Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (25 page)

"Is it the
Under-23 team that you want?" he inquired.

"Yes", I
replied.

"I'm sorry",
he said, "we failed to qualify for the Olympics and have decided
to disband the team".

"Just assemble
another one then", I insisted.

"We cannot do
that on such short notice", he objected.

"OK", I
gave up. "We'll speak again in the future".

I still needed a
second team so I decided to try my luck in the nearest country with a
decent footballing record: Togo. As I sat in Accra's Kotoke
International Airport waiting for my flight to Lome to board, I
noticed that the place was plastered with signs saying: "Don't
smuggle drugs! Don't spend the next 20 years counting bars".

I thought the
message to be very educational. Malaysia, for one, has always had a
big problem with drug runners; many of them being hapless Indian drug
mules that smuggle their hallucinogenic product to Singapore in
exchange for pocket change: three thousand Malaysian Ringgit or even
less. The problem is that many of them end up getting caught and sent
to the gallows in Singapore where, until very recently, any drug
offense was punished with hanging. If you traffic more than 15 grams
of hard drugs or over one kilogram of marijuana you will face the
death penalty. It is totally absurd that in some parts of the world
you can smoke pot legally and in Singapore you will be killed by the
government if you do. In fact, the Singapore authorities enjoyed
hanging people irrespective of the person's role; whether he be a
drug mule or baron.

The act of hanging
someone is extremely cruel and inhumane. In Singapore, death
sentences are carried out on Friday. The inmate will receive visits
from his family and friends on the previous day, then he will get to
order his favorite meal, which will be prepared by the prison's
kitchen. He or she will also get to be photographed with his favorite
clothes on, then, at dawn on Friday, their head will be enveloped in
a black cloth and weights will be fastened to their ankles. Then
they'll hear a click, the metal platform will open underneath their
feet and down they'll go, struggling hopelessly for an additional
instant of precious life. As I sat in the Accra airport, I thought
that the advice given by the Ghanaian government could really come in
handy in a place like Malaysia; at least these drug runners would
know what they were up against before they decided to run the
gauntlet. As I was absorbed in my assessment of Singapore's draconian
legal system, I totally forgot about the stack of Ghanaian banknotes
rolled up in my jeans pockets.

I flew to Lome, visa
on arrival. Prince had linked me up with a Togolese reporter and,
through him, I scheduled a meeting with the Togolese FA's General
Secretary.

"All I need is
a team", I pleaded with him.

"We don't have
an Under-23 team", he said. "No Olympic team either".

"Fuck", I
was beginning to lose my patience, "just give me any players who
can wear a Togo jersey and can play some football. Just assemble a
team".

"We have a team
that played in the Under-17 World Cup last year", the General
Secretary suggested. "We could use them".

They were
eighteen-year-olds.

"That would
do".

I proceeded to
inform the Malaysia FA that Togo was willing to participate.
Invitation, reciprocation, all set. As usual, the Malaysia FA would
have handled the accommodation for the delegations at the Grand
Bluewave Shah Alam Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, which by now offered them
corporate rates. I booked a flight back to Singapore via Amsterdam.
As I was flying out of Africa, I felt the thick stack of Ghanaian
Cedis in my pocket and made a mental note to change them into dollars
in the Netherlands. After landing, I immediately walked to the money
exchange and placed the Cedis on the counter. The Dutchman behind the
glass divisor was puzzled.

"What is this?"
he asked.

"Ghanaian
Cedis", I replied. "They should change one-to-one with the
US dollar".

The man laughed.

"You can use
these as toilet paper", he commented, "they're worthless
here".

Fuck. I left the
airport and began asking around about the usual hanging outs of the
Ghanaian in Amsterdam. I was directed to an area near the Amsterdam
Arena where I found a barber shop run by a Ghanaian.

"Can you change
these for me?" I asked the barber.

He smiled and
did
so
with a fucked-up exchange rate.
Bastard.

As soon as I had
changed the worthless Ghanaian cash I returned to the airport and
hopped on my flight to Singapore. After landing, I found Mega waiting
for me outside the terminal with his car. I bought a copy of the
Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper, and was catching up on the
local news as Mega drove us home.

"Mega!" I
shouted. "Fuck! U-turn!"

The newspaper
reported that the Lebanese national team had come to play a 2010
World Cup qualifier against Singapore in the Lion City on the
previous day. I did my math: "They must have checked out of
their hotel some time today and then gone to the airport to catch
their flight back to Lebanon".

I knew the flight
schedule: Singapore - Beirut, 9:00 p.m. Terminal 1. They were
probably at the airport already.

"Mega, let's
jet to T1".

As soon as we
arrived at the Terminal, I hopped out of the car.

"You go and
park the vehicle", I told Mega. "I'll go and check if they
are there".

As expected, the
Lebanese players were inside the Terminal having a snack at Burger
King's while waiting for their flight to board. Mega parked the car
and joined me in front of the terminal's entrance.

"Mega", I
told him, "you take a seat, relax and watch me walk in like a
Zidane football agent".

I strolled in and
approached two or three of the players; their English was very poor
so I kept it simple.

"I'm a football
agent", I said as I extracted my name card from my pocket.
"What's your name? You want to come and play in Singapore? Give
me your number and I'll ring you up".

I saved the
telephone numbers and e-mails of a few of the Lebanese players for
future reference. I knew that Singapore was going to play the return
leg in Beirut and I was ready to convince the Lebanese boys to do
business.

In mid-May 2008, I
traveled to Malaysia to greet the Nigerian and Togolese teams that
were arriving in Kuala Lumpur for the Inter Continental Cup. Once
they were settled, we convinced the head of the Togo delegation and
the players to dance to our tune with money, alcohol and women, just
like we had done with Zimbabwe; we made them happy and they were
ready to deliver.

"There is
nothing for you to take home from this tournament", I told them,
"no appearance fee, no prize money but, if you do as I say,
there are 50 thousand dollars per match waiting for you. You know,
it's good money".

Same deal.

Murugan advised me
not to sit with the teams on their bench during the match, so I left
my seat to Mega who was going to supervise the match side-by-side
with the Togolese coach. Mega's duty was to speak to him and instruct
him on what we needed of his team. The coach understood English; he
would listen to Mega's instructions, then relay the information to
the players in French during the game. He could just shout our orders
at them since nobody understood French in Malaysia. I took a seat in
the stands and waited for the match to kick off. Harry was placing
the bets while Mega and I were just receiving a cut: 80 thousand
dollars, 50 thousand of which went to the players. All in all, Mega
and I would be making 30 thousand dollars per match which,
unbeknownst to Harry, we would partially use to place our own bets
behind his back. We were like instructors; we had an obligation to
make the fix go through, then we would get our 30 thousand;
otherwise, nobody would be paid.

The first match was
Togo vs Chile. Despite Mega being kicked off the Togolese bench after
a handful of minutes, the game went well. Chile defeated Togo 5-1 and
we all made money. Eighty thousand dollars in total; 30 went to us
and 50 to the players.

In their second
match, Togo played against Croatia.

"Lock the
game", ordered Harry.

I don't know why,
but there was an unusual fluctuation in the odds before kick off; the
betting volume was just huge: everybody was taking Over so Harry
chose to go Under. Dumb fucker. Why would you want to lock a match
when you paid money to bring a team all the way from Africa to
Malaysia to lose? The Croatians hadn't sent their best team over,
they had just picked some players here and there, but there was still
no assurance that we would be able to lock the game against them. The
Togo boys tried to resist the Croatian assault and succeeded until
the 47
^th
minute
when, during injury time, Croatia managed to score, 1-0. Fuck.

Harry you dumb
mother-fucker.

The match ended 1-0;
despite the final result in favor of Croatia we made money from the
game's handicap and Harry granted us our habitual 80 thousand: 30 for
us and 50 to the players.

Then came the third
match, Togo vs Australia, and again there was a strange movement in
the odds before kick off. After the first two games, experienced
punters knew that Togo was being manipulated by someone so, for their
final match against Australia, everybody was putting their money on
the Socceroos to win. The odds had shifted once again and Harry
thought that we were fucking him up. He suspected that we were
betting our own money behind his back or that we had sold the
information to somebody else so he decided not to place any bets on
the fixture, which meant that we would not be receiving our cut. As I
later found out, Murugan's boss Dan Tan had predicted Harry's move.

"Harry is going
to fuck them up", he had laughed to Murugan. "He is not
going to bet on the last game".

I had 70 thousand
dollars of my own available at the time so I decided to take the
gamble.

"Fuck Harry",
I said. "Let's prove this mother-fucker wrong. We take Togo",
and I placed all of my savings, 70 thousand dollars, on the Togolese
team.

A draw would have
been enough for us to win since Australia was giving one-ball. I
spoke to the Togolese players as though I were their coach.

"We can pack
the defense and not take any goals", I tried to psych them up.

"OK, boss",
they said.

The match started,
1-0, 2-0 for Australia by half-time.

"Fuck. My money
is gone", I thought.

The stadium was next
to empty because it was a meaningless fixture and people were busy
with other games in other venues. There were a total of two or three
persons sitting in the stands. Mega and I were standing on the race
track behind the Togo bench speaking to their coach through a
chain-link fence; we were trying to find a solution but couldn't come
up with anything. I was on good terms with Botak, the long-haired
boss who controlled Laos in the Dunhill Cup; I had informed him from
time to time about my fixes through a common Chinese friend. Being
out of ideas, I decided to call him up and ask for his advice.

"Botak", I
explained the situation. "What do I do now?"

"Ask your
players to fight and abandon the game", he suggested.

After the fuck up
with the floodlights in England, the rules of the betting system had
changed. No full 90 minutes, no payout; if a match doesn't finish,
all bets are canceled. I turned to the coach.

"Ask your
players to play a very rough game", I told the coach. "Try
to start a fight and abandon the pitch. We walk out".

"That's not
necessary", he replied.

"Then what do
we do?" I asked.

"I make three
changes and we take two or three red cards", he explained. "Then
a couple of our players get injured and we won't have enough
footballers to continue the match. Once there are only six players
left in the field, the game is automatically abandoned".

"OK", I
said, "make it so".

With less than half
an hour to go to the final whistle, two Togolese players were given
red cards and were sent off the pitch, then three subs came in and
three more Togolese players feigned injuries in the head and had to
be carried out on stretchers. With only six Togolese players
remaining on the pitch, the referee called off the match and I got my
money back.