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Match fixing incidents

• In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. This became known as the Black Sox Scandal and was recounted in book and movie form as "Eight Men Out".
• In 1951, District Attorney Frank Hogan indicted college basketball players for point shaving from four New York schools, including CCNY, Manhattan College, New York University and Long Island University.
• In 1978, mobsters connected with the New York Lucchese crime family, among them Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke, organized a point shaving scheme with key members of the Boston College basketball team.
• On August 24, 1989, former baseball player Pete Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent ban from Major League Baseball for allegedly betting on Reds games while managing the team. Rose would later confirm the truth of the allegations in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars.
• Andrés Escobar, a Colombian defender, was murdered shortly after his return from the 1994 FIFA World Cup, where he scored an own-goal, the first of a 2-1 defeat to the USA that knocked out the Colombians at the first phase. In the most believed explanation, the Medellín drug cartel bet large sums of money that Colombia would advance, and blamed the Medellín-born Escobar for the loss.^[6]
• In 1994, a comprehensive point shaving scheme organized by campus bookmaker Benny Silman and involving players from the Arizona State University men's basketball team was uncovered with the assistance of Las Vegas bookmakers, who grew suspicious over repeated large wagers being made against Arizona State.^[7]
• In February 1999 a Malaysian-based betting syndicate was caught attempting to install a remote-control device to sabotage the floodlights at English Premier League team Charlton Athletic's ground with the aid of a corrupt security officer. If the match had been abandoned after half-time, then the result and bets would have stood. Subsequent investigations showed that the gang had been responsible for previously unsuspected "floodlight failures" at West Ham's ground in November 1997, and again a month later at Crystal Palace's ground during a home match of Palace's groundsharing tenant Wimbledon. ^[8][9]
• In 2000 the Delhi police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. The South African government refused to allow any of its players to face the Indian investigation unit, which opened up a can of worms. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Salim Malik (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (India). Jadeja was banned for 4 years. They too were banned from all cricket. As a kingpin, Cronje exposed the dark side of betting, however with his untimely death in 2002 most of his sources also have escaped law enforcement agencies. Two South African cricketers, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, are also wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the match fixing saga. A few years before in 1998, Australian players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined for revealing information about the 'weather' to a bookmaker.
• The Italian Football Federation said in October 2000 it had found eight players guilty of match-fixing. Three were from Serie A side Atalanta and the other five played for Serie B side Pistoiese. The players were Giacomo Banchelli, Cristiano Doni and Sebastiano Siviglia (all Atalanta) and Alfredo Aglietti, Massimiliano Allegri, Daniele Amerini, Gianluca Lillo and Girolamo Bizzarri (all Pistoiese). The charges related to an Italian Cup first round tie between the two sides in Bergamo on August 20, 2000 which ended 1-1. Atalanta scored at the end of the first half and Pistoiese equalised three minutes from full time. Atalanta qualified for the second round. Snai, which organises betting on Italian football, said later it had registered suspiciously heavy betting on the result and many of the bets were for a 1-0 halftime score and a fulltime score of 1-1.
• In June 2004 in South Africa, thirty-three people (including nineteen referees, club officials, a match commissioner and an official of the South African Football Association) were arrested on match-fixing charges.
• In the summer of 2004, Betfair provided evidence of race fixing to City of London Police that led to the arrest of jockey Kieren Fallon and fifteen others on race fixing charges. On 7 December 2007 the judge in the case ordered the jury to find Fallon not guilty on all charges.
• In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo Tbilisi in the 2004-05 UEFA Cup was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected an unusually high number of half-time bets for a 5-2 win for the Greek side, which was trailing 0-1. As the final result ended up being 5-2, suspicions of fixing quickly emerged, but were quickly denied by both clubs, although UEFA started an
• 2005 Bundesliga scandal: In January 2005, the German Football Association (DFB) and German prosecutors launched separate probes into charges that referee Robert Hoyzer bet on and fixed several matches that he worked, including a German Cup tie. Hoyzer later admitted to the allegations; it has been reported that he was involved with Croat gambling syndicates. He also implicated other referees and players in the match fixing scheme. The first arrests in the Hoyzer investigation were made on January 28 in Berlin, and Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after new evidence apparently emerged to suggest that he had been involved in fixing more matches than he had admitted to. Hoyzer has been banned for life from football by the DFB. On March 10, a second referee, Dominik Marks, was arrested after being implicated in the scheme by Hoyzer. Still later (March 24), it was reported that Hoyzer had told investigators that the gambling ring he was involved with had access to UEFA's referee assignments for international matches and Champions League and UEFA Cup fixtures several days before UEFA publicly announced them. Ultimately, Hoyzer was sentenced to serve 2 years and 5 months in prison.
• In July 2005, Italian Serie B champions Genoa was arbitrarily placed last in the division, and therefore condemned to relegation in Serie C1, after it was revealed that they bribed their opponents in the final match of the season, Venezia to throw the match. Genoa won the match 3-2 and had apparently secured promotion to Serie A.
• Brazilian football match-fixing scandal: In September 2005, a Brazilian magazine revealed that two football referees, Edílson Pereira de Carvalho (a member of FIFA's referee staff) and Paulo José Danelon, had accepted bribes to fix matches. Soon afterwards, sport authorities ordered the replaying of 11 matches in the country's top competition, the Campeonato Brasileiro, that had been worked by Edílson. Both referees have been banned for life from football and face possible criminal charges. Brazilian supporters have taken to shout "Edílson" at a referee who they consider to have made a bad call against their team, in a reference to the scandal.
• 2006 Serie A scandal ("Calciopoli"): In May 2006, perhaps the largest match fixing scandal in the history of Italian Serie A football was uncovered by Italian Police, implicating league champions Juventus, and powerhouses AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio. Teams have been suspected of rigging games by selecting favorable referees, and even superstar Italian World Cup team goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has been charged with betting on football games. [1] Initially, Juventus were stripped of their titles in 2004-05 and 2005-06, all four clubs were barred from European club competition in 2006-07, and all except Milan were forcibly relegated to Serie B.^[10] After all four clubs appealed, only Juventus remained relegated, and Milan were allowed to enter the third qualifying round of the Champions League. The stripping of Juventus' titles stood.^[11]`
• 2007 NBA Referee Scandal: In July 2007 it was revealed that National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy had gambled on 10 to 15 games, including games which he refereed. The matter is currently being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as the NBA.
• 2008 The Fix: Book by Declan Hill alleges that in the 2006 World Cup, the group game between Ghana and Italy, the round-of-16 game between Ghana and Brazil, and the Italy-Ukraine quarter-final were all fixed by Asian gambling syndicates to whom the final scores were known in advance^[12]. The German Football Federation (DFB) and German Football League (DFL) looked into claims made in a Der Spiegel^[13] interview with Hill that two Bundesliga matches were fixed by William Bee Wah Lim a fugitive with a 2004 conviction for match-fixing. ^[14]
• 2008: On October 1, it was reported that a Spanish judge who headed an investigation against Russian Mafia figures uncovered information alleging that the mobsters may have attempted to fix the 2008 UEFA Cup semifinal between eventual champion Zenit St. Petersburg and Bayern Munich. Both clubs denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme.^[15] Prosecutors in the German state of Bavaria, home to Bayern, later announced that they did not have enough evidence to justify a full investigation.^[16]
• 2008: On October 4th, suspicious online betting on the game between Norwich City and Derby County led some to question the validity of the championship match. Gamblers in Asia were said to have placed a large amount of money down during halftime, which raised concerns over the outcome.^[17] The inquiry by The Football Association found no evidence that would suggest the match was fixed.^[18] Derby County ended up winning the match 2-1.

 

They fixed the World Cup at an anonymous Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in northern Bangkok. There were four men. They sat at a little table hunched over so they could hear one another while they spoke.

One was black, tall, and athletic, wearing a tight blue shirt and jeans. The other three were Asians: one was Chin; beside him sat two younger Chinese men. They met at 12:00 p.m. on May 25, 2006, and continued their discussion for almost an hour and twenty minutes. After ten minutes, a tall white man dressed in an unironed shirt came to a nearby table. He looked harassed and had problems with his mobile phones. He went outside a number of times to try to get them to work.

The four men were discussing how to fix a World Cup match in the 2006 finals. It was a little bizarre. In an anonymous, suburban shopping mall in northern Bangkok, the four men were planning to make lots of money and at the same time destroy the dreams of millions of people around the world. I was the tall white man. I was also trying to covertly tape their meeting. I had two secret audio recording devices. Unfortunately, my hidden camera was not working properly, so I was reduced to taking photos of the meeting with my mobile phone.

There was pop music playing over the speakers, and until I got the KFC manager to turn it down, it ruined my recording. The "problem" with the mobile phone was me trying desperately to get my phone to take enough video and photos to link the four of them together without being seen by them or any of their henchmen, who I had to presume were somewhere close by. It was harrowing work. I pretended to read newspapers while I eavesdropped on their conversation. I glanced at my watch frequently, to try to look like an overstressed businessman waiting for a call. Then from time to time, I would pick up my phone, make a fake call, and pretend to have a conversation, all the while trying to take a picture.

Their meeting was about how they were planning to rig the gambling market. From what I heard then, and from what Chin told me later, their conversation was along the following lines. The black man was the runner or match-broker from one particular team. He claimed to have a number of players and officials from his country willing to consider throwing a game. But Chin and his associates had a problem. They did not have enough money to cover the initial payment it takes to ensure trust with the team.

The match- broker for the team wanted to work with them. He had worked with them before. There were good levels of mutual trust on either side. But he needed "shopping money" to convince the allegedly corrupt members of the team to agree to the deal. The amount of money needed in these situations depends on the level of the game. For a local Asian league match or a youth international tournament $1,000 a player will do. But to arrange a game at the World Cup Finals is serious stuff.

The match-broker was asking for at least $100,000 to cover the network. Chin wanted to introduce him to another syndicate -- or investors -- who could front the money. Chin would surrender control of the fix, but still receive some money for the deal. The match- broker did not like this. He didn't know who the new people were. It was going to be a difficult task to ensure that there was trust on both sides.

On the other side, the broker allegedly had two team officials who wanted to take part in the fix. Chin and his associates didn't like this development. They had, they claimed, worked with the team before. They knew the players in the network. They didn't like the idea of bringing in officials at this point. The four men talked back and forth about the various issues.

All the time, I was trying to listen as closely as possible, without looking as if I was listening, while trying to maintain my appearance as an overstressed businessman. A KFC restaurant is not the kind of place that one sits in for a long time. I finished my meal. I read every page of the two tabloid newspapers I brought with me, twice. At one point, a young couple came in and sat between me and the group. I almost hit them. I got up and walked past the men. As I did so, I heard a discussion about goalkeepers. I stood just outside the door and frantically took photos and video of the group.

At 1:20 p.m. the group of men stood and walked out. Chin walked with one of the Asians, the black man with the younger-looking Asian. Chin did not look at me. I tried to avoid eye contact with him. I stared at the black guy, trying to soak as much information as possible into my memory. At 1:59, I got a phone call. It was Chin. He sounded exultant. The problems were being solved. The fix was on.

Throughout the winter and spring of 2006, Chin and I kept in contact. He had talked about organizing the fix for the World Cup and one country had been mentioned repeatedly: Ghana.

According to Chin, back in 2004 at the Olympics in Athens, some of his group were able to get close to some of the Ghana team and get them to throw their last game against Japan. I had no idea how good Ghana could or would be as a soccer team. Chin laughed at my ignorance.

"Do you think Japan could ever beat Ghana? You have to be kidding Ghana has a good team. There is a player. I paid him $15,000 [prepayment]."

Stephen Fleming, the great New Zealand cricket captain, claims he was approached by a gambler in 1999 who had told him that there was a syndicate of Asian bookies arranging top international games of cricket and soccer.

"Look, these things are not coincidences," the gambler was alleged to have said about a recent soccer match. "If you want to know where the real money is, it's in the syndicate that's going on around the world right now, speculating on the likelihood of certain results or occurrences."

The gambler, according to Fleming, said prominent sportsmen were involved, including some in English soccer and tennis. In essence, this is what Chin told me. The only difference was that he claimed to be one of the men at the centre of a network. He claimed to have sixteen runners around the world working exclusively for him. There were two phones on the table. One rang almost as soon as I sat down. Chin answered and started talking in what I think was Bahasa Indonesian mixed with English. He talked amiably, saying a few players' and coaches' names that I recognized, then he put down the phone. He turned to me.

"You see, Mr. Hill, I am getting call. It is from the Philippines. You know the SEA Games that are going on now. I am arranging all the matches. Laos only lost 1-0 to Singapore. Everyone thought that Singapore would win 3- or 4-0. I control the Laos team I told them to go all out. I knew they could keep the score level."

The SEA Games are the Southeast Asian Games, equivalent to the Pan-American games or the All-Africa Games: a continent-specific version of the Olympics with athletics, soccer, and other events such as sailing. They had started a few days before in the Philippines. It was not a complete surprise that a fixer would be alleging that the games were fixed.

A top Asian sporting official, the same one who had the fixer's number in his speed-dial, had told me that the events were plagued with "caring and sharing" or "through every pipe a little water must flow." In other words, the various sports officials divided up the games to make sure that each nation would get at least some medals to make sure their home governments were not bothered by any lack of sporting success.

If it were just him, I would not bother to mention it, but a few days after my meeting with Chin, I had read that the weary Thai prime minister repeated the same allegation, saying very publicly that many of the competitions in the SEA games were fixed; the chef de mission of the Vietnamese delegation had even given a press conference at which he announced how many medals would be won by each country before the SEA Games had begun. That Chin would tell me the games were fixed was no surprise, but he went on to tell me that he and his associates travelled the world fixing international soccer matches.

I asked him what the biggest event he ever fixed was. Chin shrugged. "The Olympics? The World Cup? I don't know. Which is bigger?" This seemed absolutely bizarre. "I went to the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996," Chin said. "I fixed a game in the 1996 Olympics: Tunisia versus Portugal. I bribed some of the Tunisian guys to lose outside of the spread. They did it."

We spoke about the fix. He claimed that it was one of the rare ones where the players he approached would not even consider doing it for money: they were too religious.

"Finally I get this beautiful Mexican girl. I paid her $50,000 for the whole tournament. That is a lot of money for them. She would hang out in the lobby ... met him [one of the players from Tunisia], they went up to his room, did it, and then she proposed to him. Then I went in ... 'Will you do the game for me?' He said 'Yes, opening game.' They lost to Portugal 2- 0 ... I make a lot of money and everyone was happy."

One of his phones rang at 10:27 p.m. There was a conversation that lasted two minutes in a language that I could not understand. Like many Asians, Chin speaks at least four languages. I could not follow what was being said. He put the phone down.

"You see this I just got a call. Hannover is going to win by at least two goal. It is arranged. I have only put $20,000 down. Not much." "Not much! Maybe to you," I said, "but $20,000 is a lot of money to me."

The woman on the bed laughed. It was the first and last time in the whole conversation that she showed even the slightest interest in what was said. I turned to look at her. She shrugged and flicked the converter of the television and continued to watch the movie.

"The game starts right now. Hannover will win the game by at least two goals. You watch."

A translation might be in order. The top German league is known as the Bundesliga, literally "best division." On November 26, 2005, Hannover was a middle-ranking team; they were playing another Bundesliga team, Kaiserslautern, in Germany. Chin was claiming just before the match began that Hannover would win by a score line of at least a two-goal difference.

He did not say or reveal in any way how this result might be achieved whether it was a network of players or referees. He did say, in the course of the conversation, "Some German referees are bad ... I have referees that work for me in many places, U.S., Greece. Many places."

(Editor's note: Hannover beat Kaiserslautern 5-1, fulfilling Chin's prediction of a victory by more than two goals.)

 

Manipulationsverdacht bei WM 2006 und in der Bundesliga

Vier Millionen Euro auf einen Heimsieg: Nach Informationen des SPIEGEL soll ein malaysischer Wettpate Ende 2005 zwei Bundesliga-Spiele verschoben haben. Auch das WM-Achtelfinale zwischen Ghana und Brasilien steht den Recherchen zufolge unter Manipulationsverdacht.

Hamburg - Das Achtelfinalspiel der Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2006 in Deutschland zwischen Brasilien und Ghana soll von einem asiatischen Wettsyndikat verschoben worden sein. Demnach setzten die Zocker darauf, dass Ghana mit mindestens zwei Toren Differenz verliert. Das behauptet der für seine investigative Arbeit mehrfach ausgezeichnete kanadische Journalist Declan Hill in einem Interview mit dem SPIEGEL.

Hill ist für sein Buch "Sichere Siege", das am kommenden Dienstag in Deutschland erscheint, drei Jahre lang den weltweiten Verbindungen der Wettmafia nachgegangen. Seinen Recherchen zufolge soll der frühere ghanaische Nationaltorwart Abukari Damba der Verbindungsmann zwischen einem Wettpaten aus Bangkok und Spielern der ghanaischen Mannschaft gewesen sein, die das Spiel in Dortmund 0:3 verloren. Hill sagt über seine Nachforschungen in dem kriminellen Milieu: "Ich weiß, dass ich mit dem Feuer spiele."

Nach Recherchen des SPIEGEL sind auch im deutschen Profi-Fußball zwei Spiele auffällig. Es handelt sich um die Partien Hannover 96 gegen den 1. FC Kaiserslautern am 26. November 2005 und das Zweitliga-Spiel Karlsruher SC gegen Sportfreunde Siegen am 7. August 2005. Im Zentrum der Recherche steht der Malaysier William Bee Wah Lim, der im Juni 2007 vom Frankfurter Landgericht wegen versuchter Manipulation von Spielen in der deutschen Regionalliga und in Österreichs erster Liga zu zwei Jahren und fünf Monaten Haft verurteilt worden ist. Die jetzt auffälligen Spiele waren nicht Gegenstand des Prozesses gegen Lim.

Grundlage der Berichterstattung sind Unterlagen des Ermittlungsverfahrens wie die 208 Seiten umfassende Aufzeichnung von Lims Internet-Wetten mit seinen asiatischen Verbindungsleuten. Zahlreiche Indizien weisen überdies darauf hin, dass Lim persönliche Kontakte zu den Mannschaften des 1. FC Kaiserslautern, des Karlsruher SC und der Sportfreunde Siegen hatte. Alle Spieler, deren Verbindungen zu dem Wettpaten der SPIEGEL offenlegt, beteuern ihre Unschuld.

Lim setzte bei asiatischen Buchmachern auf die Niederlage des FCK in Hannover 2,8 Millionen Euro. Hannover gewann 5:1, Lim verdiente rund 2,2 Millionen Euro. Vor dem Spiel des KSC gegen Siegen setzte Lim annähernd vier Millionen Euro auf einen Heimsieg, Karlsruhe siegte 2:0. Lim, der nach seiner Verurteilung Anfang Juni 2007 gegen Melde-Auflagen und eine Kaution in Höhe von 40.000 Euro freigelassen wurde, ist im Ausland untergetaucht. Gegen ihn besteht deshalb in Deutschland seit Mitte Januar ein Haftbefehl. Sein Anwalt in Frankfurt hat sich zu den Recherche-Ergebnissen des SPIEGEL nicht geäußert.