Monday, October 28, 2013

Can Singapore tackle its match-fixing stain?

Singapore, South East Asia's wealthy island city-state, has a reputation for being safe and stable. Its squeaky-clean image, however, only goes skin deep, argues British writer and journalist Neil Humphreys, who has tracked Singapore's football match-fixing for many years.

On Halloween, the spectre of match fixing returns to Singapore when a nightclub owner appears in court in a trial featuring sex, prostitutes, bribery, three football officials, and an alleged criminal betting syndicate.

Eric Ding is accused of providing prostitutes for a Lebanese referee and his two assistants in return for fixing an international match in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup.

The Lebanese trio arrived in Singapore in April last year to officiate a match between Singapore's Tampines Rovers and East Bengal of India.

However, they never made it to the pitch. Instead, they were picked up by Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and led away in handcuffs.

A year earlier, Ali Sabbagh, the referee, met 31-year-old Mr Ding in a Beirut cafe where he alleges he was told that match fixing would make him "more money in one year... than he would as an AFC referee in 10 years". Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Lebanese referees admit agreeing to fix soccer match for sex in Singapore...
  2. Trailing Singapore's 'football match-fixing boss' (Video)
  3. All eyes on Singapore's betting underworld...
  4. Top European football matches 'fixed' (Video)
  5. Singapore Pools at centre of Italian soccer's match-fixing scandal...
  6. Singapore mastermind jailed in Finland for global match-fixing ...
  7. Nigerian players banned for life in 79-0 and 67-0 match-fixing scandal...

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