Prosecute And Jail All Those Who Turned Ghana Into A Global Power In Soccer Match-Fixing - And Profited Mightily Financially From So Doing

It is most unfortunate that the vociferous Kennedy Adjapongs, and their sly loudmouthed-cohorts, are up in arms against Anas Amereyaw's Tiger Eye Investigations - because they exposed the vile, amoral, super-greedy hypocritical-rogues who saw their membership of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), as a golden business opportunity: and therefore set about ruthlessly exploiting Ghanaian soccer, in the most egregious of fashions, to the detriment of the local game, ultimately. It made some of them very wealthy individuals indeed. So sod the uncouth and hypocritical Kennedy Adjapongs. Yabre mu.

Doubtless, there are some in our country who might say that it is a moot point, but clearly, it is criminal to neglect the fiduciary duty imposed by law on executives to handle company funds honestly, and in transparemt fashion, at all material times, when working for any organisation - such as the GFA - accorded the privilege of being categorised by the relevant state agency, the Registrar General's Department, as a company limited by guarantee.

To be able to hold all the 'FIFA money-choppers' in Ghana to account, the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media ought to press FIFA HQ in Switzerland to make public all payments it has made to the Ghana Football Association, thus far, over the entire period since it joined FIFA in 1958. Simple. Haaba. And, to use a Ghanaian pidgin English phrase, all those who 'chopped' some of that FIFA money 'small' - transfered cash meant to help grow the game in Ghana not enrich greed-filled match-fixing racketeers - must be investigated, prosecuted and jailed, if found guilty of making disloyal payments from sums transfered from FIFA HQ to the GFA's bank accounts.

The GFA officials who were driven by unfathomable greed, and ended up destroying the various Ghanaian soccer leagues, in order to allegedly profit financially from secret payments from overseas criminal betting syndicates, ought to pay a heavy price for turning Ghana into a global power in soccer match-fixing. Full stop. Shame on them.

Finally, to enable soccer lovers in Ghana to see how similar cases have been handled elsewhere by law enforcement authorities, and the media, we have culled and posted a New York Times article by Declan Hill, entitled: "Inside the Fixing: How a Gang Battered Soccer's Frail Integrity", for their perusal and enlightenment. We rest our case.

Please read on:

"Rigged: Second of Two Articles
Inside the Fixing: How a Gang Battered Soccer's Frail Integrity
Image
After his 2011 arrest in Finland, Wilson ess opportunityRaj Perumal,
above right in suit, charted for the police the organization of a
Singaporean match-fixing syndicate that he worked for. The syndicate
was run by Tan Seet Eng, known as Dan Tan, above top right, who
collaborated with Ante Sapina of Croatia, left, to fix hundreds of
soccer matches worldwide in nearly every league.CreditIllustration by
Sam Manchester/The New York Times; from left, photographs by Sean
Gallup/Getty Images, Kaisa Siren/Associated Press and FIFA Report

By Declan Hill

June 1, 2014

ROVANIEMI, Finland — A man arrived at the police station here in 2011
with an unusual tip. He told the police that a Singaporean man was
fixing matches with the local professional soccer team. The police
were incredulous.

This city on the Arctic Circle is known as the hometown of Santa
Claus. It boasts a theme park with reindeer, elves and jolly St.
Nicks. It is also a popular destination for Asian couples looking to
make love under the Northern Lights. Rovaniemi is known for many
things, but not for organized crime.

“Then after a few days, we started to realize that we had something
real,” said Arttu Granat, a police detective at the time who hunts
moose on the weekends. “So we started to build up the surveillance
team.”

The detectives soon discovered that Wilson Raj Perumal, a match fixer
from Singapore, was toiling away in Rovaniemi, working with several
players, unbeknown to the coach. Mr. Perumal was considered a risk by
his associates in a Singaporean match-rigging syndicate, so the group
had sent a representative to Finland to tip off the police, Mr. Granat
said.

Mr. Perumal was arrested and given a choice: Talk or be sent back to
Singapore, where his punishment might be severe.

Mr. Perumal talked. His account — along with confidential documents,
judicial investigations and interviews with people with knowledge of
the syndicate's operations — revealed how pervasively illicit gambling
operations have infected global soccer, leaving the legitimacy of what
fans see on the field more fragile than ever.

The match-fixing syndicate Mr. Perumal worked for very effectively
exploited soccer's vulnerabilities. According to European police
investigators, the syndicate has manipulated hundreds of professional
soccer matches around the world by identifying players and referees
ripe for bribery — particularly in countries that pay low wages.

The syndicate's schemes often succeeded with apparent ease, including
the rigging of exhibition games in the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup,
raising concerns about the ability of officials to thwart match
fixing.

The Apprentice Fixers

Mr. Perumal learned his trade in an informal school for match fixers
in Singapore, along with Tan Seet Eng, a Singaporean man known widely
as Dan Tan. In the early 1990s, they would gather in the stadiums
where illegal bookmakers would take bets on the Malaysian-Singaporean
soccer league.

The fixers were so successful that a Malaysian Cabinet minister
estimated that they succeeded in fixing more than 70 percent of the
league's matches. The corruption was so bad that the
Malaysian-Singaporean league collapsed.

At the bottom of the fixers' hierarchy were runners: the go-betweens
for the players and the fixers. Above the fixers were influential
businessmen with the money to back the more expensive fixes and the
protection muscle to make sure the network ran smoothly.

In the syndicate's early days, there was one king, known as Uncle
Frankie, a legend among match fixers. He was a Chinese-Indonesian
businessman who sometimes used the name Frankie Chung, but his real
name could not be confirmed. He knew that the global expansion of
soccer presented lots of fixing opportunities. Uncle Frankie would go
to major international tournaments, like the World Cup, and try to
bribe players and referees.

Uncle Frankie taught Mr. Tan and Mr. Perumal the dirty secret of
international soccer: Many teams and their personnel are poor, so they
often have players, coaches and referees open to bribes.

“In every competition you find gamblers around,” said Kwesi Nyantakyi,
president of the Ghana Football Association. “Yes, every competition.
Every competition, they are there. It is done all the time in major
competitions. In all the major tournaments, World Cup, Cup of
Nations.”

“The gamblers are not Africans,” he added. “They are Europeans and
Asians. So they have a lot of money to bet on these things.”

With its talented players with little money, Ghana is one of the
countries that fixers frequently target at international tournaments,
Mr. Nyantakyi said. So he was not surprised when, in 2007, it was
discovered that there had been an attempt to fix an international
match involving Ghana's celebrated goalkeeping coach, Abukari Damba,
who was working with the Singaporean fixers.

After some players turned him in, Mr. Damba confessed and said in a
Ghana Football Association hearing that he had worked with the
Singaporean fixers for 10 years.

Enter the Croatians

Mr. Perumal joined the international match-fixing group in 2008. In
his interrogation cell in 2011, he charted the syndicate's
organization for Mr. Granat and other Finnish police officers. It had
European partners and Chinese backers who supplied money allegedly
laundered through casinos in Macau.

The match-fixing syndicate was a criminal network, according to
European police investigators. Europeans supplied compliant referees,
players and coaches; Mr. Tan and the Singaporeans provided access to
the vast, unregulated sports gambling market in Asia.

If the match fixers had only the referee on the take, they would say
it was a one-star fix. In this case, the Asian syndicate would bet a
smaller amount. If the local fixers had the entire team and the
officiating crew on the take, it was called a five-star fix, and the
syndicate would wager far more.

This system was devised at a meeting in a hotel room in Vienna in
September 2008 between the Asian syndicate run by Mr. Tan and Ante and
Milan Sapina, two Berlin-based Croatian brothers who had a vast
network of corrupt soccer players, referees and coaches. The Sapinas
have twice been convicted of match fixing in Germany and are in prison
there.

Together, they fixed hundreds of soccer matches around the world,
targeting nearly every league — from the prestigious Champions League
and World Cup qualifying matches to obscure, low-level matches. Once
the Sapina brothers had persuaded their contacts to fix matches, Mr.
Tan could then place bets on the Asian sports gambling market, the
biggest in the world. Because much of the Asian market is underground,
estimates of its size vary greatly. Patrick Jay, a senior executive of
the Hong Kong Jockey Club, one of the largest government-controlled
gambling companies in the world, estimated that the Asian market
handled $1 trillion in wagering.

“It is huge,” Mr. Jay said. “FIFA boasts about how much money they
make every four years with the World Cup. You know what they call $4
billion in the illegal betting markets in Asia? Thursday.”
Image
Terry Steans, a former FIFA investigator, investigated the syndicate's
match rigging, including a 2011 tournament in Turkey the syndicate
organized. “The whole thing was set up for the gambling markets,” he
said.CreditLuke Wolagiewicz for The New York Times

680 Suspicious Matches

Terry Steans, a former FIFA investigator who now runs a sports
security company in the United Kingdom, said the syndicate of Mr. Tan
and Mr. Perumal moved fixing to another level from the early days of
simply approaching players in hotel rooms.

“They organized tournaments where they invited entire teams — no one
watched the games, they were not televised,” Steans said. “The whole
thing was set up for the gambling markets.”

In February 2011, the syndicate orchestrated one of the strangest
tournaments. It invited the national teams of Estonia, Bulgaria,
Bolivia and Latvia to Antalya, Turkey. The tournament's games were
played in near-empty stadiums. They were not televised. Yet they
attracted millions of dollars in bets on the Asian market.

All seven goals were scored on penalty kicks — all awarded by referees
the syndicate had chosen and flown in.

“For sheer nerve, it has to rate high up there,” Mr. Steans said.
“They hired the stadium. Would not sell tickets. Would not allow fans
in. No television. Four international teams. Bought the referees and
made money on the gambling market. It is pretty brazen.”

FIFA eventually barred the referees.
Image
A 2011 tournament in Antalya, Turkey, organized by the match-fixing
syndicate, had near-empty stadiums.CreditAssociated Press

In February 2013, Europol, the European Union's police intelligence
agency, said the results of 680 matches worldwide from 2008 to 2011,
including World Cup qualifying matches and European Champions League
matches, were considered suspicious. Mr. Tan's group did most of this
work, investigators said.

In Italy, Mr. Tan was so successful working with Balkan associates who
had connections with Italian organized crime that more than 20 Italian
professional soccer teams were investigated for match fixing. A senior
investigator of Italy's National Organized Crime Task Force labeled
Mr. Tan as the “No. 1 wanted man in Italy.”

“For their part, Dan Tan and his group constitute a criminal network
that is both dangerous and quick to violence in case of anyone who
breaks their rules,” an Italian prosecutor wrote in his statement.
“This is stated in the testimony of one of the members who said it
takes very little in the case of treason by one of the group to risk
their murder.”

The European investigators determined that Mr. Tan's syndicate also
managed to fix matches played in the United States. In 2010, it
persuaded a majority of El Salvador's national team to throw a game
against D.C. United of Major League Soccer as well as an international
match against the United States in Miami. Many of the Salvadoran
players were subsequently barred for life.

The Syndicate Lives On

In 2011, Mr. Perumal was found guilty of corruption in Finland and was
sentenced to two years. He was released early. In late April, he was
arrested again in Finland because, the police said, he had returned to
the fixing business and had an outstanding international arrest
warrant. He faces extradition to Singapore.

Last year, Singaporean law enforcement officials arrested Mr. Tan.
However, he is in indefinite detention and may not stand trial. The
scale of his match fixing may never be fully revealed.

Their arrests are not expected to stanch match fixing in Asia. Mr.
Granat, the detective who helped disrupt Mr. Perumal's exploits in
northern Finland, said he ultimately recognized the group's
extraordinary reach.

“I remember I started to take it seriously when Wilson Raj Perumal had
been in prison for a week and he told me, 'This particular game next
week will be fixed,' ” Mr. Granat said. “He was in custody, and he
could still tell me these things.”

In a recent interview in Kuala Lumpur, an associate of the syndicate's
discussed the group's next phase. “Dan Tan and the others are locked
up, but the betting cartel has just carried on,” he said, speaking on
the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

“They have new people to do their work. There is no stopping them.”

RIGGED: Last of two articles.
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New
York edition with the headline: Inside the Fixing: How a Gang Battered
Soccer's Frail Integrity. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

Related Coverage

Fixed Soccer Matches Cast Shadow Over World Cup
May 31, 2014
Image

Advertisement
Site Index
Go to Home Page »
news
opinion
arts
living
listings & more
Site Information Navigation

© 2018 The New York Times Company

Contact UsWork with usAdvertiseYour Ad ChoicesPrivacyTerms of
ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions"

End of culled content from the website of The New York Times.