Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (51 page)

"Concede five
goals", Vicky told the Tanzanians, and they did.

The end result of
the match was 5-1 in favor of Brazil and we cashed in on the Over.
Tanzania scored a single goal that cost us a lot of money because the
handicap was five-ball for Brazil and the Over was 5.5. With a 6-nil
we would have cleared both handicap and Over; 5-1 only won us the
Over, not the handicap.

After
the game I focused my attention on the reparation match that SAFA had
offered us: Nigeria vs North Korea, set to be played on June 6
^th
,
2010. This time around I was going to be in the stadium with Anthony
to oversee things directly. I did not need Dan anymore because I had
enough money to place my own bets but I still gave him a call to
share the information. I thought that later on I might need to use
him again, so I decided to keep him in my good books.

"Go and play
this game, Dan", I told him, "it's fixed".

"I know",
said the arrogant fuck, "Alassane called me to say that the ref
is the same one that officiated the Guatemala game".

"Go and play",
I ignored his comment, "there will be two goals in the second
half of the match".

Once again, Steve
Goddard tried to spoil our show. He was a very obstinate old man; a
big troublemaker. If it weren't for him, we would have been in cruise
control in South Africa. Goddard's referee had been originally
designated to officiate the match but SAFA had replaced him with ours
in order to honor the contract that they had signed with Football4U.
About an hour before kick off, as I stood chatting with Anthony
outside the stadium, I saw his face contract and his eyes widen.

"Goddard",
muttered Anthony, "there he is".

I turned to look and
saw a limping old man with a stick, the only white guy among a sea of
Africans, advancing hastily towards me. His head moved sideways as he
tried to get a clear look at me through the crowd. The fucker
probably wanted to see who the man that had threatened to sue him on
the telephone was. I took a few steps back, turned around, and mixed
myself amid the crowd to prevent him from getting a good look at my
face.

Goddard had missed
me but hadn't surrendered. During the match, in a desperate last
attempt to replace our referee with his, he approached the Nigerian
delegation.

"I don't know
why these people changed the referee I had appointed for this game",
he insinuated. "It's strange, don't you think?"

I was absorbed by
the match when suddenly the same Nigeria FF official that I had met
in Abuja neared me.

"Why did you
change the ref?" he investigated.

"You want to
win, right?" I said between my teeth. "Just leave the ref
alone".

I could see what
Goddard was trying to do. He was hoping that the Nigerians would
lodge a complaint so that he could replace my ref with his.

"OK", said
the Nigerian official, "but do I get something?"

"You
mother-fuckers", I wanted to say, "I got you qualified to
the World Cup, you didn't give me a single match and now you want
money?"

But I couldn't
afford more trouble so I gave in.

"Of course you
get something", I sighed. "Here are three thousand dollars
for you".

"Make it five"

"Mother-fucker.
Here's your five".

Steve Goddard kept
his ref on the side of the pitch for the entire match, warm and
ready, hoping to take over. But Nigeria vs North Korea was Ibrahim's
show. My instructions were simple: second half, two goals. This time
around Ibrahim only had to award a single penalty. The match ended
3-1 in favor of Nigeria and we won our bet.

In the days
following Nigeria vs North Korea, Japan played against Zimbabwe in
another warm-up friendly match. Although we could not place our
referee in that game, we had the entire Zimbabwean team on our side;
the game could have been a nifty extra. Unfortunately, there were no
live bets for it, so there was nothing to rig.

In
the end, Goddard didn't file any complaint and everything was
hush-hush. Three of our matches had produced profits, one was
uninfluential and only two had backfired. Each match was worth about
1.5 million US dollars in profit, making us walk away with a good
four to five million dollars. As the final rounds of the 2010 World
Cup began, Dan flew back to Singapore while Alassane remained in
South Africa for a few more days, mingling about and trying to gather
useful information and contacts. As for myself, I stayed in South
Africa for a couple of weeks to watch a few of the World Cup matches
together with
George
.
I remember attending one of the matches in Durban, which reminded me
of Singapore's Little India: the place was literally infested with
Indians and Pakistanis. Durban was quite a place: beautiful town,
nice weather; people went surfing. While the World Cup progressed, I
did try to approach a couple of referees, but my attempts were
unsuccessful. In one case I used Ibrahim to ask one of his colleagues
if he was interested in helping us out but the ref was too afraid. In
my second attempt, I approached a referee
who
had already worked for me and who
went on to officiate two World Cup matches. I offered him 400
thousand dollars for each of his matches but, due to a previous
misunderstanding, he thought that I had a loose tongue and refused my
offer.

The
World Cup was also a chance to punt
my
freshly accumulated wealth. While in
South Africa, I wagered 1.2 million Singapore dollars on Spain vs
Honduras; my single largest bet on a match that I hadn't fixed. On
the eve of the game, the odds were two-ball for Spain, so I placed
800 thousand dollars on them winning by three goals or above. On the
day of the match, the odds had risen to 2.25 and I threw an
additional 400 thousand dollars on Spain. George and I attended the
game at the Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg. A fixed match is easy
money because you have no pressure but, when you throw over a million
on a game that you haven't rigged and you are in the stadium watching
it, the adrenaline really starts pumping. David Villa played an
excellent match, scoring two goals for Spain in the first hour of
play. Then, around the 62
^nd
minute, Spain was awarded a penalty;
Villa walked confidently towards the penalty spot. Had he pulled a
hat-trick, I would have collected 1.2 million. Fuck, Villa missed;
mother-fucker. In the last half hour of the game, Villa received a
through-ball near Honduras' net, but on the first touch he sent it
wide, took the shot and missed. Then Fabregas had an open sitter but
the first touch was poor once again, taking the angle away from him.

"Fuck", I
thought, "if only the first touch had been good, the ball would
have been in the net".

The final whistle
blew and the 400 thousand dollars that I had placed on 2.25 were
gone; the rest, which I had placed on two-ball, were returned. When
you lose, it takes some time, a few hours or so, for you to recover
and look back on your defeat.

"Villa
mother-fucker", I thought. "How could he miss the penalty?"

You never blame
yourself for a loss; you blame the players. The highlights from the
match flashed in my mind over and over. If the score had been
one-nil, I could have gone to sleep peacefully and thought: "Fuck,
no luck".

But
it
was
two-nil and
there was a penalty in favor of Spain; the money was as good as in my
pocket. I was so close. I think that Spain fucked the match up. If
the same game were to be played again, I would punt another 1.2
million expecting Spain to win by three goals because I know that
they can easily put three goals past Honduras. I call it the
adventurous punt.
After
Spain vs Honduras, I continued to bet on the South African matches
until most of the money that I had made with my fixes was gone.

Before leaving South
Africa, I asked my family in Singapore to visit my relatives in
Johor, Malaysia. I booked a ticket and flew there to say goodbye to
them.

"I am not going
to see you for a long time", I told them, "I don't know how
long".

I would not be
returning to Singapore. With the remainder of the money from the
South African World Cup I repaid 300 of the 600 thousand dollars that
I still owed Benny, the bookie from Macao. Then, while I was still in
Johor, Sivarajan introduced me to an Indian-Singaporean called
Mohamed Hassan.

"Hey, why don't
you use this guy", said Sivarajan, "he has some problems;
some debts".

Mohamed Hassan was
renting a very posh office in Singapore's business center, Suntec
Tower Three, Penthouse level. He was running a human resource
business from his office but was broke and the rent was too heavy; a
lot of people have luxurious offices in Singapore but borrow money to
pay the rent. Mohamed was borrowing money and had an outstanding debt
of about 100 thousand dollars with some loan sharks. He agreed to
allow my newly rebranded company, Exclusive Sports, to operate from
his office. I hired Hassan's services, bid farewell to my family and
friends, and left for the UK.

I
could not and did not want to return to Singapore, I had lost faith
in the judiciary and was not prepared to spend the next five years of
my life up the river so, after the World Cup in South Africa, I
decided to settle in London. At first I stayed in a hotel, then I
rented a flat close to the Wembley stadium,
within
the Indian community; I had been
there several times before during my previous trips to the UK and I
was more comfortable living among Indians. I paid six months rent
up-front and walked into my new apartment. I got myself a
subscription to Tamil cable-TV; I cannot live without Tamil
entertainment and Indian food.

Everyone thought
that I was doing something fishy while in England, but I was not.
When I live in a foreign country, I try not to do anything funny
there. While in London, I just had an ordinary life; I would get up
in the morning, get myself a cup of coffee, a newspaper, then take a
jog around the Wembley stadium. As I ran, I thought about the
thousands of Singaporeans who craved to catch a game in Wembley; and
here I was, jogging around it like it was my home. I spotted some
Tamil boys and stopped to ask them to play some football with me.

"That sport
will make us wheeze", they declined. "We'd rather play
cricket".

I
patronized the betting shops around Wembley. When it comes to
gambling, the UK is worse than Singapore. There are way too many
betting shops and too many options to bet on: dogs, horses, roulette
machines, you name it. I am not a machines gambler. I don't fuck
around with machines; they can send you home without your underwear.
I've wagered on dog and horse races from time to time but never
really got hooked
on
them. The people in London's betting
shops seemed to like me. I never gave them any trouble and I was
always polite and respectful towards them. I respect people when they
respect me. I can turn nasty if you are rude and disrespectful but I
never had any problems while in the UK. I honestly don't know how
most people can afford to survive in London; most of them seem to be
broke. Marijuana is sold on every street corner and some guys roll
joints and puff in public as if they were licensed to do so. London
is boring, the British are stuck up and some of them are racist.
White people are racist towards the Asians. So are the Pakistanis,
who are persuaded
they
are
British and
therefore look down on the Sinhalese. They don't realize that they
are nothing more than the first batch of immigrants. The Sinhalese
look down on the Somalis or form gangs within their own community and
fight one another. I wondered why these guys traveled all the way to
the UK to form gangs and fight within their own community. They could
have done that in Sri Lanka or saved their energy for a better cause
and fought the Sri Lankan army.

One morning, as I
was walking towards Wembley High Road, I was addressed by four white
Irish boys riding in a car. They told me that they needed to drive up
to Belfast and had no money for gas. They begged me to purchase a
laptop computer from them so that they could use the money to get
home. I sympathized with their plight but was not too keen to buy
another laptop.