The Chairman of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)’s Disciplinary Committee has provisionally suspended five Nepalis linked to match-fixing, AFC said in its website on Monday.

Official Anjan K.C. and the four players, Bikash Singh Chhetri, Sandip Rai, Ritesh Thapa and Sagar Thapa, were arrested last week on match-fixing charges.

“The arrests show that the AFC’s action against match-fixing is bringing results. Match-manipulation is a serious threat to the development of the game in Asia and the AFC has a zero tolerance policy towards match-fixing and anyone involved in it,” the AFC quoted its Acting General Secretary in a news on Monday.

The intelligence gathered is based on a year-long investigation, working jointly with Sportradar and the Nepali Police. The current investigation is still ongoing and the AFC may extend the suspensions for a further 20 days. The AFC has today written to FIFA asking for the bans to be imposed worldwide.

The AFC’s three-point strategy against match-fixing includes the provision of integrity training to players, team officials and match officials in all AFC competitions. All major AFC competitions are monitored, including this year’s AFC Asian Cup 2015, where zero cases of suspected match-fixing were identified.