Elgin City striker Kane Hester has been acquitted of charges in a case of match-fixing which saw the player and accomplices allegedly try to defraud bet365, a sportsbook, out of roughly $17,000 in bets.

Bettors Admit to Conspiring, Get Cleared Anyway

The player was accused of purposefully receiving a yellow card to ensure that he realizes a proposition bet. However, a jury at Dundee Sheriff Court cleared the player, and his alleged accomplices, Calvin Parrot, and Brodie Stewart Myres, of wrongdoing.

This decision strikes as odd, as previously, Hester and his abettors were reportedly caught in the act. Investigators insisted that they had messages that proved that Hester was encouraged by his friends to get the yellow card, known as “getting booked” in soccer vernacular.

Hester also told police officers who visited his home that he knew why they were there, and reportedly said that he would “show them the money.” An officer’s body cam has the young player confessing that he was booked and that his friends had paid him for that.

However, the court did not take this as the strongest evidence in deciding the player’s fate. For one, Hester insisted that he had forgotten about the arrangement with his friends and said that he was naturally a very aggressive player and statistically very likely to receive a card while playing.

He also claimed that the foul he committed was actually “natural” and the jury seemed to agree. While sports bodies take match manipulation very seriously, the player also had the referee in his corner, with Willie Collum confirming that the foul the player was booked for was naturally-occurring.

Too Good to Handle

While Hester was cleared for evident reasons, the jury also considered and acquitted his coconspirators. Both Parrot and Myres have been found innocent in the case. Myres was particularly cheeky in court, taking a swing at bet365 and claiming that he had to bet through a friend’s account because the company was not happy that he was winning too much.

“They are not interested in having winners,” Myres told the court. Regardless, the case is a particularly curious one. Usually, sports bodies have zero patience for cheaters, but in this case, all three perpetrators – despite admitting to conspiring -were cleared of wrongdoing.