Another South African sport, another scandal.

Just weeks after winning the right to stage the soccer World Cup in 2010, the sports-mad country is reeling from a match-fixing probe involving soccer officials and referees.

The investigation is sure to evoke painful memories of cricket's match-fixing saga, which saw the late former national captain Hansie Cronje banned for life.

It also comes in the wake of local rugby woes which included allegations of racism in the national team.

South African police said on Sunday they were set to arrest a number of officials and referees after a probe into match-fixing.

Johannesburg's Sunday Times newspaper said 20 high-profile referees, as well as club officials and players across the first division and the elite Premier Soccer League (PSL), had been implicated.

OPEN SECRET

Soccer insiders and journalists said on Monday that the throwing of matches has long been an open secret and that it was time to clean up the sport, which is wildly popular among South Africa's black majority.

"There is plenty (of match-fixing) going on and I've been involved many years in the football here. I have been approached myself to let another team win, I've been threatened," one former PSL coach, who asked not be named, told Reuters.

"They have to stamp it out now, this is madness... How can we host the World Cup in 2010 if this going on? The world will laugh at us."

Local soccer watchers agreed.

"There's been talk of it for a long time but it's not new to world football, it has happened elsewhere," said Jermaine Craig, a soccer writer for the Johannesburg-based Star newspaper.

"It's good that something is finally going to be done about it... I hope it will be a fair and comprehensive probe.

"If you spend your life supporting a certain team...you may feel cheated if a third or fourth party influenced the outcome of results."

Former cricket icon Cronje plunged from grace because of a match-fixing scandal in 2000, when he admitted accepting bribes from bookmakers.