Will Match Fixers Target the 2014 Brazil World Cup? T&T subject to this as well

[Controversial]

So how much money pass to T&T players in the wc in 2006? How much money pass to keep Latas on the bench? Or to keep T&T losing matches in qualifiers, when certain players staying at separate hotels than others, making them more subject to match fixing...

And if some of you feel our players are immune to this type of corruption, you are naive and wrong. T&T probably could have made more WCs but match fixing was probably a part of our downfall as the players are not paid enough and have an opportunity to strike it rich...

You ever wonder why the other nations call us the perennial underachievers? So much talent to dominate the region, but money talks and match fixing is real, been saying this for years. A good start for an investigation would be the Guyana qualifier.

Will match-fixers target World Cup in Brazil?

In a 2008 interview, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said, “You want to speak to me about the Asian match-fixers? I have known about this problem for years.”

By: Declan Hill Special to the Star, Published on Mon Jun 09 2014

It was one of the biggest soccer matches on the planet: the third-place game of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. It took place at the end of a seemingly successful tournament played in the United States. The weather had been mostly hot and sunny; the stadiums largely full. The games exciting and broadcast to billions of people around the world. There were hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorship deals.
Yet there was a gang of match-fixers at the tournament who targeted the third-place match between Bulgaria and Sweden, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to players to throw the game. Some of those players suspect they may have succeeded.

The World Cup in Brazil, which begins June 12, will be a $4-billion extravaganza of television rights, sponsorship deals, sold-out stadiums and exciting soccer. However, its credibility is under threat from Asian match-fixers linked to a sports gambling market worth hundreds of billions dollars.

The fixers linked to the people who targeted the 1994 tournament have returned many times and to almost every international soccer tournament in the last 20 years.

As an investigative journalist, I was able to go to Asia and infiltrate the gang of fixers and hear their stories of fixing top-level matches. Now in this Toronto Star investigation based on corroborating interviews with players, coaches, referees, gamblers and some of the highest officials in the soccer world, we report that the gang of match-fixers, who successfully fixed soccer leagues around the world, have been at the Under-17 World Cup, the Under-20 World Cup, the Olympic soccer tournament, and the women’s and men’s World Cups.

The fixers are helped by a largely unspoken dilemma at the heart of international soccer: some of the players at the big tournaments do not get paid.

Despite all the fans, all the sponsorship deals, all the television broadcasts — there will be players in Brazil who won’t be paid a penny. Some of them may look around the sold-out ground and probably think something like, “Someone around here is making an awful lot of money, and it ain’t me!”
FIFA, the international football federation that organizes the tournament, pays each participating country’s soccer federation $9 million (U.S.) to cover tournament expenses. Most deals are arranged so that $1 million covers hotels, airfares, etc.; the remaining $8 million is supposed to be divided between the players, coaches and the federations.

In many countries, agreements between the players and their federation are concluded in advance of the tournament. However, in some countries there are long rounds of haggling that do not always end well.
During the last World Cup in 2010, host nation South Africa agreed on players’ salaries and bonuses just days before the opening game.

After the tournament, the Nigerian government was so disappointed in its team’s performance, and over the allegations of corruption around it, that it launched an official inquiry into its soccer officials. The government discovered that the entourage of coaches and physiotherapists had swelled by dozens of unrelated hangers-on. As well, the team’s hotel had been cancelled, flight plans disrupted and there had been an argument over players’ bonuses.Host nation South Africa agreed on players’ salaries and bonuses just days before the opening game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the entire Togo team threatened to strike in the middle of the tournament. The players refused to play their final game, claiming their officials were withholding their bonuses. High-ranking FIFA officials had to intervene and pay the players directly before Togo would take the field.

Throughout international soccer there are examples of badly organized financial scandals relating to player payments. Even players from the United States went on strike in 2005 to hammer out a pay deal. The Honduran team at the 2010 World Cup — which had qualified out of Canada’s CONCAFF group — had a months-long argument over the nonpayment of a $1-million bonus scheme to their players and coach.
For years, match-fixers based in Malaysia and Singapore have been going to international soccer events in Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, Latin America and Europe. The fixers corrupted international games played in Singapore, including four players on the Canadian national team who were charged with taking money in a game against North Korea in 1986.

In the early 1990s, they gathered in the stadiums where illegal bookmakers would take bets on the joint Malaysian and Singaporean soccer league. The fixers destroyed the league. A Royal Malaysian Police Force investigation discovered there were cartels of players fixing on almost every team. One former player said the corruption was so bad that during one game there was a fight at halftime in the dressing room between players working for different fixers.

The fixers use associates — called “runners” — to approach players or referees to get them to fix. The fixers organize the game and then, like brokers, sell the fix to high-level gamblers. Above the fixers are influential businessmen who back the more expensive fixes and pay the muscle to make the network run smoothly.

These men are mostly Asian, however, a group of Russian criminals has joined the syndicate in the last few years. Little is known about this group as they generate such fear. One of the European fixers told a police officer who interrogated him, “I will tell you everything, except the Russians (sic). If I talk about the Russians I will die.”

Yet in the early days of the match-fixers, there was one king. In interviews, fixers or their associates have spoken about “Uncle Frankie,” an Indonesian-Chinese businessman who figured out the global expansion of soccer meant lots of fixing opportunities.

At the 1994 World Cup, four Swedish players, days before the bronze medal match, were approached by a man who called himself “Frankie Chung” with a business proposition: lose the tournament’s second most important game and get lots of cash.

Years later, four Swedish star players spoke out about the approach. Tomas Brolin, Lars Eriksson, Klas Ingesson and Anders Limpar say they were too frightened to say anything at the time. They told the Swedish magazine Offside that Chung, whose identity has never been confirmed, was staying at the same hotel. He was very confident and friendly. He gave them his business card and invited them to his room. There, Chung pulled out wads of $100 bills and got on a mobile phone to another fixer who was, allegedly, approaching some of the Bulgarian players.

The Swedes said they immediately refused and left. Yet, in the Offside article, the goalkeeper Eriksson said he had wondered about the game, saying some of the Bulgarian team appeared listless for long periods at the end of the first half when Sweden scored three unanswered goals.
Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted Singaporean fixer who has confessed in court to fixing games across the world, writes about “Frankie Chung,” whom he calls “Uncle Frankie,” in his recently self-published autobiography, Kelong Kings (Kelong is a slang Malay word for fixing).

“Guys like Uncle were the bigger crooks: what I do now, they were already doing back then. I grew up watching these big fish fix matches under everybody’s noses. I learnt from them: they were my masters . . . I thought if they could do it, then so could I.”

Uncle Frankie used the same techniques the next year at the Under-20 World Cup in Qatar. Two Portuguese players were approached by a young woman from Thailand. She invited them to her room with “an interesting proposition.” There, they discovered a table covered with money, several Cameroonian players and Uncle Frankie. The Portuguese players immediately left and reported the incident. Top Asian soccer officials would later confirm that the fixers had approached players from Cameroon, Portugal, Honduras and Chile.

Years later, Kwesi Nyantakyi, the president of the Ghana football federation, was unsurprised when it was discovered there had been an attempt to fix an international match featuring his team. He said in an interview, “In every competition, you find gamblers around. Yes, every competition, every competition, they are there. In all the major tournaments, World Cup, Cup of Nations. The gamblers are not Africans, they are Europeans and Asians. So, they have a lot of money to bet on these things.”

Ghana players, including their former international captains Stephen Appiah and Yussif Chibsah, said in interviews that match-fixers approached their team at the 1997 Under-17 World Cup in Malaysia, the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The Ghanaian women’s team at the World Cup in China in 2007 was also approached. The players said they turned down all offers but were never surprised to receive them.

FIFA knows about this problem. During an interview in February 2008, its president Sepp Blatter began by saying, “You want to speak to me about the Asian match-fixers? I have known about this problem for years.”

The World Cup in Brazil, which begins June 12, will be a $4-billion extravaganza of television rights, sponsorship deals and sold-out stadiums. However, its credibility is under threat from Asian match-fixers linked to a sports gambling market worth hundreds of billions dollars.
Andre Penner/AP PHOTO

The World Cup in Brazil, which begins June 12, will be a $4-billion extravaganza of television rights, sponsorship deals and sold-out stadiums. However, its credibility is under threat from Asian match-fixers linked to a sports gambling market worth hundreds of billions dollars.

FIFA’s attitude seemed to have been that these fixers were the unluckiest tourists in the world. The fixers went to all these tournaments around the world, where they approached players, coaches and officials — but, FIFA insisted, they never succeeded in bribing anyone. Yet they kept returning.

However, in January of this year, Ralf Mutschke, a former German police officer who is FIFA’s head of security, told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that fixers may attend the World Cup in Brazil and may approach players and teams. Certain key matches (third games in the opening round, for example) would be in serious jeopardy. He outlined measures FIFA will take to protect soccer’s credibility. Guaranteeing players a minimum salary and bonuses, however, was not one of the FIFA measures.
The German Organized Crime Task Force, based in the small city of Bochum, has been investigating match-fixing gangs since 2008. The Bochum detectives now estimate that fixers succeeded in corrupting at least 150 games between 2009 and 2011 — about one international game a week.

“These games we have found are simply the tip of the iceberg,” Friedhelm Althans, a Bochum police detective, told a Europol press conference in 2013.

Even top international matches in Europe have been fixed, according to the judge presiding at the trial of Croatian brothers Ante and Milan Sapina.
The trial was the first, real spotlight into the world of match-rigging. The investigation started in October 2008, when German police officers heard on a wiretap a mobster threatening the life of a daughter of a prominent prosecutor.

The police moved fast and the investigation eventually involved hundreds of police officers across Europe. They discovered an independent link to a global match-fixing network run out of a small Berlin café — Cafe King. At its heart were the Sapina brothers.

At the end of their trial, in a dramatic confession, Ante Sapina read a list of 47 games that he helped fix, including World Cup qualifying matches and European nations Championship games. Both Sapinas are serving lengthy prison terms in German jails.
20 years of match-fixing in soccer
International soccer tournaments with the confirmed presence of match-fixers:
1994 - World Cup (USA)
1995 - Under-20 World Cup (Qatar)
1996 - Olympics (Atlanta, USA)
1997 - Under-17 World Cup (Malaysia)
2004 - Olympics (Athens)
2006 - World Cup (Germany)
2007 - Women’s World Cup (China)
2008 - African Nations Cup (Ghana)
2010 - World Cup (South Africa)
2011 - Gold Cup (Mexico)

The Sapinas would link up with Singaporean match-fixers who placed bets on the crooked games on the sports gambling market in Asia. This market is huge. Patrick Jay, a senior executive for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, one of the most profitable sports gambling companies in the world, says, “FIFA likes to talk about $4 billion at the World Cup. We have a word for the day when the Asian sports gambling market clears $4 billion. We call it — ‘Thursday.’ ”

For soccer fans it gets worse. Much worse. According to a confidential FIFA investigation report obtained by the Star, the Asian match-fixer who was so inspired by the man who approached the Swedish players — Wilson Raj Perumal — was fixing games in South Africa days before the start of the last World Cup.
He had help from some — as yet unknown — South African football official. According to the FIFA investigators, some of the same people who were helping organize the last World Cup were, “complicit in a criminal conspiracy to manipulate these matches” and “Were the listed matches fixed? On the balance of probabilities, yes!”

In these circumstances, it is difficult to think that the match-fixers will not be in Brazil trying their luck.
Declan Hill, an investigative reporter based in Ottawa, is the authoritative voice in journalism about/on match-fixing in soccer. His book, “The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime” (2008), is a best seller in 21 languages, and his journalism on the fixing scandals can be found in the New York Times, the Guardian and the Toronto Star. He obtained his doctorate on the study of match-fixing from the University of Oxford and, following his infiltration of the Asian gangs he has testified before the Council of Europe and the International Olympic Committee. His latest book, “The Insider's Guide to Match-Fixing in Football,” was published in November.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/06/09/will_matchfixers_target_world_cup_in_brazil.bb.html

[Controversial]

I wonder why they are so silent? 


FIFA leaders silent on match-fixing scandal

By: Rob Harris The Associated Press, Published on Mon Jun 02 2014

FIFA's top two officials, Sepp Blatter and Jerome Valcke, remained silent Monday over questions about the integrity of Qatar's winning bid for the 2022 World Cup.

Blatter met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in a ceremony in the capital Brasilia, where he handed over the World Cup trophy ahead of the tournament that starts next week. He spoke only briefly, wishing Brazil well, and did not take questions.
“This is a historical, emotional moment passing on the cup of cups from the hands of the last champions to the president of Brazil,” Blatter said, speaking a mix of Spanish and Portuguese.

Valcke, FIFA's general secretary, spoke earlier at the opening of the World Cup media centre in Rio de Janeiro. Walking through the centre, he was asked for a comment about Qatar. He shook his head several times and kept walking without saying a word.
The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain reported it has obtained millions of documents detailing irregular payments to football officials from a former member of FIFA's executive committee, Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar.

Rousseff, speaking in the presidential palace, hinted at possible protests during the World Cup but said visitors would get a warm welcome.
“We are a democratic country,” Rousseff said. “A country that respects freedom of protest, and freedom of expression. . . . To foreigners who plan to visit, we wish them — in the name of all Brazilians — a warm welcome. You're going to find a transformed Brazil.”
Brazil, where the World Cup opens June 12 in Sao Paulo, has been widely criticized for delays in preparing stadiums, and a failure to deliver other promised improvements to roads, rails and airports. The government has also faced protests over the $11.5 billion spent on the World Cup, with about $4 billion for 12 new or renovated stadiums.

Four are expected to become white elephants after the World Cup. “In the next six weeks we will continue to work a lot so the World Cup 2014 will be the cup of cups,” said Rousseff, who is up for re-election in October.

Also Monday, George Weah, the 1995 world soccer player of the year, said he was questioned as many as five times by a team investigating allegations of corruption in bidding to hold the World Cup.

Former U.S. federal prosecutor Michael Garcia is leading ruling body FIFA’s probe into the voting on the 2018 and 2022 host countries.
Weah said Garcia’s team asked him about a 2010 e-mail published by The Sunday Times. According to a redacted copy of the message, Weah sent his Bank of America account number in Pembroke Pines, Fla., to the assistant of Bin Hammam, who was then on FIFA’s executive committee.

Weah, who has homes in Florida and his native Liberia, said he first met Bin Hammam in Paris in 1998. Bin Hammam was a “father figure” to him, and any interaction with him had been personal and not related to Qatar’s bid, Weah said by phone.
“I have a constitutional right to talk about anything outside football” with him, Weah said. “He has been a special friend.” He declined to discuss why he might have sent Bin Hammam his bank details.

Weah said the FIFA investigators taped an interview with him in New York last year and spoke to him “two, three, four, five” times in total.
Meanwhile, FIFA vice-president and African football head Issa Hayatou denied allegations that he received free private medical treatment and other favours for backing Qatar to host the 2022 Cup.

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our Community Code of Conduct. For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website Terms and Conditions.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/soccer/2014/06/02/fifa_leaders_silent_on_matchfixing_scandal.html

[ribbit]

Referee! How Wilson Raj Perumal made football pay the penalty

By Don Riddell and Matthew Knight, CNN
August 28, 2014 -- Updated 1055 GMT (1855 HKT)

(CNN) -- Who'd be a referee? When the crowd aren't getting on your back you've got the players acting up or giving you an earful.

So if someone described your refereeing as "the best," you could be forgiven for feeling a small surge of pride. But when the person praising you is the world's most notorious match fixer, then it's time to show yourself a red card.

Wilson Raj Perumal says he corrupted many football players and officials during a long criminal career, but there is one person who stands out from the crowd. His name was Ibrahim Chaibou, a referee from Niger.

"He was the best, he was the best, but not from FIFA's point of view," Perumal told CNN during a wide-ranging television interview about his match-fixing days.

Perfect partner

The Singaporean, who is now helping European police with match-fixing investigations, claims to have rigged the results of up to 100 matches over a 20-year period, boasting of a 70-80% success rate.

Chaibou, who he describes as "very bold," became one of his favourite match officials.

According to Perumal, the referee's first match fix was an international friendly between South Africa and Guatemala in May 2010 -- one of several warm-up matches played ahead of the 2010 World Cup which the Rainbow Nation hosted.

Watching highlights of the game on YouTube, Perumal gives a running commentary on the major incidents.

"It's crazy," Perumal says as Chaibou awards South Africa a penalty kick. The quality of the footage is poor, but the fixer knows what happened.

"This is not a penalty. The offence took place outside the box," he says.

The man from Niger is allegedly at it again in the second half, this time awarding Guatemala a penalty for a handball. Replays show the ball striking a South African player's chest.

Chaibou awarded three penalties in all during the match and, according to Perumal, fulfilled his task of overseeing a high-scoring fixture. The game finished 5-0 to South Africa.

"We paid him very good money," Perumal says.

Elaborate scheme

Perumal says getting Chaibou onto the pitch was the result of an elaborate scheme where the match-fixer used his now-defunct company 'Football 4 U International' to target the South African Football Association (SAFA).

"I had this idea to influence the warm-up games without the knowledge of the association concerned.

"So I remember writing a formal letter to the association requesting that my company 'Football 4 U' supply referees from Africa at our expense," Perumal explains.

Supplying referees in this way is a breach of FIFA rules, but Perumal's idea was accepted.

A similar con was staged for a mini tournament in Antalya, Turkey in February 2011.

Fixers at an Asian-based syndicate approached the Football Associations of Bolivia, Bulgaria, Latvia and Estonia inviting them to an all-expenses paid event. But they were all duped, because the referees had allegedly been paid to fix the results.

Terry Steans, a FIFA investigator between 2010 and 2012, recalls the set up.

"It involved four international teams and an empty stadium, no ticket sales and yet the game was (open) for betting," Steans explains.

"I sat and watched match fixers with a briefcase full of cash to pay the referees."

Seven goals were scored in the two matches played -- all of them from the penalty spot.

"I think that's the most shocking for me to see a fixing syndicate in total control of two international friendlies, played in the same stadium to no crowd at all. It's eerie, absolutely eerie," Steans said.

FIFA handed down life bans for the six match officials who Perumal says were targeted by his former associates in Singapore.

Paying the penalty

Perumal insists he wasn't involved in the Turkey scandal -- one of the most notorious and brazen match fixes of recent times -- but his fingerprints were clearly all over the warm-up matches in South Africa.

A FIFA report, seen by CNN, concluded that the match involving Chaibou was "manipulated for betting fraud purposes" and noted that "several SAFA members were either easily duped or extremely foolish" when organizing the games.

Chaibou continued officiating into 2011, notably taking charge of an international friendly match between Nigeria and Argentina in Abuja in June that year.

Nigeria played a match against a second-string Argentina side -- a surprising detail in itself, but what caught the eye was how the match ended.

When 90 minutes of regulation play was over, Nigeria was leading 4-0. Four or five minutes were due to be added for injury time, but the score remained the same. Chaibou kept the match going.

In the 98th minute he awarded a penalty to Argentina for a handball that replays show never happened. Argentina converted the penalty and the match ended 4-1.

Analysis of betting patterns revealed a surge in bets for a fifth goal to be scored.

Chaibou, who retired from refereeing before FIFA could take disciplinary action, denies fixing matches, but isn't saying much more.

When contacted by CNN, the former referee said: "I have put an end to my career and everything is finished." He added: "What is past is past."

For what it's worth, Perumal thinks referees should be paid more.

"They get about $1,000 or maybe $1,500 (per game) which is very small money. In my opinion, FIFA should pay them a lot more or they should start to professionalize this officiating."

When asked about the payment of referees, FIFA told CNN: "Corruption does not depend on how much you are paid, but instead, and above all, honesty and values of the individual."

Steans says the time may have come to protect referees from the fixers.

"When you're on your own it's very difficult to turn down two or three guys that are pressuring you," he says.

"It's the easiest thing in the world to write a manual and say this is how you should react. In the real world, it's a difficult thing in isolation to do for a referee. So they're vulnerable and I feel they'd need more protection."