Match-fixer: Don't complicate things by winning
Reuters - Tuesday 10 January 2012, 15:34
A football federation
official was told not to complicate things by wanting to win
games in a tournament organised by jailed match-fixer Wilson Raj
Perumal, according to emails disclosed by FIFA on Tuesday.
Offering an official the chance to take part in a
four-nation youth competition, Perumal wrote: "I have some youth
tournaments coming up. I will send invitations to you and once
you are here we will sort out the rest.
"These games are exhibition matches and please don't make my
life difficult by saying you want to win and so on. Trust me
there is good money to be made."
FIFA, who did not identify the recipients of any of the
emails football's ruling body disclosed on Tuesday, has launched a
major offensive on match-fixing by illegal betting rings,
describing it as one of the biggest threats facing the game.
"This is a match-fixer telling a football administrator what
to do," FIFA security director Chris Eaton (pictured) told reporters. "This
is all very cynical and despicable stuff."
Perumal, a Singapore national sentenced for two years in
2011 over a match-fixing case in Finland, told another official
in an email: "We want two goals in each half and you can get one
goal after conceding the fourth goal. Reward will be $100,000.
"You will have to take your cut from this sum."
In another email he told an official: "Please ensure a
friendly is arranged and let's get down to business... your
economy is down and money is crucial.
"I will pay you $100,000 to ensure all goes well."
Perumal was jailed last year while nine players - seven
Zambians and a Georgian - were given suspended sentences for
trying to fix matches in Finland.
In that case he paid players up to 20,000 euros per match and received up to 50,000 euros, in addition to some
of the betting profits, each time the results of Finnish
top-flight team Rovaniemi were fixed.