Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (55 page)

"Hello bro",
I said, "I got your number from a common friend, George. What's
going on? How are you?"

"Good".

"You want to do
some business?" I asked him straightforward.

"What kind of
business?" he inquired.

"Football, are
you prepared to throw a game?"

"IFK Mariehamn
will not renew my contract. I've got two or three matches left to
play and then I'm going back home. I only want money, what do you
want me to do?"

"Lose, of
course".

"No problem.
How much are you going to pay me?"

"I'll pay you
about 20-25 thousand euro per match".

"You mean for
one game?"

"Sure, each
game is 25 thousand".

"How many goals
do you need?"

"Just give me
two goals, OK?"

"
OK.
No problem, come see me and we'll work things out".

Willis
and I
agreed to meet
in
Mariehamn island, where his club was based, and speak face to face.
On my way to the Viking ferry, the boat that connects Turku, a town
in mainland Finland, to Mariehamn island, I met a Chinese runner
working for Dan named
Chee
Wee
who was
carrying money for me. I didn't want to lose my passport while on
board the ferry, so I put it in my computer bag and left it with Chee
Wee. I then boarded the ferry, hopped off on Mariehamn island and
made my way to
Willis
'
home, where we sat down and discussed business.

"What about
your teammates?" I asked him. "Are they also willing to
fix?"

There were two
additional black players in the team.

"Don't use
them", he said, "you just give me the money and I will do
the job for you".

Willis sounded fully
committed.

"Fuck", I
exclaimed. "Why didn't I meet you earlier?"

When I returned to
Turku from Mariehamn with the Viking Ferry, I found Chee Wee in a
rush to leave. He handed my bag back to me and disappeared.

Willis proved to be
the kind of player that match-fixers want for their business;
convinced and dedicated. The goalkeeper is not necessarily the best
player to have on your side. I still think that the two central
defenders are the best ones to have because they can concede a
penalty; a business goal, we call it. You give the attacker room to
beat you when he comes towards you, then you go after him and bring
him down in the box. It's an easy thing to do but players don't
usually know how to move that way; they don't have that kind of
criminal mentality and they're always practicing not to give way. I
have frequently taught footballers how to position themselves. I
taught them how to move so that the attacker could beat them. The
goalkeeper can let the ball slip in the net but the shot has got to
come from somewhere and who is in the best position to let you shoot?
If I am a central defender, all I need to do is hesitate for a split
second; my body moves in the wrong direction and it's done. My
movement is enough to grant the striker the little room that will
suffice to take him in front of the goalie.

Willis
knew exactly what he had to do. I
went ahead and fixed his two remaining league matches with IFK
Mariehamn. He was able to deliver the job all by himself. He
destroyed both games; kaput. When I have this kind of player, I
personally push all my money, everything, all of my chips, on the
match. Not all players are like that; some take things for granted;
others just wait to see if things just happen by themselves.

In late September
2010 I turned my attention to Latin America. It was a clean place
before we showed up; we went there to dirty it up a bit.

In Latin America,
you couldn't discuss match-fixing directly; you had to go behind
people's backs and try to outsmart them. You had to lure their FA's
into placing your referees in their matches to make things happen. In
comparison, Africans were a lot easier to deal with: direct to the
point.

During the previous
months, while I was busy with Finland, Anthony had been all over the
place for me: Jamaica, Peru, Bolivia. I would buy him a ticket and
just send him off while I coordinated things from London or Helsinki.
After the South African warm-up friendlies, Anthony had become my
main man; he was in charge of dealing with the FAs, organizing
tournaments, friendlies and all the other stuff. I trusted Anthony
because he was a childhood friend, a fucker that I had known for over
20 years. I called him after his visit to Peru and he told me that
the Peruvians were completely professional and that there was no way
to do business with them. Bolivia was next on our list.

"Go on to
Bolivia", I told Anthony. "Try to seal a deal for a
referees' exchange program with the Bolivia FA and tell them that we
want to organize an Under-20 South American tournament".

Bolivians are very
poor people, I think that players in their top league are paid
roughly one thousand dollars per month on average. If you offer them
five thousand dollars per match, which amounts to 20 thousand dollars
at the end of the month, it's big money; it can really change their
lives.

Anthony hadn't come
back to me about Bolivia for some time, then, in early October, he
called to ask for additional funds.

"Wilson",
he said, "my money has run out, can you send me some more?"

"What's
happening in Bolivia?" I asked.

"Nothing's
happening here. The deal did not go through".

"OK", I
told him, "I'll send you some more money but you pick it up in
Peru. Come back from Bolivia if you can't land a deal with them".

Just then I began
receiving troubling telephone calls from Dan.

"Wilson",
Dan asked in an inscrutable tone, "did you send Anthony to South
America?"

"Yeah", I
said, "he's in Bolivia".

Dan seemed satisfied
with the answer at first, then he called again.

"Are you very
sure that Anthony went to Bolivia?" he insisted.

"Fuck, OK",
I gave in, "let me check with my travel agent".

I called my travel
agent in Singapore and asked her to check whether the travel coupon
to Bolivia had been used.

"Yes", she
confirmed, "he did go".

Then I rang Anthony
up directly.

"Where did you
get your visa for Bolivia?" I inquired.

"In the US",
replied Anthony.

I called Dan.

"Dan", I
explained, "Anthony did go to Bolivia, my travel agent says that
he used his coupon. I also checked with him and he claims that he got
his visa in the US. So, yes, I think that Anthony actually traveled
to South America".

I
didn't bother to ask why Dan was questioning me about Anthony's
whereabouts. My mind was busy on other matters. I was preparing a
trip to Ecuador where I had set up a rendez-vous with the local FA
president.
Before
leaving for Latin America, I decided to settle my debt with Dan. I
paid him back the 200 thousand dollars that he had lent me a few
months before and that I had used to acquire some property. I thanked
him for trusting me with that much money.

Since there was no
direct flight from London to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and one had to stop
over in Peru, I decided to pay a visit to the Peru FA to double-check
on Anthony's work. When I approached them, they actually seemed quite
professional, as he had reported. They sat there and listened
attentively to my referee exchange program proposal.

"We will look
into this and will come back to you", they said.

Next,
I landed in Ecuador where I met with the president of the Ecuador FA.
The Ecuadorians were even more professional than the Peruvians and
seemed to be thoroughly honest people; they didn't know anything
about match-fixing. I submitted the letter from Exclusive Sports with
our standard proposition, they took my Raja Morgan Chelliah passport
and photocopied it just to make sure.
The Ecuador FA president was a pretty down to earth guy.

"Hey", he
said, "take a seat, I want to know more about this deal".

"I'm here for a
referee exchange program", I explained.

The president was
curious and wondering who I was; he spoke very little English so he
called an acquaintance of his that lived in the US who spoke English
fluently and could serve as an interpreter. He then put me on the
telephone with the person.

"Please tell
the president that this is a referee exchange program", I told
the interpreter. "I take your referees and you take mine during
FIFA calendar days; and we support your training courses".

"Our Under-20
team is going to Venezuela", he said, "can you pay for the
tickets?"

"That is no
problem at all", I replied, "my company wants to start a
relationship. Can I bring your national team out to play in
Indonesia?"

Believe it or not,
this was a legitimate business proposal. If Ecuador had come to play
in Indonesia, we would have had 60 to 70 thousand people attending
the match and could have made money from the ticket sales.

"That is not
possible", relayed the interpreter. "We have a contract
with a television station in Argentina and they will not allow us to
do business with others, but the junior team is no problem. You can
bring the juniors anywhere that you please".

The Ecuador FA
president also provided me with the contacts to some Argentinian
match organizers that he claimed might be interested in our referee
exchange program. I called them and they booked our match officials
for a six-nation tournament in Cordoba, Argentina: the Copa Cordoba
International Under-20, to be played in December of that year.

That
evening I returned to my hotel and switched on my television. It was
October 7
^th
,
2010, FIFA calendar day, and the TV showed the highlights of a match
between Venezuela and Bolivia, final result 3-1. The signal was
disturbed and the image came and went.

"Fuck", my
eyes caught a glimpse of the ref. "That's Ibrahim!"

I gave Dan a call.

"Dan", I
said, "I was watching a match between Venezuela and Bolivia. I
think that the referee was Ibrahim. I am not sure because the image
was fuzzy but for a second I thought that I saw him".

Dan didn't confirm
nor deny.

"OK", he
said, "I'm busy right now. Bye".

I flipped my laptop
open and began searching for the match on the internet. I tried to
find out who the designated match official was but it was too early
for any detailed reports so I eventually forgot all about it.

My following target
in Latin America was Costa Rica. I didn't have the time to approach
the Costa Rica FA myself so I sent a good friend of Armando's, a
Nicaraguan guy called Yasser, to do the talking for me. Yasser spoke
decent English so, when Armando introduced him to me, I decided to
welcome him on board. I also dispatched a friend of mine, a guy
called Ravin Raj, to accompany Yasser and carry my money for him.
Yasser's approach with the Costa Ricans was, however, completely
wrong and he ended up fucking the entire deal up for us.

"We must use
our referees to officiate your matches", Yasser told the Costa
Rica FA.

It was written all
over that he wanted to do something funny. He hadn't put it in a way
so that it sounded clean.

"It's an
exchange program", he should have said, "we send your
referee for a match in Zimbabwe and a Zimbabwean referee comes here
to officiate one of your games".

That's how you make
things happen. Yasser's approach was too brutal and scared the FA
away; I called Dan to find a solution.

"Dan", I
suggested, "I think you should send one of your men to Costa
Rica to rectify the situation. Things are getting out of hand with
Yasser".