A former A-League player admitted to deliberately earning a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin" during a covertly recorded conversation in a police cell.
Ex-Macarthur Bulls team captain Ulises Davila, and midfielders Kearyn Baccus and Clayton Lewis have been accused of manipulating yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.
Davila, 33, allegedly acted as the conduit between the southwest Sydney team's players and a Columbian criminal known as 'J Col', organising for the cards to occur during certain games.
Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, swapped jerseys for crisp shirts as they faced a Sydney Local Court on Thursday to plead guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
A second charge of participating in a criminal group was withdrawn for both midfielders, who will return to court in September for sentencing.
They agreed they had been paid $10,000 each by Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.
Davila, the alleged local ringleader of the criminal group behind the betting corruption, has not yet entered pleas to the nine charges against him. He will return to court in August.
According to the facts agreed by his former teammates, the former captain orchestrated the 50 "suspicious" bets placed on the Macarthur FC game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.
The wagers were all placed at the same time before the match started, and all involved exactly two bets of equal amounts predicting the same outcome.
During the game at Allianz Stadium, Davila earned the first of the team's four yellow cards for delaying the start of play by kicking the ball away after the referee blew the whistle.
Twenty minutes later, Lewis received the same caution for unsporting behaviour after he pushed a Sydney FC player in the chest and caused him to fall backwards on the ground.
Baccus attracted another rebuke for tackling an opponent to the ground from behind towards the end of the game.
The successful bets resulted in a payout of more than $200,000 and caused the wagering operator a loss of an estimated $167,387, according to the facts.
There is no evidence either Baccus or Lewis had any involvement in placing the bets, but they were both paid $10,000 by Davila after the match.
Lewis was paid in three instalments, but Baccus devised a more elaborate explanation for his payment, telling Davila to describe it as a car payment for a Volkswagen Golf.
"If anyone asks, you (are) buying a car off me," he said in the WhatsApp messages quoted in the facts.
"Yes bro. Whatever you want papi," Davila responded.
After his arrest, Baccus told police the captain had not yet collected the car he sold him while maintaining he only took yellow cards for playing aggressively or in service of the team.
Lewis, meanwhile, was put in a holding cell after his arrest and confessed to the other occupant that he deliberately solicited a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin".
The conversation was recorded with a surveillance device.
Lewis was recruited to the betting corruption scheme because he was known to be a gambler and thus seen as "influenceable", according to the facts.
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.
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