Declan Hill’s Blog

The time has been short, the list of cases long.

Bulgaria, China (badminton), Denmark (handball), Denmark (football), England, Germany (football), Germany (handball), Holland, Hong Kong, Malta, Malaysia, Monaco (tennis), Poland, Italy, Romania, Russia, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan (baseball), and now, Macedonia.

Seven months, nineteen countries, five sports. This is a list of suspected scandals involving match-fixing in sport since the publication of ‘The Fix’.   To be fair, a number of these cases have not been fully investigated.  There have been some sensational headlines, a brief announcement, then the police or sporting authorities have claimed ‘there is not enough evidence to investigate them.’ Which begs the question, how do you know there is not enough evidence if you don’t investigate?

But today, there is a ray of hope.  UEFA has announced an eight-year ban on the Macedonian football club, FK Pobeda.

It is a good start.

However, there are a couple of things for football fans to watch.

One, the Macedonian club gets to appeal the sentence and if it follows the typical Italian sentencing of corruption in football, we will see these sentences much reduced. They should not be.  There is an old story about the law.  The convict is sentenced to death for stealing a horse.  He appeals to the judge, “Come on, your Lordship, I just stole a horse!”   The judge replies, “I am not hanging you for stealing a horse.  I am hanging you to stop other people from stealing horses.”

This is one of those cases where the sentence is not just about punishing the crime, it is about giving a clear, definite signal that match-fixing will not be tolerated at any level.

Two, that there is corruption in the Macedonian league comes as no surprise to anyone.  Now will UEFA have the nerve to go after bigger clubs in bigger leagues?

Three, will UEFA establish a few, very basic, defences to the sport?

Here is one example.  For those non-fans of Danish and German handball, the cases there involve referees being approached to fix games. In Germany, the referees discovered 50,000 Euro had been put in their luggage, only when going through airport security.

They bring up a question relevant to football.   What does a referee do in a case like this?  If someone approaches them to bribe a game, who do they go to?  The local football association?  They are often in on the fix.   UEFA?    Hmmmmmm…

The problem with UEFA is that it is a house with many rooms in it.  Many of those rooms have very honest, decent people in them.  But some of those rooms contain people that no referee would ever want to report a bribe attempt to.   So their new security department should be established absolutely independently of the UEFA hierarchy.  It should report directly to Platini and no one else.  Anything else, and despite the Macedonian verdict, football will be back to corruption and the list of suspected cases will keep growing.

First of all, this is excellent news.  The announcement yesterday by UEFA that they are actually holding their own judicial inquiry into a Champions League match is the best news in the battle against corruption in football for some time.  It is one of the initiatives that I have been pressing for since the publication of the book.

Does it go far enough?  No. But Michel Platini in his declaration that “match-fixing is the most serious problem facing the sport” shows that he understands exactly the nature of the problem.

Before we go any further: a declaration.  In October, at their invitation, I met with UEFA officials and discussed their proposal for a new investigation unit.  I did not accept any money from them, except for travel expenses, but at the end of the meeting, it was felt by both sides that it was too early in the process to work together.

A couple of points:

It is obvious that UEFA have picked on an obscure game from a relatively obscure league and country.  No insult to the Macedonians but the revelation that there may be fixing in Macedonia will not come as a great surprise to anyone.  However, this is, hopefully, the first case of a series of high-profile investigations.  UEFA cannot afford to fail too publicly in their first case against match-fixing.  They must choose the case that they have greatest chance of success to proceed with first.

Two, the performance of the FK Pobeda game, if it was fixed, does follow an increasingly common practice in fixing matches.  The fixers are trying to maximize profit on the gambling market.   In the book, I show some of my research into how players and referees perform fixed matches. For example, I identify a pattern of goals being scored early in the game to establish the fix.  When I began the research I thought the results would be the exact opposite: fixes would happen in the last ten minutes of the game. After all the cliché is the crooked players or referee trying frantically to score an own goal or give away a penalty in the last few minutes.  But the data indicates that for successful fixes the players and referees want to get it done quickly so will try to give away goals as early in the game as possible.

However, recently fixers have been moving towards another pattern where one team will score their goals in the first half, with the other team score their goals in the second half.  The growth of this phenomenon is because of a relatively new trend of live betting on matches, so the fixers can make money betting on both the half-time score and the full-time score.  This can increase their profit in a massive way.  Of course, this is not conclusive proof that the FK Pobeda game was fixed — only the UEFA tribunal on April 17 will be able to determine that one way or another.

Finally, if this news is “a good start”, what more can UEFA do to stop match-fixing?   I will deal with that issue in a blog posting next week.

Over the next few weeks in Brussels there is an important debate taking place on the future of gambling in Europe.  On one side are the private gambling companies: some of them the big British bookmakers like William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power, some of them based on the internet like Betfair.  On the other side are the national sports lotteries owned or at least run for, the governments of many European countries.  They are both lobbying legislators hard to vote their way.

At the moment, in many countries the only way a bettor can place a bet legally is with one of these national lotteries.  The private gambling companies say, in effect, “Hang on!  We are in a common market. The whole idea is that companies from one country are supposed to operate freely in another country. And you are stopping us from operating.”

The national lotteries on the other side have been lobbying politicians hard saying, “Ah yes, but gambling is different.  Gambling, at least the way the private companies practice it, leads to high rates of addiction, corruption and match-fixing. To protect the sport you must stop them from entering your countries.”

Who is right?

Well, like most hard-fought arguments, they are both, to some degree, right.  The private companies are being restricted from practicing their trade.  On the other hand, the more gambling that is available, the more gambling addiction there will be.  What is more complicated is the role of match-fixing in this whole debate.

Here are a couple of facts.  No self-respecting match-fixer ever tried to fix a game using a national sports lottery.  There are two stages in fixing a match: the first is the actual bribing of the referee or the players; the second is the fixing of the gambling market a little like perpetrating a stock market fraud.  The ‘stock market’ of a European national sports lottery is simply too restricted to allow any fixer to use them.

However, the claim that match-fixing would not exist without the private gambling companies is an overstatement.   Bernard Tapie and Luciano Moggi were attempting to fix matches,  without any connection to private gambling companies.  The great South African cricket player Hansie Cronje said much the same thing in his confession after he was caught working with an Indian bookie to fix matches, “As long as there is gambling on sporting events — legal or otherwise — players will continue to be approached, pressured and tempted.”

The key phrase in Cronje confession is, of course, “legal or otherwise”.  The bookmakers where most of the fixers place their bets are in the illegal Asian gambling market. This betting market is far, far larger than any legal gambling market in the world.   There a fixer can place large sums of money on almost any game, almost always anonymously.  Until we get proper oversight on this market, then the fixing of European football matches will continue, regardless of all the talk in Brussels.

Last month, I was in Munich at a conference with the great Joe Pistone, aka: Donnie Brasco, the undercover informant who helped break the New York mob.  But the media did not particularly want to talk about his work or my book, rather they were interested in the possibility that Bayern Munich may have fixed the UEFA Cup semi-final match against Zenit St. Petersburg, which is what Baltasar Garzon the Spanish prosecutor claimed may have occurred according to transcripts of Russian mobsters.

After Munich, I went to Denmark to launch the book in Copenhagen.  What did journalists there want to talk about?  The possibility that the European Championship qualifying match between Malta and Denmark had been fixed.    A Danish newspaper had received a tip that there had been something odd going on and so many of the questions were about that match.

I returned to London and many people were obsessed with the possibility of problems around the Norwich versus Derby match.  Then I get a copy of a two-page review of the book in the French newspaper - Libération.  The writer says, in essence, “Dr. Hill has written a good book, but, poor fellow, he is so naïve.  He thinks that the Final of the Champions League in 2005 between AC Milan versus Liverpool was an example of the greatness of football and the human spirit.  We received a phone call from a source on the Asian gambling market who told us that match was fixed.”

The point is not that any of these matches were actually fixed - I know nothing more than what was in the newspaper about them, and frankly, think the Liberation guys were being naïve themselves – it is that the culture of European football is reaching a tipping point.  There is a shift in the culture of football going on.  Any of these stories would have seemed unbelievable two years ago.  But once the public and the media starts to have these conversations it does not matter how many of them are actually true.  It is the beginning of the end.  It eats away at the credibility of the game.  It may not happen tomorrow or this season, but the decline of football will come.

Think about cycling five or ten years ago, it was unthinkable that the sport would have any problems.  However, two weeks ago the organizers of the Tour of Stuttgart, a multi-million Euro bike race, canceled the competition.  They claimed that after a long series of failed drug tests, the sport had such a bad image problem it was not worth holding the race.

If football is not to go the same way cycling is going, the Football Associations must be seen to be doing something rigorous to stop match-fixing.  This brings me to the FIFA conference on match corruption and gambling to be held in Zurich on Monday November 10th.  I have not been invited.  This is ridiculous.  At the moment, no one in football knows more about match-fixing than I do (except for the fixers).  So who do they have speaking?  Well, the organizers announced that Franz Beckenbauer would be there.  This is about as useful as having me give a presentation on defensive formations for the German national team.  It is just silly.  Football needs the Associations to wake up to the real dangers posed by match-fixing and not engage in shallow exercises in marketing.

We can do something about the corruption in football.   The first thing is to ensure that there are effective well-staffed and well-resourced security departments in not just UEFA, but also at FIFA and in every National Football Association around the world.  As readers of my book will know, that there are gangs of Asian match-fixers who have been visiting almost every international tournament for the last 17 years.  They have approached players at the Under-17 World Cup, the Africa Nations Cup, the Women’s World Cup, the Olympic Games and the World Cup.   Generally, officials and disinterested fans have two responses to this information: one, deny it (see FIFA) or two claim “there is nothing we can do about it, corruption is always there.”  Both of these attitudes are wrong: there are things that can be done to combat corruption in football.

The first measure is the implementation of independent, well-staffed and well-resourced security departments.  There are similar bodies in all the North American sports leagues like the NFL, NBA or NHL.   There is no reason why football should not have security departments.  The establishment of these security bodies instantly dismisses the second argument.   Look, the critics are right there is crime in every society, but that is why you have police – to fight corruption.   At the moment, football simply does not have any form of official protection.

The second measure is to actually have a specific and independent investigation of the findings in the book.   Most of the criticism of the book has been nonsense designed to deflect viewer’s attention away from the real issues.  Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, told me that he did not believe the findings, but if they were true it would mean that his entire career had been a failure.   This means that man cannot task a police investigation, it is a conflict of interest.  Who, after all, would want a investigation to find out they had been a failure?   However, the game still needs an investigation to dig into the what is actually going at many of these tournaments.  FIFA can ask for an independent police investigation and then simply see what course it takes.

Finally, the players who play in these big international tournaments need to be guaranteed a fair wage for doing so.   It seems incredible that at these massive world events with so much public interest, so much sponsorship and so much money paid for the television rights that we still had cases in the 2006 World Cup of teams like Trinidad and Tobago whose players received only $500 for their image rights at the tournament or the Togo players who had to go on strike to get a fair wage. Neither of these teams was ever suspected of fixing a game, but by not establishing a proper and open reward system, FIFA is opening the way towards other disgruntled players accepting bribes.    Again, it is a pretty simple problem to solve just pay all players a set, and large, amount directly into their bank accounts.  Temptation reduced.

If you would like to support these simple, but important changes please go to the Save Our Game section of the website and sign the petition.

It has been one of those weeks for football.

It began well.

Over last weekend, the boffins at UEFA announced that they were setting up their own security branch to help police the game.   This is a reform that I have called for in the book and in all my subsequent media interviews.  The idea is simple, it is what all North American sports bodies have:  a department of former high-ranking police officers who have the capabilities, the connections and the cojones to make sure the game is safe.   Nothing against football administrators, but at their best that is what they are good at - administering football.  However, they simply do not have the experience to deal with the criminal thugs who are entering the game in increasing numbers.  So a well-staffed, well-resourced security department is an excellent initiative.

I think that my book and all the controversy around it was a significant tipping point in getting the UEFA officials to set up a security body.   Certainly, that is what I was told by some of my sources at UEFA, but frankly, I am simply so happy to see some positive changes in protecting the sport that I don’t care.

I am not sure what UEFA’s new security department will look like.  I hope that is well-staffed and well-resourced.   We will see.  But at least it is a beginning that indicates that UEFA knows they have a problem of well-organized match-fixing on their hands.  It is a complete contrast with the attitude of UEFA’s rival organization FIFA – whose response to any threats from gambling fixers has been to bury their collective head in the sand.

Then the bad news came.   Early Wednesday morning we heard about the alleged Zenit St. Petersburg case.  Essentially, a Spanish judicial investigation led by Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who indicted Pinochet in the UK, discovered the Godfather of the St. Petersburg Tambovskaya Mafia and his second-in-command boasting about fixing the Semi-Final and Final of the 2008 UEFA Cup for 40 million Euro.

What to make of it?

This is an investigation led by Garzon, not a man to do shoddy work.  He has the mobsters “live” -  talking on the phone to associates.  This type of evidence is often the best form possible (one of the reasons, mob-associated lawyers fought for so long to keep it out of  U.S. and Canadian courts).  However, until the tapes are released we do not know if the Godfather and his associates were simply boasting or actually providing firm details of any possible fix.

What should be done?

An immediate investigation by the Munich and Glasgow police should be established to aid Garzon.   This is a very, very important case and it should not be allowed to go away because the police will not support it.

Introduction:

Since the publication on September 2nd, 2008 there has been an extraordinary amount of controversy around the book.

In general, the controversy has been between the people who have read the book (generally positive) and those who have not.  It is truly bizarre the number of people who can get themselves worked up denouncing things that I have never said or written about in the book.  My invitation to anyone who feels like weighing into the argument is - read the book first.   You will find the information contained in it shockingly detailed.   There are over two hundred interviews with players, referees, sports officials, policemen, prosecutors and the criminals themselves.  Part of the book is a 60-page section of references, notes and sources that shows the reader where this information comes from.  I have insisted that all publishers include this part, to ensure that fans know that the book is based on solid, accurate information.

I do understand much of that debate comes from people who are so in love with the game that they cannot bring themselves to think that there is anything corrupt in the sport.  They are wrong.   The beautiful game is in danger, it needs our protection and it is not helped by the inaccurate nonsense that has, so far, surrounded the debate on the book.

**

The Unanswered – and Unasked – Questions

There are four major issues that are being missed in the current discussion.  Few people seem to have understood them, fewer journalists have asked the necessary questions.   In the sections below – I provide an outline of these issues, some of the sources I used and a list of questions that all journalists and fans who love football should be asking of the people involved.

1:    Players are approached by Asian gambling fixers at international tournaments.

There is clear evidence that a group of organized crime gambling fixers have been approaching players at a variety of top international tournaments for at least 17 years.

1991 – Under-17 World Cup (Italy):

The President of the Ghana Football Association - Kwesi Nyantakyi
- claims that when the Ghana team won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1991, they were approached by Asian gambling fixers to throw a match.   Mr. Nyantakyi also said, “it’s done all the time, at major competitions…World Cup, Cup of Nations.”   He is right.   His claims are supported by a number of other officials, players and fixers.  Here is a brief list of some of the other approaches made to players at international tournaments by Asian organized crime gamblers.

(Pages 273-274 of “The Fix”: or read and listen to Nyantakyi’s interview)

1995 -  Under-20 World Cup (Doha, Qatar):

While this tournament was going on, two Portuguese players were approached by an attractive young Asian woman.  She invited them up to her room.  When they arrived, they discovered, to their shock, a table covered with money, 2 Cameroonian players and 2 Asian fixers behind the table.   Asian Football Confederation officials confirmed that the fixers were at the tournament and had approached players from Cameroon, Portugal, Honduras and Chile.

(Page 223 of “The Fix”: or read the newspaper articles)

1997 – Under-20 World Cup (Malaysia):

Stephen Appiah the Captain of the Ghana team claims in an interview that he was approached at this tournament by Asian gambling fixers. He and his room-mate had conversations in their hotel room with the fixers and he claims to have turned them down.

(Page 267 of “The Fix”: or listen to Appiah’s interview)

2004 -    Olympic Games (Athens, Greece):

Stephen Appiah, along with other Ghanaian players confirms that he was approached at the tournament to throw matches by Asian gambling fixers.   The other players claim that they turned down all approaches.  Appiah claims that he took money from the fixers after winning a game and then distributed it around the team.

(Pages 267-269 of “The Fix”: or listen to Appiah’s interview)

2006 -  World Cup (Würzburg, Germany):

Appiah and other Ghanaian officials confirm there was an approach by Asian gambling fixers made at this tournament.  They all claim that these approaches were turned down.

(Page 285 of “The Fix”: or listen to Appiah’s interview)

2007 – International Friendly match (Tehran, Iran):

A day before the Ghana versus Iran match in Tehran, a group of Asian fixers helped by the Ghanaian coach Abukari Damba, approached 6 players on the Ghana national team to fix the game by a score of 4 – 2.   The initial payment to the players was for $1,000.00.  Damba insisted that each of the players give him a share of $500.00 for the introduction to the fixers.   The Ghana team officials were notified by one of the players.   Damba was fired from the team.   The Ghana team did lose the game by a score of 4 -2, but all the players and officials state that this was an accident unrelated to the fixing attempt.

(Pages 272-275 and 280-281 of “The Fix”: or read the transcripts of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) hearing)

2007 -    Women’s World Cup (Hangzhou, China):

In a number of interviews Ghanaian officials and players along with FIFA officials confirm that they were also approached by Asian gambling fixers at this tournament.    The approaches were long, varied and serious.  The fixers phoned the players at least 5 times and gave them the number of their hotel rooms and business cards.   The officials listened to one of the approaches on one of the player’s hotel room telephone.  The offer was for $22,000 and a lap-top computer to five players to help lose the game against Norway by at least 5 goals.

After listening to the call the Ghanaian officials went to FIFA for help.   They had all the information on the fixers and were willing to testify, but the FIFA officials told them they could not help. They should go to the local organizing committee.  The official Chinese response?   They escorted the fixers to the train station and waved them good-bye.

The Ghana team did lose the game by a 5 goal margin, but all the players and officials state that this was an accident unrelated to the fixing attempt.

(Pages 300-301 of “The Fix”, or read the newspaper article)

2008 -    Africa Cup of Nations (Accra, Ghana):

At this tournament, Reinhard Fabisch, the German coach of the Benin National team, publicly announced that he had been approached by an Asian gambling fixer to lose matches.  Another team – Mali – also claimed that their players had been approached to lose matches.   The official response?   They made Fabisch sign an affadavit, and then did nothing.

(read the newspaper articles about it)

**

So we have a situation where Asian gambling fixers have approached players and officials at an International Friendly Match, the Under-17 World Cup, the African Nations Cup, the Women’s World Cup, the Olympic Games and the World Cup.  To make these approaches, the fixers travelled to eight different countries on three continents and approached at least seven national teams.  The official line from FIFA is that these Asian gambling fixers are the unluckiest tourists in the world: they have gone to all these different tournaments and they have always failed.  In 17 years of trying, the fixers have never found any players or referees willing to take a bribe to lose a match.  They simply travel all the way to all these tournaments, make the approaches and they always fail.  However, the fixers are completely undaunted by 17 years of failure, and so they keep coming back to make more unsuccessful attempts to fix games.

In fact it is so unthinkable that the fixers would ever succeed FIFA officials claim it is not worth their while to have a fully-staffed security department like North American sport leagues like the National Hockey League (NHL) or National Basketball Association (NBA).

The incidents reported here, by the way, are just the ones that we know about from official sources.  In the book, readers will find that I have also spoken to current and former match-fixers who claim that not only have they gone to other international tournaments but that they have also succeeded in fixing matches.

Questions for FIFA

i)    Given this long record of gambling fixers attempting to bribe players and officials at big international tournaments: why do you not have a fully established security department like the professional sports leagues in North America?
ii)    The Danish Football Association has established “a hotline” to give players a way of reporting bribe attempts.  Could not something similar be established at the international tournaments?
iii)    There have been a number of “player strikes” at international tournaments.
Would it be possible to establish direct payment to the players: thereby ensuring that all players are paid fairly and avoiding the unseemly arguments between players and their officials?  And also ensuring that a player who may have been exploited by his association is not tempted by an offer from a fixer.
iv)    In the United States the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA)   hires the former New York mafia fixer Michael Franzese to teach their athletes why they should not fix games.  (This is something I speak of in the book, but essentially a player becomes a slave of the fixers as soon as he accepts money from them).

2:    The Olympic Games and the $20,000 Gift to Stephen Appiah

Stephen Appiah and other Ghanaian players were approached at the Athens Olympics by Asian fixers to lose games.  In his interviews with me, Appiah told me that he had known the fixers from the Under-20 World Cup tournament in Malaysia in 1997.  Other players that I spoke confirm that approaches were made, but that they all turned down the offers to lose a game.  However, Appiah states that he took $20,000 from the fixers after winning a game and then distributed the money around the team. Appiah’s actions are in direct violation of FIFA’s rules.  The Australian player – Abbas Saad – was banned globally for doing exactly the same thing in Singapore.

After the book was released, Stephen Appiah stated that I was lying.  Appiah claimed that he had never received money from Asian gambling fixers. The transcripts of our interview in the book and on this website show clearly that Appiah’s statement is not true.  In the interviews Appiah talks about receiving money from fixers at the Olympic Games in Athens after winning a match.

This whole incident begs a series of questions that should be answered in an official investigation or inquiry:

i)    Why did Stephen Appiah, one of Africa’s richest players, take money from a gambling fixer? After all, this payment was not from a sponsor or rich fan or even a soccer agent, but from a man that Appiah knew to be a fixer.
ii)    Did Appiah distribute the money to the other players, as he claims in the interviews?
iii)    Did Appiah keep the money?  Other players have denied receiving any money; so which version is correct?
iv)    Did Appiah pay taxes on the money given to him by the fixers?  If he did, how did he report the money on his tax forms?
v)    If Appiah, who is so rich, took money from gamblers for winning a match,  is it possible that one of his poorer team-mates may have taken money for losing a match?
vi)    When the book was published, why did Appiah claim that he had never made these statements?
vii)    Why has there been no official FIFA or Ghana Football Association inquiry into this matter?  Appiah’s actions are in direct violation of their rules. So why no action?
viii)    Why has there been no police investigation into this matter?

3:    Abukari Damba’s Relationship with Fixers

Abukari Damba was a goalkeeper for Ghana’s national team in the 1990s.   In the book, I describe seeing him at a meeting with fixers in Asia a few weeks before the start of the World Cup tournament.

We also know that Damba was fired from his coaching job at the Ghana Football Association a year after the World Cup for trying to fix a game between Ghana and Iran.  We know from the transcripts of the Ghana Football Association hearings that the players described him as knowing the fixers well.

We also know from interviews with other Ghana players that Damba was at the Athens Olympic Games and he was seen talking with the fixers.  We know from his own interviews that Damba was at the Ghana training camp during the Germany World Camp.  He admits that he was at this camp, not with former team mates or sports officials, but in the presence of an Asian fixer who he had know since his playing days in Malaysia ten years before.

This history also begs a series of questions:

i)    In many countries, Damba would have immediately been arrested after the GFA hearing.   Why was Damba not arrested after attempting to fix the Ghana versus Iran game?
ii)    What are the names of the fixers that Damba worked with at the Iran game?
iii)    Were these fixers the same fixers who approached Reinhard Fabisch at the African Nations Cup?
iv)    Were these fixers the same fixers who approached Stephen Appiah at the Olympic Games?
v)    Were these fixers the same fixers who approached the Ghana Women’s Team?
vi)    If Damba had known these fixers for 10 years, what did he help them with?   In the book, he claims that it was simply introducing them to the players and he did not know anything else that went on.  Is this true?

**

4:    The reach of the Asian gambling market into smaller European leagues and  matches.

In November 2007, newspapers in Scotland announced that matches featuring teenagers were being bet on in illegal Asian gambling markets.  The matches were watched by agents who were relaying information back to Asia on their mobile phones.  To someone who has not seen the illegal Asian gambling market in operation it may seem extraordinary – adolescents playing in Glasgow being watched and gambled on by Chinese criminals half-way around the world.  However, there are similar situations in many leagues across Europe.  In the book, I show similar circumstances in leagues in Belgium, Finland and Germany.

Some people argue that these situations are not a problem.  After all, the big European teams must be immune from match-fixing because they pay their players so well.  That is a reasonable argument, but it does miss one important point:  where do those big teams get their players from?  Mostly, the players come from small teams in smaller leagues.  If those teams or leagues become corrupted, then who will really control the players when they arrive at the big clubs: the club or the fixers?

Also, the people who run this market are not kind or gentle.  They are some of the most violent criminals in the world.   In August 2008, the bodies of Zhen Xing Yang and his girlfriend Xi Zhou were discovered in their student home in Newcastle in Northeast England.  At first, the police were perplexed as to why anyone would kill the two graduate students.  The victims were reported as being gentle and studious;  yet from their bodies it was clear that before they died, they had been tortured and stabbed for at least an hour.  The murders and their sheer brutality were a mystery.  Then during the investigation, the police discovered the students’ employment – reporting on local English football matches for the illegal gambling markets back in China.

Questions for European Football Associations

i)    What measure have you taken against interest by the Asian illegal gambling markets in matches played in your league?
ii)    Have you provided any protection or training for your players if they are approached by gambling fixers?
iii)    Have you ever expelled a fixer from your stadium or grounds?
iv)    Have you ever suggested this approach to clubs?
v)    Have you coordinated a response with the police?
vi)    Have you set up a security department in your organization to protect the game?

(Originally posted here)

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your interest in the book and the issue of cleaning up corruption in football.

The book has attracted a great deal of attention. Many people have requested that more information on interviews and data be placed here on the website. I am working with my researcher to put as much material as we can on the site. Today, we have posted the transcripts of the hearing about the attempted fixing in the Ghana versus Iran game of July 2007 and excerpts from transcripts and tape of an interview with Stephen Appiah in December 2007, where we discussed among other things, his accepting money – after a game was over – from a gambler for winning the match.

We will be posting more material over the next few days. Please stay tuned.

In the meantime, I urge you to read the book fully and completely. Once you are finished please press for the reforms needed to safeguard our beloved sport.

Best wishes,

Declan Hill

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

MP3 Audio of Interview with Stephen Appiah:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Excerpt of 2nd Interview Transcript of Stephen Appiah

December 11, 2007
By phone – (Taped)

Declan Hill: Tell me, when we were speaking in July you mentioned there were a lot of gamblers approaching you, tell me about that.

Stephen Appiah: About gamblers?

DH: Yeah, you remember you were talking about those Asian guys who were always coming up to you…

SA: Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, its been a long time that I haven’t seen those guys. I met this particular guy in Malaysia. When we were in Malaysia. He came when we played in Greece, Athens at the Olympic Games. I saw him… I saw him at Germany. But, no, all the time I used to tell him, “Yeah, yeah. I am not interested. So I don’t want to… you should leave me alone… I don’t want.”

DH: That is when he asked you to lose games, but there were a couple of times when you took money to win games, to win, not to lose.

SA: Yeah, but yeah they used to say that, but I don’t want to risk myself because I don’t know what will happen on the field. I don’t know that we’re going to win or lose.

So I said, so I said, when they come, they come and they ask me I said “No.” I said to you honestly that I remember in Greece in the Olympic games that the guy came and he said, “Okay, we have to,” I think against Japan, “we have to… I have to say to the coach, that we have to lose the… no, they have to score the first goal.” I said, “What are you talking about? We wanted to go to the next stage so how can I do such a thing? We can’t… We can’t do that.”

And I remember there was a man who came to me in Malaysia in ‘97. He came and he said he wanted us to score the first goal. So he phoned me, no. He called me and my … my…. my roommate, he is a striker, but we told him, yeah we don’t want any trouble cause, you know, these people if you take money from them and then maybe they will talk. Even they say, “You have to win the game, you win the game, so they start talking and they say, “Oh we gave them money to win.” You know these kind of things, so I don’t want to involve myself into trouble. So I was like, “No, no, no, I’m not interested.” (10.22)

DH: Anyway I think when we talked you mentioned a game against Paraguay where you were given $20,000, and I’m just saying to win, I’m not saying to lose, I’m saying to win.

SA: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, against Paraguay at the Olympic Games. Yeah. Yeah. He, no, he came and he said, “OK I’m going to give you this money. Tell the players you have to win the game, blah, blah, blah.” But I told him, “OK, I will talk to the players, but we’re not going to take any money. After the game, if you see that, if you think that we are honest, after the game, because you promised us, after the game you come and give us the money. If we win, you give us the money. So yes. So I don’t want to, I’m not going to take any money, I don’t want to take any money, but after the game if you feel like coming to give us the money you can come and give us the money. But after we play to win. We won the game and that’s all.

DH: So then they gave you the money after the game, when you’d won the game.

SA: Yes.

DH: I’ve spoken to one Asian guy who told me that during the World Cup there was a bunch of guys on the Ghana team who were gonna sell one of the matches. Did you hear anything about that?

SA: During the World Cup?

DH: Yeah, this last one in Germany.

SA: No, no. I didn’t hear anything.

DH: Do you think such a thing could have been possible?

SA: Could have been possible to what?

DH: Do you that some of your teammates may have thrown the game?

SA: No, no, no, I don’t think so, I don’t think so. With this squad, with this squad that we have now? No, no. Because we do everything together, nobody is going to go back to the team. We do everything together. We are united, so I don’t think someone would do that. Or if someone were to do something like that, he would say to all the team, “Hey this is, this is… A guy came and he said, “Blah, blah, blah.” So what do we think?” But not to lose a match and something. But to win a match - yes.

DH: Did they give you guys any money after you won the Czech or the U.S. game this time?

SA: Who?

DH: Did any of the gamblers give you money at the World Cup?

SA: No, no, no I didn’t see anybody so. Honest, I didn’t see anybody.

DH: OK, ’cause what happened was that they told me in May that there was a deal happening with some of your guys on your team. And then they said “We’ll tell you the score of the games before they happen, and that they’re gonna lose to Italy and beat Czech and the United States.”

SA: Nah, nah, I don’t think so. How can we know that we gonna to lose against Italy, we were gonna win Czech Republic, and we going to win against U.S.? We don’t have to risk. So, that one, no I don’t think so.

DH: And then they said that three or four days before the Brazil match that you guys would lose against the Brazil guys. (13.50)

SA: They said what?

DH: They said that you guys would lose against Brazil.

SA: Oh, you mean the gamblers?

DH: Yeah, the gamblers.

SA: No, that’s what. I didn’t see anybody during the World Cup I didn’t see anybody, I didn’t know anything about that. So I don’t think so. If you watched the game, the game against Brazil, we lost the game, but you can see that we played that game. We played the game. But maybe they had experienced players more than us. So they used that strength to beat us. But no, we didn’t play anything. We played all the game. So I don’t think, so I don’t think that there was something like that… I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything. I don’t think. Because everyone was willing to play Brazil. Everyone was willing to win that game. So I don’t thing there was something going on for Ghana to lose the game against Brazil, no, I don’t think so.

DH: Well, I thought it was kind of strange and then I went to Ghana and after I interviewed you I saw the paper about Damba, Abu Damba, and how the guys were trying to fix in Iran, and so I have to say honestly Stephen, that I was kind of perplexed about that when I saw that.

SA: Yeah, I read that story but I didn’t know what happened.

DH: Well, ’cause Abu Damba was in Germany as well along with the guy that you know, Allan, you know the little small guy with the round face.

SA: What’s the name of the guy?

DH: Allan. You know the little small Chinese guy, with the round face?

SA: Yeah, yeah, I don’t know his name. But how come you know these guys?

DH: Well, because, that’s what I do my research in. I look at organized crime. And so these guys are, you know these gamblers from Asia and stuff.

SA: Yeah, but if you go around and put that, these people will come and kill me.

DH: Sorry what’s that Stephen?

SA: Yeah, but if you write in your book that I said, these guys, this guy Allan, I don’t remember his name Allan, and said, “Blah, blah, blah.” They will come and kill me.

DH: Why would they kill you Stephen?

SA: Yeah, because you would say that maybe I am trying to set them up or I’m trying to…you know?

DH: No, my sense is they might be trying to set you up and they may be bullshitting me, you know, saying “Oh, blah, blah, blah, you know, we know all these guys,” and stuff, so I’m just trying to figure out what the truth is here

SA: No but the thing about Damba, I just read it in the newspapers, and Damba said he was innocent, so I don’t know the story. I don’t know the story.

DH: Do you ever get threatened by anyone? I don’t want to make you frightened or anything like that.

SA: What?

DH: Did you ever get frightened. Do you ever get threatened by those guys?

SA: Threatened?

DH: Yeah. Like when I say, blah, blah, blah… Sorry, when I talked about these guys you said they might kill you, so I was wondering why you said that.

SA: No, no I don’t know. I am just saying that, of course. No, maybe they said that… No I’m just saying it, I’m just saying it. No, no, no. Nobody has threatened me, no.

DH: Uh-huh, ’cause you are a big strong guy… (laughs)…I don’t think you would be frightened of too many people.

SA: Ah, no, no, no. Nobody has.

DH: So, when I hear those stories, what should I think, Stephen? When those guys tell me these weird stories about the games being fixed beforehand, what should I think?

SA: What should you think? I think they are doing their work. They are gambling but the most important thing is the team. That’s why, the team. The players has to go back to the team. because of money they will take money and will do something stupid, you know. But the most important thing is that they are playing their game, and we are a team. How can a team go out because of gambling to lose? (17.59)