Kathmandu: The captain of Nepal's football team was among five current and former international players who have been arrested over match-fixing allegations, including during qualifiers for the last World Cup in Brazil, police said Thursday.

Skipper Sagar Thapa was detained in Kathmandu on Wednesday as part of a coordinated series of arrests in the capital, which also saw four current or former team-mates on the national side taken into custody. Detectives said the arrests came after investigations found significant sums of money had been deposited in the players' bank accounts from suspected match-fixers based in Southeast Asia.