Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (50 page)

During the half time
break, the Colombians made a big fuss and threatened not to play on
if the referee were to continue with his absurd calls. But that was
not the end of it. Ten minutes into the second half of the match,
Samwel awarded another, dubious, penalty kick in favor of South
Africa which they readily scored, setting the final result at 2-1 in
favor of the home team. Three penalties, three goals. Fixing matches
is no simple task. When your money is on Over, you'll sometimes feel
like there is a bad omen preventing the ball from going in the net;
you need penalties, lots of them, to save you. But after awarding
three penalties in a single match, the Kenyan referee had to go.

Dan refused to pay
me for the South Africa vs Colombia match on grounds that he had lost
money on the first game with Thailand and that he needed one more
goal in the second with Bulgaria.

"You fucker",
I thought to myself, "each click is 20 thousand dollars and
you're telling me that you needed one more goal?"

Dan's strength was
derived from the fact that nobody knew the exact figures that he was
betting. He didn't report to anybody above him and I had no intention
of going on a head-on collision with him because I needed his funding
for my fixes. Although he wasn't gifted with half my brains, Dan
thought that I would have remained his deputy for the rest of my
days. Without myself and the Europeans bringing the fixed matches to
his table, he wouldn't have been able to do a thing. You need talent
to fix a match, something that he was not endowed with. He could
speak Chinese and place bets, that's it.

Meanwhile, Goddard
was scrutinizing our matches closely for anomalies.

"Fuck", he
must have thought. "Too many penalties. Something is very wrong
here".

Ibrahim,
our referee from Niger, came into the picture for the fourth match,
South Africa vs Guatemala, on May 31
^st
.
I was sitting in Singapore watching the game on television and it was
immediately clear that Ibrahim was there to prove himself. He started
his show after less than ten minutes from kick off. There was a
hand-ball; clearly outside the box.

"No",
whistled Ibrahim as he ran towards the penalty spot with an
outstretched arm, "it's inside".

The Guatemalans
didn't argue: Ibrahim was the uncontested boss on the pitch and was
too fucking brave; beyond believable.

"Fuck, this guy
is for real", I bounced from my seat. "He is daring".

Final score, 5-0;
again, three penalties awarded, one missed.

After the match,
Ibrahim and his linesmen were paid.

"Here are 60
thousand dollars for you", Dan said to them.

Sixty thousand US
dollars bought you the full set of referees. Then, depending on their
performance, you could choose to increase their pay to 70 or 75
thousand. Usually Ibrahim would take 45 thousand for himself and give
the rest to his linesmen, who were also from Niger; Right hand and
Left hand, he called them.

I was still stuck in
Singapore with my passport impounded and was thinking of a way to get
out when, while walking around Little India, I bumped into my old
friend Raja Morgan Chelliah. Morgan and I had spent time together in
prison, so I knew him quite well. We bore a strong resemblance; so
striking, that people would meet him in the street and think it was
me. Morgan and I started to chat.

"Hey Morgan",
I asked, "what are you doing right now?"

"Nothing much",
he complained.

I handed Morgan a
thousand dollars for old time's sake.

"OK", I
said. "You take these one thousand dollars and try to solve your
problems".

I saved Morgan's
number and was waving goodbye when it struck me.

"Maybe I can
try something".

"Hey, wait"
I called Morgan back. "Come here. You look just like me. I can
give you ten thousand dollars if you apply for a passport on my
behalf. Are you bold enough to do this?"

"Sure I am",
he said.

"You'll try?"
I insisted to make sure. "You dare?"

"I will",
he confirmed.

In order to apply
for a passport in Singapore you have to go to the immigration office,
pick up a form, fill out all the details and affix your picture on
it. Then you drop the form in a box, use your ATM card for the
payment and hold on to the receipt. Three days later, you will
receive a message saying that your passport is ready.

"OK", I
instructed Morgan. "This is the deal. When collection day comes,
they will pay more attention to your fingerprints than to anything
else. You'll be wearing shades and a cap. Once you provide them with
your fingerprints, they won't care whether you are wearing shades or
whatnot... You are that person, do you understand? They'll just say:
'Take your passport and go'".

Through Raja Morgan
Chelliah, I got myself a new passport; an original one issued by the
Immigration Department of Singapore with his name and my face on it.
There was a loophole in the system and I exploited it. I then got a
set of Exclusive Sports business cards printed with my new identity
on them; I didn't want some random border officer to wonder why the
fuck I was carrying another person's business card. I was well aware
that, the minute I skipped my appeal trial, I would become a wanted
man in Singapore and I didn't want to have anything on me that could
reveal my true identity.

As I was busy
organizing my flight from Singapore, Rosemary called me. She informed
me that Brazil was going to play its World Cup warm-up friendly match
against Zimbabwe in Harare.

"I did
everything that had to be done", she said enthusiastically, "I
even traveled to Brazil to promote the event".

I could not fathom
the idea of Brazil actually accepting to play a match in Zimbabwe.

"Fuck, where
will you find the money to arrange a match against Brazil?" I
asked Rosemary. "You don't even have a decent hotel to put the
Brazilians in. How is Zimbabwe going to lure Brazil to play there?"

I didn't take
Rosemary seriously at all. What she hadn't told me was that a big
company from Switzerland was managing everything for Brazil and that
they were paying the bills. Then, when I read that the match was
actually going to take place, it was too late because they had
already picked a South African referee to officiate it.

I called Rosemary
back.

"Since you
designated a South African ref for your match in Zimbabwe", I
suggested, "why don't you try to place one of your referees in
South Africa: a one-to-one exchange".

Rosemary tried but
couldn't. By that time, Goddard and his colleagues were aware that
something odd was happening with the referees.

I assumed that there
would be no live betting for the Zimbabwe vs Brazil match because it
was taking place in Harare but I was mistaken once again. By the time
I saw that live bets were on, it was too late for me to travel to
Harare and dictate something to the Zimbabwean team; and this was a
very big event for the Zimbabweans, so I didn't want to rain on their
parade. I decided to wait until Brazil went to Tanzania for their
following friendly match; by then, with my new passport, I would be
in Africa to run the show myself.

I couldn't fly
directly out of Singapore because we use bio-metric passports and one
has to provide his fingerprints at the airport's border control so I
crossed the border with Malaysia by car. They don't ask for your
fingerprints at the ground border, they just key into their computer
that you are out of the country; date, time and all.

With
my new passport in hand, I flew from Malaysia to Johannesburg, South
Africa, where I landed right before the fifth and last match. On June
5
^th
,
2010, South Africa was set to play against Denmark. I did not
physically attend the game at the stadium because Anthony was already
there and I didn't need to show my face. I called him to be briefed
on the match and he informed me that Goddard was giving him a big
headache.

"What's his
weakness?" I inquired.

"Women",
said Anthony.

"Are you asking
me to change my profession, Anthony?" I asked. "I cannot
turn into a pimp for Goddard's sake".

"No, no",
he answered. "Goddard is often seen with a young Thai girl".

"You don't know
who she is", I replied. "Forget the girl and try to find a
way to get into his good books

Then, right before
the start of the South Africa vs Denmark match, Anthony called again.

"Our ref has
been pulled out", he cried.

We had designated
Charles, our extra referee from Tanzania, to officiate the match, but
had asked him to fake an injury so that he could be replaced by
Ibrahim just before kick off.

"Just ask him
to warm up", I had told Anthony, "after 30 minutes, he
pulls a muscle and we put Ibrahim in".

But on the morning
of the game, Anthony did something very fucking stupid. He ordered
Charles to report sick and obtain a medical certificate saying that
he was unfit to officiate the match. The second the news reached the
fourth official who was accompanying our three refs, he called
Goddard.

"Charles is not
feeling well", the fourth official said to his boss.

Goddard saw his
chance and decided to take it. As the match was about to kick off, he
was speeding to the venue in his car with his own referee sitting
beside him. He was literally flying.

Goddard
reached the stadium at the 11
^th
hour; Charles had already been
replaced and Ibrahim had warmed up. He was standing in the tunnel
that leads to the pitch with his linesmen Right hand and Left hand by
his side. The match was about to commence: floodlights on; live
telecast running; anthems ready to play; the two teams lined up
behind our star ref. Then, suddenly, Ibrahim was pulled out and
replaced with Goddard's protege, Matthew Dyer. Once our ref was out,
nothing could be done; we lost our match and one million dollars went
up in smoke. We wanted three goals, instead, the match ended 1-0 in
favor of South Africa. Steve Goddard mother-fucker.

Anthony and I met in
my hotel room after the match for the post-mortem and I gave him a
piece of my mind. I'm usually a cool person but I cannot stand it
when people think that they are smarter than me in my field. My
instructions had not been carried out and I lost my head.

"Are you a dumb
fucker or what?" I shouted in his face. "I give the
instructions and you follow them, you don't do your own thing. The
referee is not a soldier who gets a medical certificate to avoid the
battlefield. And to do so six hours before the match is like asking
Goddard to get his man warm and ready to take over. How fucking
stupid is that? You gave them a head start to fuck us. If he had
known about it 30 minutes before kick off he wouldn't have made it
there on time even if he had a helicopter in his back yard".

From my hotel room I
then called Steve Goddard.

"I am the CEO
of Football4U", I said. "How dare you pull my referee out
of the game? Are you aware that we have a contract in our hands that
gave us the right to designate the ref for that match? We have a
legal agreement with SAFA and you do this to us? I don't think it
ethical of you to pull a FIFA-accredited referee out from the field
just seconds before kick off. It's totally absurd. We are going to
sue you in court and that includes SAFA. We will hold you responsible
for this and sue you fuckers, especially you, Steve Goddard!"

Later, when the SAFA
bubble burst and Goddard spoke to the press, he greatly exaggerated
my threats. Had I really menaced to kill him, he would have gone to
the police. I was in a foreign country with a passport that didn't
belong to me; I wasn't so dumb as to make such threats to an old and
stubborn Irishman. Had I overstepped my bounds, SAFA would have never
given us another match. Instead, somebody within the South African FA
probably heard the news that we were going to sue them and decided to
close the matter by providing us with another friendly match: Nigeria
vs North Korea.

Meanwhile,
Brazil's second warm-up friendly game was going to be played in Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania. I tried to find a complacent referee to
designate prior to the match, but my refs were all in South Africa at
the time. I had some existing connections with the Tanzanian players
through Danny's work during the CECAFA Cup in Kenya; I could
manipulate five or six guys in the team but they needed to be
instructed. Anthony and
George
were too busy to travel to Tanzania
so I got two rookies to fly over from Singapore and run our show. One
was an Indian-Singaporean called Vicky and the other a
Chinese-Singaporean called Ricky. Vicky was tasked with briefing the
players on what to do while Ricky was a runner and carried the money
for them. Vicky and Ricky were promised 60 thousand US dollars for
their trouble.