Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (61 page)

"Listen",
said Zeekay, "I am not your enemy. I am here to ask about the
money and I have to report back to Dan, you understand?"

"I understand",
I told him. "You go ahead and do what you have to do. I already
spoke to Dan anyways".

When we returned to
our meeting, Zeekay asked Deniz the burning question.

"How much money
have you received?"

"We received
300 thousand euro", said the fucker.

Had Deniz listened
to my advice, Tampere would have obtained another 600 thousand euro
from Dan. Instead, he had decided to play hard before receiving the
rest of the money, not after; he was a moron. When Tampere was banned
from participating in the 2011 Finnish football season, I couldn't
have been happier. All of Tampere's board members were convicted for
money laundering, all because of one wrong man: Deniz. And he
deserved every last bit of what he went through. I do not hold the
rest of the club's committee members responsible, Deniz was
single-handedly responsible for the club's demise. He was no
different from a regular crook. The Finnish FA had warned Tampere
United about receiving funds from Exclusive Sports but, in spite of
the warning, he went ahead with the deal and plotted to channel the
money through an investment company to cleanse it before pocketing
it.

After
the Tampere deal had foundered, I felt downhearted; I was totally
down and out and didn't feel like myself anymore. For the following
four hours I just pondered on whether I should go to Rovaniemi for
RoPS' next match or not. RoPS was set to play a League Cup game
against the very same team I had tried to take over, Tampere United,
but I was crestfallen and had no idea of what to do next. Plus, I was
without cash and didn't have the kind of relationship with Zeekay
whereas I could ask him to lend me some. My runner
George
was supposed to land in Helsinki in a
couple of days with 20 thousand euro for me and I was left with only
150 euro in my pockets.

"Shall I go or
not?" I was in two-minds. "Fuck it, let's go".

The decision was
about to change the course of my life again.

Zeekay, his agent,
Lecso and I landed in Rovaniemi in the late evening and checked into
a local hotel. Once we were settled, we decided to speak to the RoPS
players over Skype; they all gathered in front of their computer
while I sat with Zeekay in front of his.

"Musonda and
the rest of you", I said, "listen to me. Can you concede
four goals?"

"No", said
Musonda. "We can win this match".

"Look", I
felt tired, "we have strikers and midfielders, but only one
defender, Kunda, and no goalkeeper".

Kunda was another
one of the Zambian players. He was the only defender we had on board
for that game but was not giving me the commitment that I expected
from someone who was being paid ten thousand euro per match.

"Let's reverse
this whole thing", I said. "You guys just focus on
defending. If you lose the ball, drag the defensive line back: slide,
tackle, throw your body and fight when the ball is in your half of
the pitch. Your coach is going to love your performance. When
attacking, don't score. Play a lot of square passes down the flanks
and send the crosses in the six-yard box where they will be easy prey
of the keeper. When you move forward and the marker comes at you,
instead of trying to clear him, go wide. The wider you go, the
narrower the angle for a pass will be. Once you're on the sideline,
just try to put a square ball in the middle; your attack will be
gone. Simple. One movement is enough to completely kill an attack,
you understand? If you have your forward running through, you just
shift the ball with your right leg, switch the play quickly on the
other side of the pitch and 'Oh, fuck, sorry mate', you apologize to
your teammate and it's over. Slow the game down. You're not going to
score and the other team is surely not going to put four goals past
you. Listen, it's all in your minds; if you believe that you can do
it, then it will happen".

I wanted to go for
Under because everybody else was hitting on Over. By then the entire
market in Singapore knew that RoPS was compromised; they were like a
team of Geylang prostitutes, everyone knew that they were on the
take. We could see from the odds that all the punters back home were
expecting four goals or more from the coming match, people were
buying Over 3.5, win-4, win-6.

"No, it's not
possible", argued a worried Musonda. "The pitch is too
small, the match will end 5-2 or something".

"Listen to me",
I sighed. "Don't score. Pack your defense and play the first
half 0-0. Go for one goal in the last ten minutes of the game. We
have one defender in Tampere who will work for that one goal. It's as
good as money in your pockets".

In Finnish football
nobody was going to beat you by four goals if you locked the defense.
Three of the defenders were not compromised, they were clean, which
meant that if the six offensive players contributed to protecting and
giving cover to the back line, we could have locked the match for 45
minutes quite easily. But Musonda was unconvinced.

"It's such a
small pitch", he insisted. "It's very hard to lock the
game".

"OK, then",
I was exhausted, "let's revert to the first plan: I want a total
of four goals scored. I have seven players on the field, who can take
a double yellow?"

I have spoken to
players hundreds of times and I still can't understand why they think
that being sent off is like taking a bullet in the head.

"Any volunteer
to take a double yellow?" I asked a second time.

The players remained
silent and I finally realized that these guys were useless; they
could not be used for match-fixing anymore.

"All right",
I turned to Zeekay, "just cancel the match and call off the
betting. I don't feel comfortable. I just want to go to sleep. I'll
take the six o'clock flight to Helsinki tomorrow morning and then
head off to London. I don't even want to watch this fucking match".

I got up and walked
to my room. I was pissed off and just wanted to lay down for a nap.
About half an hour later, Zeekay came knocking at my door.

"Hey Wilson",
he said, "Musonda called me. They say that they can go for total
goals, four goals".

"Who's going to
take the double yellow?" I asked.

"Nobody",
he answered.

"When you take
a double yellow, the other team will have the lion's share of ball
possession", I explained to Zeekay. "Tampere is favorite:
1-1.5, they are already expected to win by two goals. The RoPS boys
just need to concede one or two additional goals, finished".

"Musonda said
that they can concede four goals", replied Zeekay.

"If you want to
believe them, go ahead", I cut him short. "What if they
cannot concede four? Are they going to score? There can be no
assurance that there will be four goals".

"But we have
one player in Tampere as well", Zeekay's Hungarian defender
Gabor was starting for Tampere in that same match, "maybe he can
do something".

"They don't
want to listen to my instructions", I objected, "and they
don't want to take a double yellow. You do what you think is best".

I had completely
lost faith in the RoPS players. Out of the seven of them, not one had
volunteered to take a double yellow; I just did not trust them any
longer and sensed that their game would be a fuck up. I left
everything to Dan and Zeekay; let the masters decide.

On the following
day, before the match started, Zeekay told me that he would wear a
baseball cap and use it to communicate with the boys on the pitch.
The players were supposed to look at Zeekay for the first 20 minutes
of game-play: if he took his cap off during that time, it would mean
that business was on, otherwise, they could play at will. Take off
the cap, put on the cap: I found it a very fucking complicated thing
to do, so I didn't get involved.

"You go ahead
and wear the cap if you like", I said to Zeekay.

If I'm a footballer
and I'm engrossed with the match that I'm playing, I can't be
bothered to check every five minutes whether someone on the stands is
still wearing a cap or not. There are easier ways to communicate. The
RoPS stadium is very small; one could kick a second ball into the
field or something like that.

Finally the match
kicked off. RoPS vs Tampere United, League Cup. Gabor, the Hungarian
defender playing for Tampere, kept looking at the stands to see if
Zeekay was still wearing the cap. While he played, he would turn and
look; he did it maybe 20 times in the first ten minutes of the game.

"What the fuck
is this guy doing", I asked Zeekay.

The ball would whiz
past Gabor's feet while he stared at Zeekay waiting for instructions.

The rest of the RoPS
guys were just trying their luck. I knew from the start that there
wouldn't be four goals so I had placed my own money on Under 3.5;
thirty thousand dollars granted on credit by my agent back in
Singapore. Gabor actually scored a goal, putting Tampere ahead, then
Mweetwa scored the equalizer from the penalty spot. First half, 0-0;
final result, 1-1. If the RoPS players had listened to me, they would
have made money. I decided that I would not do business with these
stubborn mother-fuckers ever again.

That night, as I
scrolled through my e-mails, I saw a message from Benny, the Macao
bookie to whom I still owed 300 thousand dollars. When I had left
Singapore, I still owed him 600 thousand dollars; then, after the
2010 World Cup, I had paid him another 300 thousand.

"Wilson",
Benny wrote, "I need you to settle your debt now. I need the 300
thousand dollars or else I will expose you".

"I'll give you
the 300 thousand left, you just hang on", I replied. "Just
bear with me a little longer".

"No", he
wrote back, "people are chasing me for this money".

"If you think
that you can intimidate me, you are dead wrong", I was growing
irritated. "I already paid you 800 thousand dollars, you think
I'm not going to pay 300 thousand? Just give me a couple of months
and I'll clear you".

"I know what
name and what passport you are using", he wrote. "Raja
Morgan Chelliah".

As
I read his last message it dawned on me: the Viking ferry to
Mariehamn; that's how Benny knew. When I visited the Kenyan
goalkeeper
Willis
I left my bag and passport with Dan's
Chinese runner Chee Wee. He must have gone through my belongings and
relayed the information from my passport to his buddy Bee Hoon, who
then probably passed it on to Benny; the three were close. I don't
like to be intimidated; when I feel threatened, my blood rushes to my
head.

"Fuck you!"
I typed. "You can do whatever you want to do, I am not paying
you a penny".

I closed my laptop
and went to sleep.

We
were all staying in the same hotel. I had one room, Lecso and Zeekay
were in another room and the football agent was in a third. On the
morning of February 24
^th
,
2011, we checked out; Zeekay paid for our bill and we all left for
the airport. We took the first flight out of Rovaniemi to Helsinki at
six thirty in the morning. I was supposed to meet my runner
George
in Helsinki to pick up my cash before
heading back to London. Zeekay and the others were traveling
elsewhere. They didn't tell where they were headed next: after
fucking Dan over with the Tampere deal, I was excluded from the
syndicate and from their plans forthwith.

We landed in
Helsinki's Vantaa airport after about an hour of flight; it was seven
thirty in the morning. Zeekay and I were the last passengers off the
plane. We were chatting as we came out of the passenger walkaway and
noticed a police officer waiting down the corridor. It was a woman;
she was checking the passports of the passengers walking in front of
us. Zeekay was right in front of me; she checked his passport, handed
it back to him and let him walk off. Then she stopped me and asked
for mine; I handed her my Raja Morgan Chelliah passport.

"This is a
domestic flight", I wondered, "why are they checking
passports?"

I was the only
person that they had stopped; I felt that something was not right but
was confident because mine was an original passport issued by the
Immigration Department of Singapore. I had been stopped once by the
police after landing in Amsterdam.