What if someone told you there was some shady shit going on in the world's biggest sport? Not a far-fetched idea, right?
Well, the New York Times received a FIFA report that exposed some of it a little less than two weeks away from the start of the World Cup. It's pretty serious, too; the article notes that a match-fixing syndicate may be calling the shots from the upper reaches of the soccer world. Plus, FIFA may be too lazy in investigating the fixing organization; it hasn't made any official accusations or contacted those suspected of match-fixing.
This case falls in South Africa and homes in on allegedly corrupt referee Ibrahim Chaibou, Singapore syndicate Football 4U, and the South Africa soccer federation — which is divided and in disarray.
Chaibou apparently was Football 4U's go-to guy when it came to fixing matches. One example NYT points out is a 2010 match between Guatemala and South Africa. The betting line before the match was 2.68 goals, but it rose to four during the match. The final score was 5-0 in favor of South Africa. Chaibou allegedly received $60,000 for his part, according to a memoir entitled Kelong Kings. The memoir was written by Wilson Raj Perumal, the self-proclaimed "world's most prolific match fixer."
Steve Goddard, head of South African refereeing, sensibly found this fishy and decided to pull out Chaibou in favor of a respected referee in a following match that pit South Africa against Denmark. The hometeam won 1-0 and reportedly blew up $1 million for the fixers, earning him a nice possible death threat.
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These revelations come from the first of a two-part piece. It's also worth noting that the piece follows months after journalist Brett Forrest's The Big Fix, which also takes a look at match-fixing on a large scale. Read NYT's piece here, and think about how there are national soccer federations just as vulnerable to such corruption as South Africa.
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[via New York Times]
