The three Pakistan cricketers at the centre of a global storm over betting allegations are highly unlikely to face criminal charges, legal experts said today.
The Test captain, Salman Butt, and the pace bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, left their base in Taunton this morning for a Kensington hotel ahead of a pivotal meeting in London tomorrow with the Pakistan high commissioner, the Pakistan Cricket Board and lawyers. Informal talks continued at the hotel where the three players are staying, with officials from the PCB, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the International Cricket Commission and the high commission involved.
The three players are expected to be dropped from the rest of the tour, although not formally suspended, while investigations continue. However, some Pakistan officials are still believed to be arguing that they should be allowed to play in the forthcoming Twenty20 and one-day matches.
While their team-mates are in action against Somerset in a warm-up match 162 miles away, the trio will be questioned over the allegations in Sunday's News of the World that they were paid to bowl no‑balls at specific points during last week's fourth Test at Lord's.
Following further questioning from police, they will return to join their team-mates on Saturday. Scotland Yard detectives raided the team hotel on Saturday and seized mobile phones, laptops and money.
But legal experts with direct experience of other sports integrity cases believe it is highly unlikely the three cricketers will face any criminal charges.
"One of the massive problems in any sport is defining how you actually define what is happening as criminal," Neill Blundell, the partner and head of the fraud group at the law firm Eversheds, who acted for one of the defendants in the Kieren Fallon case, said.
"What they often have difficulty doing is evidentially linking what is going on with the betting. If all you've got is one person saying certain things, it can be very difficult to link that behaviour to what is going on on the pitch, even if it seems logical to do so."
Blundell, who represented Fallon's co-defendant Miles Rodgers against charges of conspiracy to defraud, said the police and prosecutors would tread carefully following a string of high-profile cases in which they had failed to make charges stick.
"Proving that link beyond a reasonable doubt is very difficult to do. What might appear strong evidence initially can be very difficult for a law enforcement agency. As has been proved by other similar cases, proving guilt and making evidence admissible can be very difficult."
Others sports integrity experts said that because it appeared no bet had actually been placed, it was difficult to see how a charge of conspiracy to defraud – the route most expect the police to go down – or the untested offence of cheating introduced in the 2005 Gambling Act could be made to stick against the players.
Rick Parry, the former Liverpool FC chief executive who chaired a government-ordered review of sports integrity issues, agreed. "I don't think [the case] has any evidence at all," Parry told CricInfo. "Unless the News of the World placed a bet – which would be highly unlikely because in so doing they would have carried out a criminal act – then there doesn't appear to be any betting activity at all associated with these particular allegations. It places the ball, to pardon the pun, squarely back into the hands of the cricket authorities."
Mazhar Majeed, the 35-year-old Croydon businessman at the centre of the News of the World allegations, who was alleged to have told the Pakistan players to deliberately bowl no balls in return for £150,000, was arrested on Sunday and released on bail. Today it emerged Majeed had been arrested as part of a separate money-laundering investigation by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs.
With the players unlikely to face criminal charges, there is greater onus on the next move of the ICC's anti-corruption and security unit. The ACSU has been in constant communication with the police and will pool evidence it has collected over several months with that garnered by the News of the World and law enforcement agencies. Its investigators will not question the players directly until police give them the go ahead to do so.
Haroon Lorgat, who arrived in London today to meet the PCB chairman, Ijaz Butt, said he expects the ICC's investigation to come to "some sort of conclusion" by the weekend. England face Pakistan in the first of two Twenty20 matches on Sunday, when it is understood the News of the World is planning to publish further revelations.
Reports in India today contained further details of the ASCU's investigation into spot-fixing claims against Pakistan players. The Times of India claimed it wa examining recordings of conversations and text messages exchanged between Pakistan players and Majeed even during the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies.