The top professional football league in South Korea has imposed lifetime bans on 10 players accused of match fixing.

韩国顶级专业足球联盟对10名非法操纵比赛的球员实行终生禁赛。

One of them is said to have accepted 120m won ($110,000; £67,000) to lose a match, and then shared the proceeds with team mates.

Eight of the players indicted¹ are from the Daejeon Citizen team. It is the toughest-ever penalty issued in the K-League's 28-year history.

They could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty in court.

Daejeon Citizen lost 0-3 to the Pohang Steelers on 6 April.

Brokers² and players from other teams have also been indicted.

An 11th player received a five-year ban.

The scandal has also been linked to a player found dead last month in a hotel room.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported a suicide note had been discovered referring to the match-fixing ring.

The K-League will ask the Korea Football Association to block the banned players from taking up other football-related posts.

"We made the decision, determined³ that this would be the first and the last match-fixing scandal in the league," Kwak Young-Cheol, head of the K-League's disciplinary（规律的） committee, told journalists.

"Players must keep in mind that they will be kicked out of the sport permanently⁴ if they get caught committing wrongdoing."

Mr Kwak also said the players' bans would be reviewed if they were cleared of wrongdoing in criminal proceedings⁵.

The Daejeon Citizen team will lose 30% of its annual share from Sports Toto, the national sports lottery⁶（体育彩票） . The loss amounts to about 270m won for the team.

Professional teams regularly receive portions of the sales of the lottery.

Gwangju FC and Sangju Sangmu Phoenix⁷, which each have one player banned, will each lose 10% of their lottery share.