Singaporean Names Nigeria In World Cup Match-Fixing

 

 President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Aminu Maigari

A convicted Singaporean match-fixer has claimed he helped Nigeria to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa through his match-fixing network.

In a mind-blowing revelation published in his new book, Wilson Raj Perumal, claims he influenced results to help the Super Eagles to qualify.

According to The Guardian, Perumal said that the Nigeria Football Federation promised him the right to organise the Eagles’ pre-2010 World Cup friendlies as well as part of the money FIFA pays to help teams prepare for the tournament.

Perumal, a self-confessed match-fixer who was part of a syndicate that has been placed at the heart of a sophisticated network responsible for fixing hundreds of matches around the world, also claimed in the new book that he also assisted Honduras in reaching the World Cup through his activities.

He details a meeting with a football official in which he promised to help Nigeria qualify for the World Cup in return for free rein in organising three warm-up matches and a cut of the money FIFA provides for hosting a training camp during the tournament.

First, he claims to influence three players on his payroll to help Nigeria to victory in one of their qualifiers.

Then he claims to have promised the Mozambique FA a $100,000 bonus if they were able to hold Tunisia to a draw and so stop Tunisia leapfrogging Nigeria and seizing automatic qualification. Mozambique secured an unlikely 1-0 victory.

“My plan had worked and I was the unsung hero of Nigeria’s qualification to the final rounds of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa,” Perumal writes.

“Ferrying Nigeria and Honduras to the World Cup was a personal achievement. ‘F*ck,’ I considered. ‘I got two teams to qualify for the World Cup but I cannot tell anyone.’”

Perumal was arrested in Helsinki in 2011 and sentenced to two years in prison. He agreed to cooperate with the authorities and implicated his fellow Singaporean Dan Tan, alleged to be at the heart of the fixing and gambling ring that placed bets on illicit Chinese markets.

Perumal, who served a year of his sentence in Finland after promising to cooperate with the authorities, claims to have had a hand in or profited from fixed matches all over the globe, from Latin America to Serie A.

They included two occasions on which he is alleged to have arranged for bogus African teams to play official friendlies and deliver the required result.

Last year Europol alleged that more than 380 professional matches in Europe and more than 300 matches played in Africa, Asia and central and South America were under suspicion as the scale of the activities of match-fixing gangs from eastern Europe and Asia became clear.

He also claims to have attempted unsuccessfully to bribe referees at the World Cup itself.

But in a swift reaction, a former head of the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation, Taiwo Ogunjobi, denied Nigeria ever had any illicit dealing with the Singaporean.

Ogunjobi, who was part of the NFF delegate that led the Eagles to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, said his job was mainly assessing Nigeria’s opponents during the qualifiers and at the World Cup finals.

“I don’t know anything about match-fixing involving Nigeria. It never happened,” the former international told The PUNCH on the telephone on Monday.

“The problem of organising friendly matches for the Eagles was handled by the NFF secretary general, not me. Nevertheless, there is no reason to think Nigeria was involved in match-fixing during the qualifiers or at the tournament. We played fairly and fought for our qualification.”

Our correspondent put a call through to the former NFF secretary general, Bolaji Ojo-Oba, but he did not answer.

Source:Punchng.com