The teams at the centre of match rigging suspicions in the Irish League have been warned to go out and give 100% today.

Raymond Kennedy, Irish Football Association (IFA) president, said bookmaker Paddy Power’s decision to suspend bets on all fixtures except those involving the title race was disappointing but vowed to crack down on wrongdoing.

The company said there had been an unusually high number of bets placed on teams which have no chance of winning anything or being relegated, but added it would still accept wagers on Linfield and Glentoran.

Mr Kennedy said: “We are not pointing the finger here but we want them to go out and play the game.

“If we get any follow-up information we would see fit that we have to do something about it.” He said four matches had been taken off the betting schedules, understood to be mid-table clubs whose matches are meaningless.

“This is very common across the whole of Europe at this stage in the season,” he said.

“We used to believe things like this only went on at the higher level. It is very disappointing that it could be going on at this level.”

Paddy Power will not resume betting on the bulk of Irish League sides until the start of the new season.

A spokesman said: “We are taking a lot more money on games than we would expect to take at this time in the season and all one-way traffic.”

He said it would be unfair to single out teams.

“Linfield and Glentoran are the only teams with anything to play for but any other fixture it would be hard to offer odds as they are so uncompetitive.”