LI XUEBAI JAIL: Five months PENALTY: $5,350 -- ST PHOTOS: WONG KWAI CHOW

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They each pleaded guilty to one or two charges of accepting between $1,200 and $4,000 from team manager Wang Xin to throw games.

Wang has since absconded.

Of the six players, five - Li Xuebai, 30, Li Zheng, 26, Dong Lei, 26, Peng Zhiyi, 22, and Tong Di, 26 - were each jailed five months and ordered to pay penalties of between $2,200 and $6,200.

The sixth, Wang Lin, 20, was given four months' jail and ordered to pay a penalty of $4,000.

The five-month terms that the other five got from District Judge Toh Yung Cheong match what Zhao Zhipeng - the player dealt with in February - got on appeal.

Zhao, 26, was given seven months for match-fixing, but this was cut by two months on appeal.

Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, who reduced the length of his sentence this month, said Zhao had been under the thumb of a controlling general manager and had 'no choice' but to throw the match.

The seven players are the largest group convicted in a corruption scandal since the league's inception in 1996.

Their passports were impounded by the anti-graft agency last November, when the probe began.

The seven were hauled to court on Feb 6 to face 24 counts of bribery involving $27,950, accepted in return for deliberately losing six S-League matches last year.

Wang Xin, 40, was to have appeared in court on Jan 16 to face multiple charges but he failed to show up. A warrant is out for his arrest.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Chay Yuen Fatt told the court yesterday that Liaoning Guangyuan, a debutant in the S-League for the 2007 season, finished in 10th place. It won eight matches, drew five and lost 20.

Investigations showed that Wang Xin, who had the authority to hire and fire players, had placed soccer bets through a Chinese national friend back home for certain matches. The bets were placed online at a China betting website.

He then approached the players individually to ask them to lose the match by a certain number of goals in return for bribes.

Defence counsel Raymond Lye told The Straits Times that he was glad that the sentencing court took into account the bind that the players were in - they 'had no choice of their own, including the number of matches fixed'.

Each of them could have been fined up to $100,000 or jailed up to five years or both on each charge.

Asked to comment on the case, S-League chief executive officer Winston Lee, who is also the FAS' new general secretary, said that foreign teams have made the S-League 'more exciting, more colourful as well as drawn new fans'.

He said the incident involving the Liaoning players reinforces Singapore's tough stance against any form of corruption.

elena@sph.com.sg