Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer

by Wilson Raj Perumal

  I next approached Michal for a league game between Geylang International and Jurong FC.

  "What are the chances of you winning by four clear goals", I asked.

  "No problem", he said, "I'll take care of Jurong".

  Jurong was another club that played in the Singapore League and, overall, the league was pathetic. Then, for the first time in my life, I heard a player asking me to participate in my betting.

  "Can I bet my own money?" asked Michal.

  He was by far the most intelligent footballer that I had ever come across.

  "Of course you can", I said. "How much do you want to bet?"

  "Five thousand".

  "Do you have the money on you?" I inquired. "Make no mistake: if you lose, you have to pay up".

  "I don't have the money on me", said Michal. "Meet me at the post office in Bay Shore Park. Behind".

  "OK. I'll see you there at two o'clock, get your money ready".

  I met Michal behind the post office and he gave me five thousand dollars which I placed in my pocket. I then made my way to the stadium and walked straight into the bookies corner to do business.

  "Three-ball, three-ball", croaked the bookies.

  "I give you three-and-a-half", I countered.

  They all rushed to me, "How much?"

  "30 thousand dollars".

  "OK", they said, "deal closed".

  The game ended 7-0. Michal destroyed Jurong, scoring four goals. He was a one-man show; too fast for that standard and too good. A true demolition-man.

  Following the match, Pal dispatched one of his trusted men, Bryan, to snatch Michal from me.

  Unlike Pal, Bryan was an intelligent and educated man. I had known him ever since I was 15; he was an Indian Tamil like myself and his home was also in Woodlands, just two blocks away from mine. Bryan attended Si Ling Secondary School and played goalkeeper in their football team because, even at that young age, he was already a huge guy. But Bryan wasn't the first or second choice goalie in the team; he sat on the bench among the reserves and the coach didn't even let him change into his uniform. A few years later, I saw Bryan play again during our seven-aside tournaments and realized that he had become a true goalkeeper. His dedication was admirable: through hard work he had climbed all the way to the Singaporean national team; not in the starting eleven, of course, he was still the second or third choice on the bench, but the bookies in Jalan Besar had started calling him "the iron gate". He was not easy to beat and, at one point, there was even a Hong Kong club that wanted to sign him on. It would have been a massive achievement for a local goalkeeper but then, during his national service, Bryan suffered a serious knee injury while playing rugby and that was it; his career was gone. Kaput. That's when Bryan started doing business with Pal. Pal found him useful because Bryan knew the national team's goalkeepers and had influence over other football players in Singapore.

  Bryan came from a poor family, just like Pal and myself, but seemed to have forgotten his humble roots. The minute he started making money, he became arrogant and self-righteous and began walking around with bodyguards and all. I was told that when he traveled to Thailand, the local police would escort him from the airport.

  "What the fuck", I asked. "Are you sure?"

  There was no need for him to be arrogant because we all knew where Bryan came from. I remember that, when we were children, a friend had confided: "Bryan is stealing shoes outside people's doors".

  In Singapore we have the habit of leaving our shoes outside the door and little Bryan was often in need of a fresh pair. There is an old Tamil saying that fits Bryan very well: "No matter how high a sparrow flies, it cannot call itself a vulture".

  I had told some friends that Michal was on the take with me and the news had reached Bryan's ears, who immediately relayed the information to Pal. Pal needed some good players to infiltrate the Singapore national team so, without my consent, he sent Bryan to approach Michal.

  "What are you doing with this small fish?" Bryan asked Michal. "Come to me. I bring you the best guy, the big fish".

  After snatching Michal from me, Pal gave me a chance to join his inner circle. He summoned me and asked: "Who do you know? Who are the players that you have?"

  "I have a goalkeeper and a referee", I answered.

  I made no mention of Michal because we both knew when and how he had switched sides, but I did bring Pal a Croatian goalkeeper called Sandro. Sandro had long wavy hair down to his shoulders and no money in his pockets.

  "Hey boss", I said to Pal, "this guy needs money for a haircut".

  "Mother-fucker", he laughed. "You bring me somebody who doesn't have money to go for a haircut and claims to be a footballer?"

  Pal handed Sandro five thousand dollars, then tried placing him in the Perak Football Club, a Malaysian state team, but couldn't. Finally he managed to get Sandro into the Singaporean club Woodlands Wellington FC and Sandro became part of the family, as did I.

  I also planned to introduce Pal to a top Asian referee called Thiru, but, as I was negotiating a match between Johor and Sarawak with him, Bryan snatched the ref from me just like he had done with Michal. At that time everybody wanted to impress Pal and be in his good books.

  In 1993 I was invited to Bryan's house for Diwali, a festival that Indians celebrate between mid-October and mid-November of each year. On that year, Diwali landed just two days ahead of the Malaysia Cup final and Bryan had invited Pal, his boys and all the players that worked for him to celebrate the recurrence at his place; Michal and Sandro were also there. That night, Pal asked me to play poker with him, Bryan and some of the other guys, so we began to be acquainted with one-another slightly better; then our poker sessions moved from Bryan's home to Pal's office and became a daily occurrence. At that point we had gotten closer; not in the sense that we hugged and kissed each other, but we knew one-another quite well. Bryan was the best poker player among us: he had money and knew how to use it. He would always raise the stake and you could not call unless you were 100 percent sure that you were going to nail the fucker. Pal and Bryan never allowed the others to leave the poker table while ahead; they always expected you to keep playing until you were back at square one. On those rare days when I was winning, I would pretend to count my money and secretly slip a couple of one thousand dollar bills into my underwear; it was the only way to bring some money back home. Both Pal and Bryan were very heavy, pathological gamblers; I was nothing compared to them. Bryan had the balls to push one million dollars on a single baccarat game. I've done the same on a football match but would not dare do so in a game of cards.

  In December 1993, Pal smoothed the way for Kedah FA's victory in the Malaysia Cup by fixing the cup's final against the Singapore Lions. He paid the Kedah team handsomely to fight tooth-and-nail for him and made sure that no one else influenced his players. The Singapore Lions' coach, P. N. Sivaji, was a soft-spoken man who was harshly criticized for not bringing the trophy home. Little did he know that someone else had already decided where the cup was going to showcase.

  At one point, I think that it was in Pal's mind to employ me for his fixes.

  "Go back home", he said to me. "Get your passport and let's go to Penang, Malaysia".

  Pal wanted to use me as one of his trusted lieutenants. I rushed home and called Bryan.

  "Hey Bryan", I asked, "are you going to Penang with the boss?"

  "Yes", he said, "I'm going".

  "Can you pick me up on the way to the boss's office then?" I inquired. "Because he told me to come along too".

  Bryan agreed but, within five minutes, I received a call from Pal.

  "Wilson", he said, "you will not make this trip now. I'll probably invite you some other time".

  "Fuck. Calling Bryan was a big mistake", I reckoned. "The fucker has just killed me; that's it".

  I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that Bryan was trying to cut me off from the boss. Bryan thought that, if I got too close to Pal, he would be downgraded to number
two in the boss's mind. He knew that I was on par with him; both of us had the same criminal mentality so he didn't want me around and was poisoning my relationship with Pal.

  "This Wilson guy is dangerous", he probably told Pal. "He can sell information on this and that. He will leak you out".

  Pal had decided not to engage my services and I was not about to follow him and hump his leg or beg him to hire me so I turned a blind eye to it all.

  In 1994, Pal promoted Michal from the local league to the Singapore Lions so that he could compete in the Malaysia Cup. Pal was paying him generously for his loyalty. I tried calling Michal once while he was playing in the Lions; within a handful of minutes, I received a call from Pal.

  "Why did you call Michal?" he barked.

  "Fuck", I replied. "I just called to speak to him".

  "Fuck you", he threatened. "You better not call him anymore".

  There were, of course, players in the Malaysia Cup who were neither corrupt nor corruptible, either because they were very religious or because they had very strong principles. I remember one such player, Alan Davidson, an Australian footballer who played for Pahang FA, one of the Malaysian state teams. Davidson was the best defender in the entire Malaysia Cup but he happened to stand in Pal's way. Pal had decided that Singapore was going to win the 1994 Malaysia Cup final against Davidson's team. He had many of Pahang's players under his influence but not the Australian defender so, during the semi-final between Pahang and Kedah in Alor Setar, Malaysia, with the help of a complacent referee, Pal managed to get Davidson sent off and suspended in view of the final. Davidson's absence from the field in the final made the job easier for his corrupt team-mates; they accomplished their mission and lost 4-0 to Singapore, which came away with a stylish victory before 81 thousand ignorant spectators and millions of viewers back home who assumed that the cup had been won fairly. In order to avoid unexpected setbacks, Pal had paid both the Pahang players to concede goals and the Singapore players to fight like real lions in order to take the cup home. One of them was the Australian striker Abbas Saad, who received money directly from his teammate Michal and delivered a hat-trick for Singapore during the match.

  But celebrations were cut short by a wave of arrests for match-fixing. Five days after the final, dozens of footballers were apprehended both in Malaysia by local police and in Singapore by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). Law enforcement officials were compelled to act against the rampant corruption in the Malaysia Cup after a Chinese evening newspaper revealed the final scores on the eve of the matches. The paper had gone so far as to announce details of who was going to get a red card during the games. Over one hundred players were arrested in Malaysia; some were suspended by the Malaysian FA and some were even banished to remote islands and rural areas. Among the Singapore players charged was Michal, Pal's protege. Pal himself was also picked up by the CPIB and turned prosecution witness to avoid being charged.

  Michal proved to be a tough nut to crack; he sat in silence in the interrogation room for over 17 hours; he didn't speak one word. Eventually, once Pal's statements were on the record, Michal had to give in. Bail for his release was set at half a million Singapore dollars and he was in dire need of urgent assistance. Michal pleaded with his old team-mates, like Fandi Ahmad, but none were willing to help. Fortunately for him, Pal knew a former police inspector named Maniam who sometimes took part in our poker sessions. He gave Maniam half a million dollars in cash and asked him to bail Michal out. Pal then hired some people to ferry Michal to Indonesia by boat; whether it was a speedboat or a fishing boat, I cannot say, but somehow they smuggled Michal out of Singapore. From Indonesia, Michal was supposed to fly to Sofia, Bulgaria, but the dumb fucker didn't remember that every flight from Indonesia to Europe made a stop-over in Singapore. Michal's flight landed back in the Lion City and the passengers were transferred to another airplane. According to Michal's account of the events, an airport steward took notice of him as he walked through the transit terminal. At that time, Michal was a hot star in Singapore since he had gone missing and had skipped his court date.

  "I thank that steward", said Michal years later. "Despite taking notice of me, he did not report my presence on the flight".

  Once in Europe, Michal was able to prove his citizenship and be sent home to Prague while Abbas Saad, the player that Michal had paid on behalf of Pal, was convicted by a Singapore court and handed a global playing ban from FIFA.

  The grand sweep by the CPIB and Malaysian authorities also caused more lasting damages. The football associations of Malaysia and Singapore began pointing accusing fingers at one-another.

  "You have not done enough against corruption", they blamed each other.

  To make matters worse, there were financial disputes between the two associations on the way that the cup's proceeds were being divided. Eventually, Singapore pulled out of the Malaysia Cup in 1994 because of corruption and because of me and because of you.

  "Thank you very much", they said. "We will not participate anymore".

  CHAPTER III

  Going bust

  In late 1994 I was trying to fix the finals of the Prime Minister's Cup, an amateur competition also known as the Constituency Cup, between Nee Soon CSC and Kaki Bukit SC, two local Singapore clubs. Through a friend called Ah Wang, I obtained the pager number of one of the Kaki Bukit players, a Malaysian guy whose name I forget, and paged him from my family's home in Woodlands. When the player called me at my home number I introduced myself as Ah Wang's friend and made my approach.

  "Would you be interested in losing the final against Nee Soon?" I asked.

  "How much are you willing to pay me?" he inquired.

  "I'll pay you from three to five thousand Singapore dollars", I said.

  "OK", he replied, "let me think about it and I'll get back to you".

  That evening, I went to the Genting Highlands Casino in Malaysia and lost all of my money. When I returned to Singapore, I found myself without any funds to fix the match, so I just forgot about it and didn't even bother calling the player back. The match was played and Kaki Bukit actually lost one-nil to Nee Soon. On the following day, the player's statements were all over the papers.

  "A bookie approached me to lose the match", he claimed.

  "Fuck", I thought, "this could be big trouble".

  Singapore's CPIB traced the player's call to my home, where only three possible culprits lived: my father, my brother and I. My brother was at the army camp for his national service at the time so it couldn't be him; it was either my father or myself. I was often staying at a friend's house and would occasionally drop by my parent's home so, when the CPIB came to my house and picked my father up, I was not around. Soon the news of my father's arrest reached me and I didn't know what to do. I called a friend to seek his advice.

  "Shall I turn myself in or wait for my father's release?" I asked.

  The police department in Singapore can hold on to you for a maximum of 48 hours for non-capital offenses then, when the two days expire, they have to either charge you in court and extend your custody or set bail for your release. Finally, I decided to surrender and went to the police station where I was arrested and interrogated. At first, I pretended like I didn't know anything about the matter; the policemen had no idea that I was a punter and that I was involved in football gambling. Then they started to play around with my feelings.

  "If you don't admit, we're going to charge your father", an officer threatened. "Why don't you confess? You will get a stern warning and that will be the end of it".

  The idea of my father getting charged and going to prison because of me was just too disturbing to consider so I decided to confess.

  "It was me", I admitted. "I was the one who made the call. Let my father go".

  My statement was recorded and I was released on bail. While awaiting trial for match-fixing, my passport was impounded so that I would not leave the country.

  With Singapore out of the Malaysia Cup, bookie
s started seeking new ventures abroad. Many of us had gambled on European football matches but none had ever tried to manipulate them; we thought Europe to be well beyond our reach. Once, during one of our poker sessions, I had brought up the subject with Pal.

  "Why aren't we trying to fix the English Premier League?" I inquired.

  "Impossible", laughed Bryan.

  "So long as footballers are human", I insisted, "anything is possible".

  Bryan gave me a nasty look while Pal didn't flinch; he just kept playing, a smoking Dunhill dangling from his lips, but the idea had somehow taken root in his head. Then, in early January 1995, Pal decided to venture for the first time into Europe. Without the Malaysia Cup to manipulate, his match-fixing had come to an abrupt end and, following his arrest, a substantial amount of his wealth had been confiscated by the Singapore authorities. Bryan was not around anymore; Pal's right-hand man had left and, although Pal was street-smart when it came to Singapore, he knew nothing about the world beyond the causeway to Malaysia. That's why he came to me; he knew that I was intelligent, that I spoke good English and that I had a way with people and could get things done. Pal asked me to travel to the UK with his brother-in-law and see whether we could come up with something in England to help him climb back to his old splendor. I had nothing much to do at the time and I too was broke so I agreed.

  "All right", I said to Pal. "Let's go and try".

  Pal took out a loan from one of the gentlemen that participated in our poker sessions and gave me a little pocket money for the trip. Since I was out on bail and my passport was impounded, I used a friend's passport to leave Singapore and travel to the UK. It wasn't a fake passport; it simply wasn't mine. My friend and I looked somewhat similar so I didn't even bother replacing his picture with mine; when white guys see two Indians, they cannot spot the difference between them anyways.