[Fillipo Simone]

02/09/2008 00:19
World Cup 2006 Matches Fixed, Says Journalist

Journalist Declan Hill has launched an astonishing broadside against the FIFA World Cup of 2006 by claiming that no fewer than four results were fixed. Other comprimised matches have taken place in the Bundesliga, too...

A new book released today, entitled The Fix, explains that an Asian betting syndicate based in Bangkok influenced players from Ghana, Ecuador and Ukraine at the 2006 World Cup.

Among the matches affected were the clashes between Ghana and Italy in the group stages, Ghana and Brazil in the round of 16, and Ukraine versus Italy in the quarter final.

In these three cases the author of the book was told the match results prior to kick-off, and these were proved to be correct.

Stephen Appiah, the Ghana captain, confirmed that he had been targeted by match-fixers, although the team manager has moved to refute such claims.

Meanwhile the Bundesliga was also said to be affected, prompting an investigation in Germany into the allegations.

With the FIFA World Cup already beset by the ticketing scandals that once engulfed Jack Warner, this latest book will be the last thing that Sepp Blatter and company have on their reading lists.

Goal.com

And from Spiegel online:

INTERVIEW WITH MATCH-FIXING INVESTIGATOR DECLAN HILL

'I Am Sure the World Cup Game Was Manipulated'
Canadian journalist Declan Hill spoke to SPIEGEL about his investigation into betting syndicates in Asia. He claims to have uncovered evidence that the result of the last-16 football match between Ghana and Brazil during the 2006 World Cup was fixed.

DECLAN HILL
Canadian journalist and academic Declan Hill, 43, has researched global betting syndicates both for his book "The Fix" and for his doctoral thesis in sociology at Oxford University. Hill has worked as a TV and radio journalist and is an expert on organized crime and international politics. His radio documentary about the honor killings of Kurdish women won an award from Amnesty International in 2003. Hill also works as a consultant with Johann Lambsdorff and the Anti Corruption Training & Consulting group (ACTC).

SPIEGEL: You have spent three years investigating the international betting mafia. Have you lost all pleasure in football?

Declan Hill: I love football the way one loves a woman, but by now I ask myself quite early on in a match, whether there is anything suspicious going on. There are no precise statistics about betting manipulation in football, of course, but it is shocking how often people in the world of betting talk about matches that have been manipulated – not just in Asia or Eastern Europe, but also in the major football leagues, such as in Germany, and even during world championships.

Hill: Absolutely not, and that’s why I took plenty of time in the book to allow the reader to follow my own process of realization. I still vividly remember standing at the edge of a dusty track after meeting an informer in Ghana, with the wind blowing across from the Sahara, thinking: This is just incredible.

SPIEGEL: In your book you claim that the match between Brazil and Ghana in the last-16 round at the 2006 World Cup was fixed. The starting point for your investigation is a figure from the Thai betting scene. How did you meet him in Bangkok?

Hill: That was a drawn-out process that took months. In the Asian gambling world, every insider knows his name. He is a shadow figure about whom not much is known. He’s said to have been manipulating games for 15 years, his name turns up in the case files of match fixing in Asia. He organizes the bets and their manipulation. In my book I called him Lee Chin. In November 2005 he finally invited me to a golf club on the outskirts of Bangkok. The conversation that ensued over the next two and a quarter hours was one of the strangest I have ever had.

SPIEGEL: In what way?

Hill: He claimed he was a leading member of a syndicate that manipulated football matches. He said he had 16 runners, that is middle men who approach the players, coaches or referees. He told me about manipulated games at the Olympics, the under-20s World Cup, the South Asian Games and he predicted the result of a Bundesliga game that was just about to begin in Hanover while we were talking to each other.

SPIEGEL: Did you believe him?

Hill: That evening I was torn to and fro all the time. Naturally I had heard of the Hoyzer scandal in German football, but it nevertheless seemed incredible to me that this sort of thing should be possible in a major league in which the professionals earn so much money.

SPIEGEL: Why did Chin agree to meet you in the first place and tell you this kind of thing?

Hill: I asked myself the same question for a long time. Maybe because he wants to prove to the world how good he is, and a book like this may have sounded tempting to him. Maybe the man, who is a social outsider in terms of his background, feels honored by the fact that a journalist and scientist from Oxford University takes him seriously and treats him respectfully. Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that, thanks to my research into the betting scene, I spoke his language.

SPIEGEL: He wanted you to recognize his art?

Hill: I think so.

SPIEGEL: He is a gambler, did he play with you too?

Hill: Perhaps.

SPIEGEL: Why do you safeguard his identity and refrain from using his real name in your book?

Hill: Because he would kill me.

SPIEGEL: Really?

Hill: I know I’m playing with fire, but there is a limit to my courage and heroism. Two journalists, Johnson Fernandez and Lazarus Rokk, who exposed match fixing in Singapore some years ago, were sent cartridges bearing their names.

SPIEGEL: Chin then offered to allow you to witness him fixing a match during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. That sounds like a ****-and-bull story.

Hill: Yes, but that’s what happened.

SPIEGEL: How exactly did he go about it?

Hill: After our first meeting in November 2005 I stayed in touch with him. He then reported about the preparations and the name of one country was mentioned very often: Ghana. He told me that people from his syndicate had already been in touch with Ghana’s players during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and that he had succeeded at the time in getting Ghana to lose the final match against Japan. He claimed contacts existed now too and that things would go ahead. Then, on 25 May 2006, he ordered me to come to a Kentucky Fried Chicken branch in a shopping centre in the north of Bangkok at night-time. I was to witness the deal being closed. Why was I allowed to be present? No idea. I sometimes got the feeling that Chin viewed my skepticism as a personal affront.

SPIEGEL: What happened there?

Hill: When I entered, four men were sitting at a table: Chin, next to him two younger Chinese, and a black guy, a large, athletic man in a blue shirt and blue jeans. I sat down a few tables further along, I was rather nervous, my hidden camera wasn’t working, instead I tried to take a photograph with my mobile phone. The black man was a runner, the middle man for the Ghanaian team. The meeting lasted a little over an hour.

SPIEGEL: Did you know who the black man was?

Hill: Chin told me that in his office, two days after the meeting. He said he was a coach for Ghana’s under 17s team, someone who knew his way around Ghanaian football. Chin said the man had obtained the consent of eight of Ghana’s players. A few days earlier I had read in the newspaper that Ghana’s team would receive $20,000 for each victory at the Word Cup. I asked Chin whether that wouldn’t be more important to Ghana’s players. He replied: “But a victory is not 100 percent certain. And each player is guaranteed to receive $30,000 from me." And at the end of our conversation he asked me whether I had taken a photograph in the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. “I was able to see you,” he said, “I know you tried to take a picture. I know. I know everything.”

SPIEGEL: Did he threaten you?

Hill: No, but I felt very uneasy, after all I was recording this conversation too. After that I realized I had to be more careful.

SPIEGEL: You then flew straight to the World Cup in Germany?

Hill: I watched Ghana’s first game against Italy in my flat in Oxford. Incidentally, Chin had predicted that Italy would win by at least two goals. Italy won 2:0, the performance of the Ghanaian team felt very strange, they played well but you got the sense that they were not necessarily out to score goals. Even before the final whistle I jotted down on a slip of paper: This game was manipulated. Then I flew to Germany where I booked into the Hotel Maritim, where the Ghana team was staying in Würzburg.

SPIEGEL: Was that easy to do?

Hill: Interestingly enough, it was. Anyone who wanted to could get up close to the Ghanaian players. During the six days I was there, I was in touch with almost all the players, coaches and officials. No problem. Of course I looked around for the Ghanaian runner, the man from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bangkok, but I never saw him. It was very sociable in the hotel, and superficially everything seemed to be in order, no sign of the runner, no Asians hanging around. Two days before the match against Brazil in the round of 16, Chin called and said that the deal with the Ghanaians was on, 100 percent, he said, he was absolutely certain Ghana would lose by at least two goals.

SPIEGEL: On June 27, 2006 the match ended 3:0 for Brazil.

Hill: The Ghanaians played as though they were putting their whole heart into it, but then there were a number of stupid mistakes: passes didn’t succeed, the defense was careless, the team collected three stupid goals. After the game I was in the stands in Dortmund with tears in my eyes because I was convinced, at least emotionally, that the match had been fixed. I phoned Chin from the stadium: “I didn’t believe you, but you are a genius.” He said: “How can I be a genius if I earn so little money with this?”

SPIEGEL: What did you do in order to find out whether your feelings weren’t misleading you?

Hill: After the World Cup I first of all had to finish writing my dissertation in Oxford and in the summer of 2007 I flew to Ghana to find the runner. A crazy plan really, but if there was anyone who could confirm Chin’s stories then it was that runner.

SPIEGEL: How did you find him?

Hill: By chance. While I was in Ghana, Ghana’s under-23 team played Iran. After the game there were reports that the game had been manipulated, one of the coaches was dismissed from the team. A newspaper printed a photograph of the coach: it was the man from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. His name is Abukari Damba.

SPIEGEL: And then you met him?

Hill: Yes, four times in all. The first time was in a bar called the Bus Stop in Accra, and after that in the Beverly Hills Hotel. I did not identify myself as a journalist, but as someone from the betting scene. Damba had been one of the goalkeepers in the great Ghanaian team surrounding Abédi Pelé in the 1990s. Later he played in Malaysia and met a Malaysian match fixer there. He had been the under-17s coach for Ghana and for some time now assistant coach of the under-23 team. At a hearing by the Ghanaian association about the fixed match against Iran, Damba confessed to having put players from the team in touch with two Chinese and an Iranian, and to have received money in return.

SPIEGEL: And what did Damba say about the World Cup match between Ghana and Brazil?

Hill: That he had been in Würzburg with two match fixers from Malaysia. They had lived in a hotel opposite the Ghanaian team quarters, and Damba also admitted that he had given the Malaysian access to the team and that the match fixer also approached the team captain Steven Appiah.

SPIEGEL: And?

Hill: Damba says that he doesn’t know what happened after that.

SPIEGEL: Did you speak with Appiah about the accusations?

Hill: Not just with Appiah, but also with the goalkeeper Richard Kingson and other national players too. They all assured me that they were completely unaware of the manipulation of the team in Germany. However one of the players did admit that he had been approached by Asian betters in 2004 during the Olympic Games. And they all said that Appiah was the captain of the team and that you would have to talk to him. I then met with him in an industrial area in Accra. We talked in his car and he said that he had been approached a number of times in the course of his career and that he had taken money too. The first time was in 1997 during the under-17s World Cup in Malaysia and also in 2004 at the Olympic Games in Athens; however he had been given money in order to win games, not to lose them. He had then shared the bonus among the players.

SPIEGEL: Ghana’s team captain, who was until recently signed to Fenerbahce Istanbul, says that he has accepted money from third parties twice during his career?

Hill: That’s exactly what he says. I had trouble comprehending this, so I spoke to him again over the phone, and he repeated his account.

SPIEGEL: And during the 2006 World Cup in Germany?

Hill: He was approached there too, but he says that he refused. I also asked him whether the Malaysian had gone to other players too. He replied: “Yes, I think he did the rounds.”

SPIEGEL: But you don’t know which of Ghana’s players might be involved?

Hill: No, but I am nevertheless sure that the game was manipulated. Once again: there is an Asian betting manipulator, Lee Chin, who announces that he will fix a game during the World Cup. He allows me to witness a preparatory meeting at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bangkok. This meeting is attended by the former Ghanaian national player Abukari Damba and a match fixer from Malaysia. The two of them travel to Germany and approach players. And the match ends as predicted by Chin.

SPIEGEL: But does a player want to deliberately lose the round of 16 match at the World Cup, and into the bargain against the world champions from Brazil, if winning could make him famous?


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In- Box everyday.

Hill: In Ghana making it into the last 16 is already considered a huge success. After the victories against the Czech Republic and the United States, they were celebrated as heroes -- and after their defeat by Brazil too. Besides, there had been a huge argument about the payment of the players within the Ghanaian delegation a week before the start of the World Cup. The players were in quite a bad mood. However I want to make it very clear that not all the players were involved. Many did everything they could to win that game.

SPIEGEL: Have you informed the world football association FIFA of your findings?

Hill: I visited FIFA President Joseph Blatter in Zurich and told him that an Asian better had predicted the outcomes of matches during the 2006 World Cup. He did not believe this to be true. If it had happened, he said, then it had not affected the overall outcome. But if it were true “then all the work done by FIFA during the past 30 years was in vain. In that case, we have failed.”

Interview conducted by Christoph Biermann and Michael Wulzinger.

[Jack Sparrow]

*sigh*....Manchester City, richest in the world, now this....it has been a week for shaking snowglobes or what?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

[acid911]

Excellent read, Fillipo Simone. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) FIFA is probably the most corrupt sporting body in the world, along with such culprits as ICC (the cricket guys). I wish this one drags on and an and more people and football fans take note.

[kurtsimonw]

2006? There was definitly some fixing going on in 2002, but I didn't notice anything in this one. Poor Italy.

[Fillipo Simone]

02/09/2008 19:18

Lippi Reacts To World Cup Fix Claims

Italy coach Marcello Lippi has reacted to reports claiming that the 2006 World Cup which he won with Italy was fixed.

A new book released today, entitled The Fix, claims that two of Italy's matches were fixed as a result of a betting syndicate in Asia.

It's not the first time that Italy have been involved in controversial claims but La Nazionale have brushed off the accusations as the book causes a stir in and reaction from casa Azzurri.

Lippi doesn’t agree with 'The Fix' and he believes that such theories usually come about before a major tournament to destabilise the team rather than afterwards.

“It all seems strange to me that such a discussion has come out so late,” said Lippi.

“Usually when there are big victories these things happen before. I remember the same thing happened back in 1982.”

It’s not the first time a number of people have tried to rub the gloss off of Italy’s world cup winning campaign.

Ever since Calciopoli, the Italian game has become a laughing stock but many will argue that Calcio is the victim of its own downfall.

Salvatore Landolina

goal.com

[drucurl]

2006? There was definitly some fixing going on in 2002, but I didn't notice anything in this one. Poor Italy.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) Poor Italy?
Poor Australia (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

[Tennie]

Wow, interesting spin on things there. Especially since the book doesn't allege that the Italians were the ones doing the cheating - it was the Ghanaians and the Ukrainians taking bribes from an Asian gambling syndicate.

[Habitant]

2006? There was definitly some fixing going on in 2002, but I didn't notice anything in this one. Poor Italy.

of course italy fixed the world cup (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) the grosso penalty (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) thats all poeple can come up with and i've seen angles where neil clearly clips even though grosso was looking for it, it was a 50/50 call not a blunder. funny though necause an equally if not worse call was made with materazzi's red card yet no one remembers that, well it's more a matter of them not knowing wtf their talking about but believing the more conveniant alternative.

[Giancarlo]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) Poor Italy?
Poor Australia (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Australia? Why? That game against Italy in the World Cup... one Italian player sent off incorrectly and the penalty kick call was entirely appropriate.

[kurtsimonw]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) Poor Italy?
Poor Australia (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Well, it's the tournement that Italy won that's been tarnished, is it not?

of course italy fixed the world cup (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) the grosso penalty (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) thats all poeple can come up with and i've seen angles where neil clearly clips even though grosso was looking for it, it was a 50/50 call not a blunder. funny though necause an equally if not worse call was made with materazzi's red card yet no one remembers that, well it's more a matter of them not knowing wtf their talking about but believing the more conveniant alternative.

I never said that. Funny to see the conclusion jump to though isn't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Habitant]

Well, it's the tournement that Italy won that's been tarnished, is it not?


I never said that. Funny to see the conclusion jump to though isn't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

no i dint mean you believed that, i just find it funny that some people belived italy cheated. but of course these same people couldn't care less about 02, even tho the help korea got was ridiculous.

[drucurl]

of course italy fixed the world cup (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) the grosso penalty (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) thats all poeple can come up with and i've seen angles where neil clearly clips even though grosso was looking for it, it was a 50/50 call not a blunder. funny though necause an equally if not worse call was made with materazzi's red card yet no one remembers that, well it's more a matter of them not knowing wtf their talking about but believing the more conveniant alternative.

Well I have the video clip of the Neil-Grosso incident and it was clear that
1)Grosso went ariborne looong before Neil arrived
2)Neil was pulling out of the tackle even before he reached the ball upon seeing Grosso's reaction
3)When watched from all angles actual contact was minimal....of course that didn't prevent Grosso from acting like he just got sucker punched from Mike Tyson (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[Giancarlo]

Yeah. The world cup most certainly was NOT fixed. Italy won it fairly with on-side goals. The game against Australia... actually Italy was shortchanged in that game after having a red card shown against one of its players. In other words, why poor Australia?

The penalty kick call was appropriate, as there was evidence of the player being brought down intentionally by an Australian.

[kurtsimonw]

I'm still amazed that nothing was mentioned about the 2002 World Cup, two of those games were ridiculously one-sided in terms of officiating. If it happened once you can say it's a bad day, but to happen twice, in favour of the same team, is just.. wrong.

[Giancarlo]

I'm still amazed that nothing was mentioned about the 2002 World Cup, two of those games were ridiculously one-sided in terms of officiating. If it happened once you can say it's a bad day, but to happen twice, in favour of the same team, is just.. wrong.

Moreno.

That says enough for me.

If I ever see that name again... I swear...

It was against Spain and Italy right where both teams had quite a few valid goals disallowed?