by Declan Hill
Crooked referees, however, do use penalties to deliver fixed matches. When a referee had been bribed to fix a game, penalties were twice as likely as when a game was being honestly played.
OWN GOALS
The one seemingly obvious phenomenon that the Rafiq Saad does not mention is own goals. One might think that would be the most common way for a player to fix a match: knock a goal into his own net, hang his head in public shame, and then go pick up the payment the next day. For example, Vlado Kasalo, a Croatian international playing in the German Bundesliga in 1991, was arrested after scoring two own goals to help pay off his gambling debts.
However, one of the Asian fixers that I spoke to said he hated own goals. He declaimed against a Vietnamese gambling ring who had fixed their national team to lose in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December 2005. “They don’t know what they are doing … but they were stupid. Scored an own goal almost, very stupid [sic]. Too obvious.”
My research showed that own goals are scored in about 10 per cent of the normal games, and in just under 20 per cent of fixed matches. This means it is a significant rise, but it shows only that certain players may score own goals to help the fix. In other words, own goals are not a consistent tool used to corrupt matches, as penalties are with referees. Again, I think this falls within Rafiq Saad territory and “sins of omission;” scoring an own goal is simply too obvious for most people taking part in a fix.
RED CARDS
One might think that getting thrown out of the game would be a perfect way for a dishonest player to help corrupt a match: shout abuse at the referee, storm off the field, and the other team wins with a one-player advantage. It also seems a perfect tool for a dishonest referee: removing the star player from the team that the referee is trying to make lose would surely aid the fix.
However, the research showed that red cards are not a tool used in a statistically significant way by either corrupt players or dishonest referees in fixing matches. Again, Saad was right; it is better for a dishonest player to be on the field than off. Actually dishonest players seem to have fewer red cards in fixed matches than players do in honestly played matches. I think the numbers indicate that dishonest players are either not trying hard enough to warrant a red card or that they are deliberately trying not to get sent off the field. Presumably, being on the field to aid the fix is better.
The statistical analysis seems to support Saad’s confession. With penalties, own goals, and red cards, there are no statistically significant increases when the data is analyzed for corrupt players. So is there a way of recognizing a fixed match? Are there definite patterns that distinguish a dishonestly played match from a regular match?
I believe there might be. In other work, I was able to show that there is a statistically significant difference between the total number of goals scored in fixed matches compared to honestly played matches. Matches that are fixed have, on average, 20 per cent more goals scored than do honest matches. But the key to recognizing potential dishonest patterns is to examine when the goals are scored in the games.
One of the many myths that surround match-fixing is that play in the late stages of a match – last-minute penalties and late goals – secures the fix. The inference is that the referee or corrupt players wait until the last few minutes of the game – controlling the ball – and then score late in the game to achieve the desired result.
An excerpt from Joe McGinniss’s book The Miracle of Castel di Sangro suggests the opposite. McGinniss, the American journalist who wrote The Selling of the President, fell in love with soccer late in life. He spent a season following an Italian Serie B (second division) team, Castel di Sangro, sharing its triumphs and heartbreaks. It is a story, beautifully and lyrically told, of love’s bitter disillusionment, for in the final game of the season, McGinniss witnessed first-hand a fix between his beloved Castel di Sangro and a team from Bari. He heard the corrupt players discuss the timing of the goals in the following way:
A player said, “The first [goal] must come immediately. Even before the people take their seats. That way it is not noticed so much. And then two more, as they develop, but all in the first half.”
“And in the second?”
A player laughed. “In the second we all lie down and take a nap.”
“But this will not look bad?” a younger player asked, sounding worried.
Another laughed. “Look bad to whom? … Do not worry. No one pays attention at these times. Everyone looks the other way. Only be careful never to shoot at the Bari goal tomorrow. That would be a mistake.”
This method of scoring early and then players “taking a nap” is certainly what seemed to have happened in the “shoddy accomodation” between the Austrian and West German teams in the 1982 World Cup. Both teams would progress to the second round if West Germany won the game 1-0. The Germans scored in the first eleven minutes, and the rest of the match was an exercise in the manner of the Castel di Sangro players.
However, there is another theory: that a match-fixing performance is also, at least partly, opportunity based. In other words, finely laid plans are all very well in theory, but in the reality of a game, players simply have to take the opportunity to fix when it comes. The Italian players hint at this when they describe the second and third goals coming “as they develop.”
So I analyzed the database specifically looking at the time of goals. What I discovered was surprising. There is a difference between when goals are scored in fixed and honest matches. In fixed matches, the number of goals scored goes up in the first ten minutes and goes down in the last ten minutes. This finding runs completely contrary to popular wisdom and the idea of a rush of last-minute goals. What I realized is that those games with a run of late goals were actually marked by failure. People were aware that a fix was going on because the teams were so desperate to score and were rushing to score in the last ten minutes. In most successfully fixed matches, the fix was achieved long before the final ten minutes. In fact, the players and referee would try to arrange them as early in the game as possible. This is the reason why there are so many goals in the first ten minutes of fixed games.
However, there was an important point missing in the research in Asia. I was beginning to understand the role of the players in the fix, but the deeper my research progressed, the more I realized I was missing how the top sports officials were and were not dealing with the scandal.
4
MISSING THE BIG BOYS
They arrested a lot of the players. But they definitely missed a lot of the big boys. A lot of the big boys. And there was no doubt those guys were involved in fixing. And those guys are still involved in football in some capacity in coaching or whatever. But they definitely missed some of the big boys.
The best piece of advice I received when doing my research came from an English professor living in Asia. We met late one night at a food court in central Kuala Lumpur. I had just arrived and he took me out for a meal and shared his thoughts on the country. We ate in one of those Asian outdoor food courts that provide, dollar for dollar, the best food in the world. There was everything, from the wonderful coconut taste of nasi lemak to Singapore noodles to spicy Szechuan chicken, to Indian masala dolsa and mango lassi. Even late at night, it was very hot and near each table fans sprayed out fine jets of water. In the hustle and bustle around us were a dozen different cultures meeting and eating. There were Tamil families with the women in brightly coloured saris; groups of Malay office workers in glaring pink T-shirts; and at another table sat a group of glamorous but tough-looking Russian prostitutes with improbably blond hair, impossibly high heels, and faces so sharp you could cut cheese with them.
At the end of our meal, after I told the professor my research topic, he leaned forward and said, “If you want to find out anything in this place, don’t look like an investigative journalist. Be polite. Dress well. But look innocent and don’t ask direct questions.”
The more I worked and travelled, the more I realize
d how right he had been and the more I realized how little of “the truth” had actually been told publicly. For example, one of the things that had always puzzled me was that when the Malaysian and Singaporean police finally moved in, they arrested an enormous number of players, a few bookies, and one or two coaches, but that was it. Surely, I thought, some sports official at a higher level must have known what was going on? This chapter is not about the players but about the officials of the Asian soccer world – what did they know about the match-fixing?
Much of the conventional wisdom about the cleanup of Malaysian and Singapore soccer is wrong: match-fixing had not suddenly arisen with the advent of the professional league; it had long been a part of the established culture in Malaysian soccer. Even several of the senior soccer officials who were running the league admitted that they actually took part in fixed matches themselves when they played the game. Farok Ali (*) was both a player during the 1960s and a soccer official. He told me quite openly about his participation in match-fixing as a player: “There was nothing obvious. Some of the senior players would tell us the difference should be in the goal difference. In other words, don’t win by three goals, just win by a couple of goals less.”
I interviewed some of the players who had played in the league in the 1990s. They were all reasonably forthright about what they thought may have gone on:
Question: Was the [team] management ever involved in the fixing?
Answer: Yes, sometimes the management gets involved. They start to get involved in fixing. You think 40K in 90 minutes is not tempting? Sometime the owners will tell me, “Look, I bet 40 K on 8 ball [the owners had bet $40,000 that there would be 8 goals scored in the game] …” You ask the other players they will tell you this.
A player who had been in the dressing room with many of the match-fixing players said:
They arrested a lot of the players. But they definitely missed a lot of the big boys. A lot of the big boys. And there was no doubt those guys were involved in fixing. And those guys are still involved in football in some capacity in coaching or whatever. But they definitely missed some of the big boys. I would say that who has been involved is just the icing on the cake …
Johnson Fernandez discovered similar stories with the help of his underworld sources in 1993 and wrote a series of explosive articles, one of which was entitled, “How do you pin down a ‘fix’? Officials are into the racket, too.” He wrote: “It has been learnt now that players aren’t the only ones fixing matches. Officials have got into the act, too. Some of them unscrupulous, some of them going for wins and throwing matches that aren’t detrimental to their team’s chances of a title or a place in the Malaysia Cup.”
Peter Velappan is one of the top Asian soccer officials. He was the general secretary of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and continues as an influential executive. The AFC is the Asian branch of FIFA. FIFA pretty much runs everything in world soccer and the AFC runs soccer in Asia. But even Velappan in 1993 was quoted by Fernandez as saying about match-fixing: “They [the soccer officials] are sweeping it under the carpet. I have not come across any FA in this region who have faced the problem squarely.”
I visited Velappan in the AFC’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur to see what he thinks now. Velappan is a clean-cut looking man, but he is very tired. Tired because he has spent a lifetime fighting the match-fixing that plagues Asian soccer leagues. He has had direct experiences with corruption: “In West Asia [the Middle East for Europeans] I once picked up a newspaper. It had been slipped under my hotel room door. There was $10,000 under the paper.” He immediately returned the money to the man who was trying to bribe him. Velappan calls match-fixing “the ghost” because it is so difficult to see or clamp down on. Despite his experience, he claims that although there was enormous amounts of match-fixing in Asian soccer, it has died down as the various soccer associations have now “got it under control.” For the record, he is the only person that I spoke to in Asia who said something like that; all the other sports officials at least privately still claimed that it was a huge problem for them.
After we spoke, I wandered about the AFC headquarters for a couple of days. It is a nice, comfortable place with a large stream filled with fish just outside the entrance hall. I found most of the AFC officials to be extremely kind and diligent. I learned that there were 46 national associations, 29,000 clubs, and more than 105 million players in more than 100,000 teams in Asia. I learned that there were more than 716,000 referees in the AFC zone. I learned that in 1981, one of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen had beaten up one of those referees because he had officiated a game in Baghdad that Kuwait had won. The bruised and beaten referee was driven hurriedly to the airport and put bleeding on a plane out of the country. And I spoke to an official who told me the following story of when he was an international referee:
It was in an international tournament in West Asia. The match was between X and Y, but if Y lost, a third team would go through. So fifteen minutes before the match, “the big man” who was connected to the third team came into the referee’s dressing room where I was changing. He was very blunt. There was no beating around the bush. He just said, “So what do you want, cash or cheque?”
I said, “What?”
He said, “Cash or cheque?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can have the money delivered to your hotel …”
I was very embarrassed I didn’t know what to say … I was shocked. Then a few minutes later the big man came back; he talked to the assistant referees in Arabic. I speak a little Arabic and I could understand that he was ordering them out of the room.
When they were out of the dressing room, he turned and said to me, “Ten thousand dollars.”
I said, “No, I want to do good match [sic].”
“I want you to do good match too [sic],” he said. “I just want one penalty. One penalty for X. That’s all. Ten thousand dollars cash.”
“No,” I said and left the dressing room. I was very upset … There is a ceremony where both teams line up with the linesmen and they wait until the referee comes out. Well, I didn’t wait, I just walked onto the field …”
I will not name the official. He seemed like a good, honest man, someone who was genuinely shocked by the bribe attempt and wants to do his best for the world’s game. Moreover, the AFC does not seem like the kind of organization that tolerates a lot of openness or revelations from its junior administrators. As we talked in the armchairs of the entrance lobby, Mohamed bin Hammam, the Qatari president of the AFC, drove up in a dark limousine. The man I was speaking to became agitated. “The president is coming. The president is coming,” he said. I was bewildered. I thought that the president of some Asian country was coming into the room. The official, seemingly frightened, stood up as bin Hammam walked into the lobby twenty yards away. Bin Hammam paid very little attention to us, or to any of the other AFC officials who all stood at attention. He nodded affably at the room, smiled, waved, and walked into an elevator. Only after he did so, did anyone in the room relax.
Here is the problem for Peter Velappan and all the AFC administrators who are not corrupt: the Big Man that the official spoke of was, he says, a senior executive in the Asian soccer world. Part of his bribe attempt was, after the money was turned down, to claim to have influence on the selection of referees for international tournaments. The referee was promised that if he helped the Big Man’s team into the next round, the referee could expect to work high-profile international matches.
The Big Man is not alone. Even at the most innocent level, there is a kind of strange cognitive dissonance about corruption that infects many Asian sporting officials. Most of them are hard-working, dedicated individuals who genuinely want to see their sport grow. But some simply did not get it. One official I interviewed, who seemed honest and deeply committed to helping clean up the corruption, gave a long, insightful interview. But at its end, I asked, “How much does it cost to fix a soccer game?”
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sp; He replied, “I really don’t know. But hold on a moment. I have a friend who does this kind of thing all the time. Let me phone him and ask him.”
He punched in his speed-dial. His friend answered.
“Hello? Yes, I am here with a fellow from Oxford. How much does it cost to fix a soccer match nowadays? No, no. It’s all off the record. No problem. What’s that? About ten thousand Malaysian ringgit. Right. No, no. See you next week. Thanks.”
He switched off the phone and turned to me.
“My friend tells me that when he and his bookie friends fix a game here, it costs about ten thousand Malaysian ringgit.”
If that particular official were an exception, then the anecdote could be described as an aberration, but in other interviews I discovered other officials who had similar conflicts. On my first research trip to the area, I met another of Asia’s top sports officials. At the most prestigious sports club in the city, we talked about the anti-corruption efforts needed to clean up the game. As the interview continued, we sat on the balcony, watching a game of cricket. He drank Scotch and water. I drank a pot of tea. I was talking about a Singaporean soccer match that I had seen the night before.
“The game was great: 4-2. And all four goals by one team in the last twenty minutes. It was a fantastic effort! A never-say-die attitude from the players that I loved watching!”