Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (20 page)

"I'm going to
meet Phil", he said. "Do you want to come along?"

I will fix any day,
any time; I was just waiting for the right opportunity but I was also
trying my level best not to do it in Singapore. Only at that time I
had nothing, just my savings from prison, which amounted roughly to
five hundred dollars. I had no influence on the outside and no other
way to make money so I agreed to attend the meeting with Mega.

"I'll tell you
what", I said, "I will come along but I will not get
directly involved. I will ride in the car with you but I won't sit at
the same table; I'll sit elsewhere".

"OK. Let's go
then", said Mega.

We met Phil in a
coffee shop;
Mega was doing the talking while I
sat a few meters away. Once he had finished speaking to Phil, Mega
came over to my table and sat down.

"Phil seems
agreeable", he said, "what next?"

"Ask him to
take a red card and fuck up the match", I suggested.

Phil was very
excited about doing business with Mega because he was making one
hundred dollars per month while Mega was offering him six to seven
thousand dollars per match. Phil contacted the other player that I
had singled out during the game, Obi, who also agreed to come on
board with us. Mega asked Phil to take a red card, as I had
recommended, to facilitate Sporting Afrique's defeat in their
following match. With Phil and Obi on our side, the match played out
as we had expected and, with just a couple of minutes left to play,
our bet was won even without the aid of a red card. Then, at the 89
^th
minute, Phil was sanctioned for a silly foul and sent
out.

"What the fuck
is he thinking?" I asked Mega, who was sitting beside me in the
stands. "A red card at the 89
^th
minute when the result is already accomplished?"

After the first
successful match, Mega continued to do business with Sporting Afrique
and would always ask for my advice on how to proceed with the
matches. I was lending a helping hand but was also trying to make
some money on the side by finding a few dollars to bet on the games
together with Mega. There were no live bets for these matches back
then so we gambled at the Singapore Pools. It was not a very
lucrative business; not all the matches were fruitful and the odds
offered by the Singapore Pools were not so hot. I remember a match in
which Sporting Afrique was supposed to lose by 1-0. Their loss was
paying 2 dollars and 20 cents. This meant that if you bet ten
thousand dollars, you would win 22 thousand. It was a 12 thousand
dollar profit from which we had to deduct the money for Phil and Obi.
We fixed four or five Sporting Afrique matches and each time Mega and
I would watch the game together from the stands.

As the season
progressed, Sporting Afrique was set to play against the Tampines
Rovers, another Singapore club. We told the Sporting Afrique players
to play 100 percent and lock the match because Tampines was giving
1.5. I don't know why, but Phil took a red card early in the game and
was sent off. When we asked the mother-fucker to take a red card, he
did so at the 89
^th
minute,
when there was no need to, then, when we asked him to play, the
fucker took a red card: we lost our bet and our money.

The real problem
with Africans is that you cannot put them together and talk business
to them. They'll each have something to say, then they'll discuss it
with the others. At that time I still couldn't quite understand how
they functioned. Phil agreed to take yet another red card in the
following match but discussed his effort with a good friend of his
who immediately went to the club's offices and filed a report against
him.

"Somebody
offered Phil money last night to lose the match", read the
report.

Phil was picked up
by the CPIB and questioned.

"Two guys
approached me", he told the officers, "they offered me
seven thousand dollars to take a red card and I said 'no'".

The CPIB traced the
last call made to Phil's mobile phone and came up with Mega's number;
they picked Mega up and put him face to face with Phil.

"Is this the
guy who offered you money?" they asked Phil.

"No, this is a
friend of mine", Phil didn't want to land us into trouble. "I
cannot remember the guy's face because I was sleepy when he came up
to me".

Thank God, otherwise
Mega would have been done for and so would I. Phil was clever and had
already received his cut so he did not want to implicate anybody.
There were no grounds on which to charge Mega but the CPIB kept him
in their sights for investigating purposes. He was free to go but had
to renew his bail every two weeks.

As the season was
coming to an end, Sporting Afrique was set to play away against a
Japanese team, Albirex Niigata FC, another foreign guest formation in
the S-League. Mega and I decided to invest most of our savings on the
match.

"First half,
draw", we told Phil and Obi. "Second half, concede one
goal".

Easy.

But when the match
kicked off, it looked as if Obi was playing a regular game; he didn't
give a fuck about our deal and wasn't working to concede the goal we
needed. Phil, on the other hand, was ready to capitulate in his head,
but he didn't know how to get his feet to act accordingly. In the
92
^nd
minute, the
Japanese team finally scored, 1-0, and we managed to win our bet. I
was enraged with Obi; I assumed that my telephone was being tapped
because Mega was under investigation and had made frequent calls to
my mobile. Still, I could not resist the temptation of letting Obi
know that I was pissed off; I called Phil.

"Phil", I
told him, "you tell this mother-fucker Obi that I'm not going to
give him five, I'm only going to give him two".

Just 'five' and
'two', I said.

"This is
between you and him", said Phil, who spoke very little English.

The CPIB was
listening in on the call so they picked Phil up again and brought him
back to their offices.

"What were you
supposed to get from Wilson?" they asked Phil. "Two and
five what?"

"I don't know",
he replied. "You ask Wilson. This is between Wilson and Obi".

"So why did he
call you?"

"I don't know".

The CPIB then
proceeded to pick up Obi to question him about the call.

"I don't know",
said Obi. "Wilson called Phil, not me. You ask Wilson. It's
between them".

Next, they persuaded
Obi to call me. I was driving when my mobile phone rang. Obi wasn't
supposed to ring me up; I usually called him. I had phoned him two or
three times earlier that day but he hadn't answered my calls. Now,
all of a sudden, his name was flashing insistently on my mobile's
display.

"Obi? Why is he
calling me? Fuck, this could be a tapped conversation", I
thought as I answered the call.

"Oh, Obi, how
can I help you?"

"Hey",
said Obi, "you're supposed to find me a club".

"Fuck, Obi",
I said. "I have my own problems, you understand. I cannot get
you a club right now but I have spoken to a club in India about you.
You just bear with me for one or two months".

"But I need a
club now".

"Obi, if you
can bear with me, you bear. If you cannot, then fuck off. OK?"

I hung up.

The next day, as I
drove through town, I noticed a car tailgating mine. I didn't think
much of it and there wasn't anything that I could do about it. Then,
at about six o'clock on the following morning, the CPIB came to my
home and enclosed the premises. Their field officers had probably
followed my every move for days because of my past conviction for
escaping police custody; in the CPIB's eyes I was ranked differently
from Obi and Phil. They picked me up and escorted me to their
offices. They did not question me at first, they just locked me up.
About 28 hours later I was taken into one of the interrogation rooms
that were lined up in the hallway. The officer accompanying me walked
out of the room and locked the door behind him, leaving me alone. The
room was bare but for a table, a chair and a small see-through
window. About an hour later, another officer walked in and sat down
in front of me.

"What do you
know about Obi, Phil and Mega?" he asked.

"What are you
talking about?" I replied. "I'm just trying to help players
get clubs to play in".

"What are you
afraid of?" he reassured me. "If you were not involved, you
don't have to admit to anything that you didn't do".

My mouth remained
sealed. The officer gave up and walked out of the room and locked the
door behind him again. After a short while, another officer came in
and sat down.

"You know",
he said, "Obi is already talking. He's saying everything about
you. We already have enough evidence to charge you so you should
really speak up".

They were playing
their little mind games with me. Eventually, although they were not
allowed to touch me, they were going to try to break me
psychologically. The officer began raising his voice and then slammed
his fists violently on the table, trying to intimidate me, but, this
time around, I stuck to the golden rule: never admit.

"I'm just a
football agent", I was unshakable. "I don't know what
you're talking about".

Finally, the CPIB
officer laughed.

"Fuck", he
conceded, "you are good".

Then he moved closer
and said: "Wilson, why are you giving us such a hard time? This
is the last warning that we give you: leave Singapore alone. Go and
fix your matches elsewhere and we will not come after you".

The CPIB had so much
difficulty pinning the triangle between Phil, Obi and myself that we
were eventually each given a warning and told to leave. Had I been
convicted, I would have looked at ten years of corrective training;
no remission for a third-time offender. If you go in three times for
the same crime, you're fucked. Fortunately, I had made it a point to
always run through the drill and brief the players before I did any
business with them.

"If you get
caught", I instructed them, "they will lock you up for 48
hours. They will walk in and out of the room and they will ask
questions. Don't talk. If you talk, you will never be able to play
football again for the rest of your life. First, the policemen will
reassure you, then they will tell you that the others are talking,
but, after 48 hours, if you haven't admitted to your guilt, they'll
have to release you. You can be 100 percent sure that I am not
talking. They will say that I am but on my mother's grave I tell you:
I will never talk. Even if they put a gun to my head, I will never
talk; so you don't worry and keep your mouth shut. Never admit to
anything".

After the run-in
with the CPIB, Mega and I decided to back off from Sporting Afrique
and drifted apart; but our fixes had not gone unnoticed in the
match-fixing market. I was soon approached by some old acquaintances:
Thana and Yap; they were accompanied by a runner from Melaka named
Kelvin.
The
three were working for a Chinese-Malaysian boss from Melaka whose
identity they would not reveal to me. Thana told me that he and Yap
had looked for me in early 2006 because they wanted me to fix some
2006 World Cup matches in Germany for them. I told Thana that I had
spent the past three and a half years in prison.

"We went to the
World Cup", Thana explained. "We were looking for you high
and low but couldn't find you. We fixed a match with Ghana but it
didn't materialize; well, actually only the first half did".

Thana was referring
to Ghana vs Brazil, played during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. They
had approached Ghana through a guy called Abukari. Abukari had played
in the Malaysian club Perak FA and was the Ghana national team
goalkeeper's coach. Abukari was later sacked by the local FA for
fixing a friendly match between them and Iran. Thana and Yap had been
informed by Abukari that the national team which was traveling to
Iran was made up mostly of Under-21 players. Thana and Yap had
managed to approach and bribe a few of them to get trashed 4-2 by
Iran.

"Do you have
anything going on right now?" Thana asked.

"What do you
want to do?" I inquired.

"Do you have
anything in Singapore?"