers Suspended Over Bribery

In a show of typical Lebanese mentality, The Daily Star reports that 24 football players were suspended from playing because of accounts of bribery and match fixing in the Asian Football Cup.

Hoping that wasta would get them somewhere—outside of Lebanon, really?—the players reportedly accepted money from betting companies, and lost their games intentionally.

Twenty of the 24 players will be suspended for one season of playing and will be charged with fines of $3,000. Two other players are suspended for three seasons and must pay fines of $7,000, and the remaining two players, suspended for life, with fines of $15,000.

Though this serves as a dark mark on Lebanon’s international sporting reputation, I only hope that these twenty-four players serve as an example in the future. Wasta gets you in trouble everywhere else in the world—it’s about time it applied to the Lebanese.