South Korea Starcraft gamers accused of match rigging

Players control armies of different species that do battle in StarCraft

Police in South Korea are investigating allegations of match fixing by professional players of sci-fi-themed strategy game StarCraft.

The game, made by World of Warcraft developer Blizzard, is enormously popular in South Korea.

Leagues of professional players compete in televised tournaments and receive coaching and sponsorship.

However, some players and officials are alleged to have accepted bribes from gambling websites to rig the games.

There has been little coverage of the event in the country's mainstream media but the Korea Times website claims that the Korea e-Sports Association filed charges against individual players and coaches in March 2010.

According to the newspaper StarCraft accounts for 70% of so-called "e-sports" activities in South Korea.

A spokesperson from the Korean Embassy in the UK told the BBC that there had been no official statement from the Ministry of Culture but did confirm that an incident had been reported to the police.

Website Gamepron said the news was being compared with the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team were found to have deliberately lost games.