To start – I broke the story. I have been stating publicly since September 2008 that there is a group of Asian based match-fixers who travel the world arranging football matches with local criminals. For regular readers of this blog or my book The Fix, this is obvious. But in a week filled with vindication and support after the Europol press conference, there is a strain in the media of a very small number of journalists who...
Anyone who tells you that match-fixing is complicated to solve is either ignorant or lying. Following the Europol press conference and the media hype around it – let us analyse the current fixing situation in international football: It is very, very simple. Let us take out ‘football’ for the moment and imagine that we are speaking about bank robberies. There is a gang that is going around the world and robbing banks. They have stolen money from at least 680 banks...
Stay Tuned – I will be releasing fresh revelations later this week. However, for now, here is a quick fact sheet for people interested in the story developing around the Europol press conference on Monday of this week. At the conference, police investigators announced that they had over 400-suspects and over 680 suspicious matches. Most journalists have played the story straight and simply announced these findings, however, there has been a strain in the media that is trying frantically to downplay...
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Here is a brief outline on the activities of Dan Tan. The unmentioned man at the centre of yesterday’s Europol press conference. You are welcome to use the material, but please do cite me and my newspaper the Ottawa Citizen. All good wishes, Declan Dan Tan has a very comfortable life. He lives in a modern condominium in a rich neighbourhood of Singapore. He drives late-model luxury cars and, reportedly, has a personal net worth of more...
Europol Press Conference on Match-Fixing First, the good news. This is good news! Forget the ‘black day for European Football’ comments. Fixing and corruption has been going on in football for a long time. Long before ‘The Fix’ revealed the existence of this network, these fixers have been working throughout the sport to destroy its credibility. Finally, there are serious, good police investigators taking a long, hard and critical look at the dark centre...
In the room, there will be good police officers who have done excellent work. They should be commended. However, if an official does not specifically stand up and state that the Singaporean government must serve the international arrest warrant against Dan Tan, then they become part of the problem, not the solution. The networks that the police have identified in superb investigations is, for the most part, linked to Asian fixers. Dan Tan is the alleged leading figure of these...
It is a farce, a bureaucratic cone of silence and it comes dangerously close to a cover-up. I write of Interpol’s ‘efforts’ to fight match-fixing. You see the articles all the time in the media – as Interpol holds yet another press conference to tout their efforts against fixing from ruining the beautiful game. I do not say these things lightly – but from my recent experiences with Interpol, this is a warning to the world’s press that they are being bamboozled...
The Good, the bad and the Very Ugly Interpol Conference on Match Fixing, Rome, Italy Sports Corruption Industry – part III Rome: It was the good, the bad and the very ugly. To be a speaker at an international match-fixing conference organized by Interpol is to see the sports corruption industry close up. It was a moving , depressing and shocking vision. First, the rules of the next few blog postings: there is much that I cannot discuss;...
It was one of the times that I have felt most proud to be Canadian. It occurred in a hot, sweaty Cuban boxing gym on the outskirts of Havana. Today, however, is a day that I am shaking my head in exasperation about our nation. The two events are linked, here is why. For those readers who follow this blog regularly, you will know that in the last few years I have taken up boxing. I...
10,000 Hours and the Enigma of Chris Eaton To review – there is a now an anti-match-fixing industry. It is like the post 9/11 anti-terrorist-complex in the United States, a self-generating, commercially motivated phenomenon. So in the same way it did not benefit the anti-terrorist industry for Osama bin Laden to be captured (rather they want terrorists to be out there, uncaptured – something vague and ill-defined to allow the industry to continue) – so too is...
