Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (48 page)

When he came back to
Singapore, I decided not to put a tough face on. How could I blame
Harry when Danny, one of my own men, had betrayed me.

"I did those
matches", Harry admitted candidly when I asked him, "but
it's your fault. You tipped off the Chinese guy who called Ah Kang
and sold him the information on the match for ten thousand dollars.
You're the one who fucked it up for all of us first".

"It was not
me", I said, "do you have this Chinese guy's number?"

Harry said that he
did. I dialed the number from my mobile but received no answer. Five
minutes later, Mega called me.

"Wilson",
he asked, "why are you calling my Chinese guy?"

"How is this
Chinese man yours, Mega?" I asked.

The Chinese man was
none other than Ah Lim, Mega's Chinese taxi driver friend.

"Well", he
explained, "we sold the El Salvador game to Ah Kang for ten
thousand dollars".

"You
mother-fucker", I shouted. "Because of your big mouth,
Harry and Danny have fucked me up. Everything is now in the bin
because of you".

That
is one of the reasons why, when you fix a match, you should try to
keep the information close to your heart. There are people out there
who will keep track of which countries you have visited and so forth;
and they're not police officials.
The
information on the match had come to Mega's ears when I had shopped
around for a financier; I had been very careless and was now paying
due.

I set up a meeting
with Danny as soon as he returned to Singapore. We met at a
restaurant in Little India; we were sitting at a table facing each
other.

"Did you do the
El Salvador games behind my back?" I asked.

"No, I didn't",
he replied.

"Danny", I
said calmly, "you're a man, I'm a man. Tell me whether you did
these matches or not. Can you swear upon your son that you didn't fix
these games?"

"Don't bring my
son into this", Danny began to raise his voice.

"All right",
I was losing my patience, "I'll ask you one more time, man to
man, just me and you. Did you do these matches?"

"So what if I
did them with another boss?" Danny answered defiantly.

"You
mother-fucker", I got up from my chair. "You try to repeat
that one more time".

I wanted to take my
chair and swing it in his face.

"You traveled
at my expense, you used my pocket money and then you come here with
that face and tell me, 'So what if I did this with another boss?'"

My hand was firmly
gripping the chair's backrest; if I didn't have a pending case going,
I would have smashed it in his face. I was debating whether or not to
do it anyways. You don't speak to a friend the way Danny spoke to me,
especially one who gave you bread and butter for over a year and with
whom you've been best friends since you were 16. I was furious.

"Danny", I
thundered, "you come outside. Try me one on one. Let's go".

But he didn't want
to fight me; he just got up and walked away.

I don't have to be
physically present to arrange a fix. I just pick up the telephone,
speak to a guy, and he can get things done. It doesn't work every
time but it allows me to juggle several business deals at once.

The 2010 South
Africa World Cup friendly warm-up matches were my idea. I had thought
about the scheme four years earlier, right after being released from
prison. I was sitting in front of the television watching the live
telecast of the warm-up matches played before the 2006 World Cup in
Germany.

"Fuck", I
thought, "there is no real football involved here. All you have
to do is put two teams together and you can make big money".

Then, in 2010, the
idea resurfaced in my mind.

"Why don't I
get my referees to officiate the warm-up matches before the 2010
World Cup in South Africa?" I thought. "After all, it's
Africa, not Europe, where there are too many questions asked and
strict regulations to follow. In Africa it can be done".

With a few months to
go before the World Cup warm-up matches, I sat in front of my
computer and prepared a formal letter; a proposal asking for the
South African Football Association (SAFA), to support African
referees in the coming competitions. The letter bore the stamp of
Football4U, my company, and was signed by me. I sent the missive to
the SAFA president, Kirsten Nematandani, and to their CEO, Leslie
Sedibe, to sound out the terrain.

On the same day that
the letter went out, Football4U was struck off the Singapore company
register and, five days later, it was renamed Exclusive Sports. The
mistake that I made was to keep the same registration number. I
should have closed the old company and opened up a new one, instead,
I left a mark of continuity.

After completing the
groundwork for the South African operation, I called Anthony.

"Anthony",
I said, "I need you to go to South Africa and speak with their
Football Association".

I booked a ticket
for Anthony, gave him about three thousand dollars worth of pocket
money, two laptops and a few good mobile phones, just in case he
needed to appease someone. I also gave Anthony a CC copy of the
letter that I had mailed to SAFA; I instructed him to try to approach
the FA's head of referees and off he went. Anthony flew to
Johannesburg, South Africa, and took a taxi to the SAFA headquarters.
Once there, he managed to speak to a SAFA official named Jacob and
asked him to be introduced to their head of referees, Steve Goddard.
The two met and Anthony offered Goddard some money so that he
wouldn't trouble us; we thought it wiser to have the head of referees
in our good books.

"Mr. Goddard",
proposed Anthony, "keep these three thousand dollars for your
expenses. It's a goodwill gesture from our sponsor".

We weren't trying to
bribe him to give away penalties or anything like that. It wasn't
really corruption money; we just thought that it would be useful for
him to think that we were the good guys. Goddard was of a different
opinion and curtly declined Anthony's offer. Fortunately for us,
Jacob didn't.

"He may be the
head of referees", said Jacob to Anthony as they left Goddard's
office, "but we have the power to overrule him".

Anthony promised to
pay Jacob ten thousand dollars for every match in which our company
would be allowed to put its referees and Jacob became our front-man
in SAFA, doing all the running for Anthony and introducing him to the
FA's CEO, Leslie Sedibe.

We had come up with
a bullshit cover story that Football4U had been contracted to supply
FIFA-accredited referees for upcoming matches in the United Arab
Emirates and the Bahrain leagues, and that we wanted to provide these
refs with some practice matches. Anthony convinced Sedibe that SAFA
did not need referees from Europe when there were local African match
officials that could be promoted to the task.

"Why should we
invite European referees when this is an African tournament?" he
said to Sedibe. "Let's give our boys the opportunity. We want to
promote our own African refs. We'll cover the cost for their flight,
accommodation, fees and everything. We pay".

Sedibe liked the
idea and seemed forthcoming, so Jacob went on to convince the rest of
the management at SAFA.

"You know,
everything is coming for free", he argued.

The SAFA management
agreed that the offer was convenient.

"OK. Why not?"
they reasoned. "These are all FIFA-accredited referees and this
company, Football4U, is paying the bill".

Anthony and I
drafted a contract saying that Football4U was going to officially
supply referees for the 2010 South Africa World Cup warm-up friendly
matches and Leslie Sedibe signed it enthusiastically. It was agreed
that we would provide the refs for five friendly matches pitting
South Africa against Thailand, Bulgaria, Colombia, Guatemala and
Denmark. Job done; mission accomplished; and Anthony came back to
Singapore.

As soon as he set
foot in Singapore we met for debriefing and immediately realized our
first mistake: we should have taken all the friendly matches that
were going to be played in South Africa prior to the World Cup, not
just those five; SAFA was paying for the organization of the fixtures
anyways. But it was too late for regrets and we agreed that five
games would have to do. Now we needed complacent referees that would
dance to our tune.

Through my African
connections, I contacted three sets of referees: one from Togo, one
from Kenya and one from Niger. By 'set' I mean one referee and two
linesmen who know what they are supposed to do.

My agent in Togo,
where I had good connections from past dealings with them, spoke to a
match official named Kokou.

"Would you be
interested in officiating the World Cup warm-up friendly matches in
South Africa?" he asked the ref.

Kokou and his
linesmen volunteered.

I then contacted
Samwel from Kenya and he also agreed to come along accompanied by his
two trusted linesmen.

I needed just one
more set. Niger referee Ibrahim was not on our list at first but,
during the West African Football Union Cup held in Nigeria in April
2010, he had been approached by Prince, who had introduced him to
Anthony. Ibrahim had just one more year of refereeing to go before
retirement when he was asked the burning question.

"What are you
going to do after you quit?" Anthony inquired. "FIFA is not
going to give you a pension. They pay you one or two thousand dollars
and fly you around in business class; we give you first class and
we'll pay you 60 to 70 thousand US dollars per match. We have a
number of World Cup warm-up friendlies coming up in South Africa and
are looking for referees such as yourself".

"I can do the
job", Ibrahim volunteered.

"Are you sure?"
asked Anthony.

"Don't worry,
the job is done. You give me the job, and I'll do it. You tell your
boss that this job in no problem for me. Talk to your boss and tell
him".

Anthony called me
and told me that Ibrahim sounded very confident.

"OK", I
agreed, "put him on a flight".

Anthony welcomed
Ibrahim on board.

"Go and get the
job done, then".

In addition to these
three sets of match officials, we had an extra referee from Tanzania
called Charles. We weren't going to field Charles; we were going to
bring him along just as a replacement; he had no knowledge of what we
were up to.

I was broke at the
time. I had been gambling heavily through a bookie called Benny, a
Singaporean who lived in Macao and who could throw quick bets with
very high volumes. I threw several 300 thousand dollar bets on the
English Premier League and lost close to 1.1 million dollars to Benny
in a single weekend. I was sure that Benny fucked me up on at least
one of the matches.

"Benny", I
asked, "can you take Tottenham Hotspur FC and give for me?
Half-ball and 300 thousand".

I hung up the
telephone and sat waiting for Benny's confirmation; the betting
company usually held onto every bet for three or four seconds before
actually placing it. After about a minute and a half, the Spurs
scored their first goal. Still no confirmation; so I called Benny
again.

"Benny", I
said, "how much of my bet did you manage to place?"

"I placed...",
he paused. "Sorry, everything was rejected".

"Rejected?"
I was perplexed. "Can you give me a print-out?"

Every time a bet is
rejected, one can obtain a print-out of the failed operation.

"No, no, no
print-out", Benny's version had unexpectedly changed, "they
haven't started betting on the match yet".

In that very instant
I knew that Benny had fucked me up. He hadn't even thrown 20 thousand
dollars out of the 300 thousand that I had requested; an amount which
usually only took him about 30 seconds to place. My potential win had
vanished, leaving me with the entire 1.1 million dollar debt to
honor. At first I didn't want to pay Benny the money that I owed him,
then BJ, Rajendra Prasad's brother who knew Benny well, came to speak
to me.