According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, the STA is under suspicion of coercing referees to make favourable decisions towards certain athletes during national team try-outs in order for them to be picked for the national squad.

The raids were carried out by the National Police Agency (KNPA) who obtained computer hard drives and confidential documents such as accounting books from the two offices in Seoul to corroborate the charges.

A 61-year-old man, identified only by his surname Yim, is also said to have had his house visited by the KNPA officials for allegedly leading the match-fixing scandal and siphoning funds from the Government.

He is accused of deliberately distorting the financial accounts of the organisation in order to steal the funds assigned by the Seoul Municipal Government.

The investigation is one of many being carried out across South Korea and comes after the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in January asked the investigators to look into 10 national and regional sports federations, including the STA, for various alleged corruptions.

The Ministry said that it had uncovered 337 different corrupt practices at 493 sports agencies, including accounting fraud, nepotistic hiring of executives and embezzlement following a nationwide inspection of nearly 3,000 sports bodies at the national, provincial and municipal levels.

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