Munich, June 18 :

Federation of International Football Association will soon decide whether any action is necessary after Australian squad members admitted to gambling among themselves on their opening World Cup match, according to a news reports.

All players at the finals in Germany signed a pre-tournament agreement stating that they would abstain from betting during the tournament. So one wonders whether Australians forgot that they had signed the agreement.

FIFA’s disciplinary committee will now determine whether gambling among teammates is an offence which warrants punishment or just a reminder of the regulations.

Midfielder Tim Cahill revealed that several teammates backed him to score Australia’s first World Cup goal, which the Everton player did during the 3-1 win over Japan last Tuesday.

Meanwhile Argentina’s 6-0 demolition of Serbia & Montenegro has signalled more shocking news for bookies.

Betting company Paddy Power have responded to the South Americans’ commanding display

by cutting their outright tournament price from 6-1 to 4-1 — leaving them second favourites behind Brazil.

According to Spok-esman of Paddy Power, “This is by far our worst match result so far, which is of course even more great news for our punters. To be fair, they looked

absolutely awesome and every inch World Cup winners.”

“Argentina have been flavour of the last month, and now bets for them to win are flooding in. They’ve even overtaken England and Brazil as our biggest loser. Even the English are backing the Argies! We didn’t even see that in the great Maradona’s days.”

UK betting industry giants such as William Hill and Ladbrokes agree that more than one billion pounds is likely to be gambled on the tournament by UK punters alone: five times the 200 million pounds figure for the 2002 World Cup.

The growth has been in online gambling, which makes it much easier for people to place a bet from home or their workplace.

And a key difference from the 2002 World Cup is that — whereas then bets stopped just before kick-off — now people can now bet on a game while it is taking place.