Wilson Raj Perumal – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

11JunJune 11, 2026

The Seven Secrets of Why There Will be Match-Fixers at the World Cup: Part 3 – No one is stopping them

The match-fixers were at the last men's FIFA World Cup in America. They will be back. There are more teams. The gambling market is larger. And no one is stopping them. Match-fixers approached players on the Swedish team before the 3rd place match in the 1994 FIFA World Cup Finals It was - theoretically - the second most important game at the tournament: The 3rd place match on July 16,1994. The game was between Sweden and Bulgaria. It was a...

21MayMay 21, 2026

The Seven Secrets of Why There Will be Match-Fixing at the World Cup – Part 2

Match-fixing has a long, ignoble history at the FIFA World Cup. The fixers are intelligent, well-resourced and well-connected. Some of the football officials are deeply corrupt. There have been fixers coming to almost every FIFA international tournament since at least 1991. They have approached hundreds of players, coaches, and referees. In 1995 at the World Youth Championship in Doha, Qatar. Two young Portuguese players had been invited up to a room to discuss an interesting proposition by two attractive young Malay...

14JunJune 14, 2018

Why the Match Fixers are at the World Cup in Russia

The hot tub of World Cup match-fixing This article first appeared on playthegame.org Potential corruption and match-fixing at the World Cup is aided by corrupt national football association officials, . FIFA’s ‘often odd’ attitude towards these officials protects the fixers at the World Cup. Uncle Frankie, the match-fixer, sat in the hot tub with players from the Swedish World Cup team. It was in a Los Angeles Hotel before their third-place match with Bulgaria at the 1994 World Cup. Uncle...

17MayMay 17, 2016

2 Farces, Turkish Nightmare & Infantino’s Blatter-Lite FIFA

It was not a good week for sport. The Turkish nightmare continues. There are strange doings, as usual, in Singapore and Qatar. However, the big story is that Gianni Infantino's FIFA has now become a Blatter-Lite FIFA: the same organisation, only with better table manners for the media. The key issue is the resignation of Domenico Scala as the Head of the Audit and Compliance Committee. He quit FIFA as Infantino pushed through a measure that would have allowed the FIFA Executive...

07DecDecember 7, 2015

Games Night at Zurich Hotels & Why Dan Tan Should Be Released

Crikey – the arrests of FIFA executives is getting so routine at the five-star Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich the management should build it into their daily schedule: 5 p.m. - High Tea 6 p.m. - Cocktails & Happy Hour 6 a.m. - FBI & Swiss Organized Crime Police arrests of FIFA executives 7.15 a.m. - Continental breakfast Possibly the hotel has, like chocolates on the pillows, turn-down service and concierges, criminal lawyers standing around...

25NovNovember 25, 2015

Singapore’s Middle Finger to the Sporting World

Well this is interesting. Dan Tan the man Interpol once described him as the “the mastermind and leader of the world’s most notorious match-fixing syndicate” has been released from jail by a Singapore Appeal’s Court judge. Three technically accurate points and a chronology: 1) It is technically true, the appeal judge’s assessment is accurate: there is no available evidence that Tan ever fixed a match in Singapore. 2) It is technically true that Interpol described Tan, after he was arrested, as “the mastermind...

10NovNovember 10, 2015

7 lessons from the IAAF and Russian Doping Scandals

So now we know. Now we know that the Russian anti-doping system in sport was largely a sham: a Potemkin village of a program designed to give the appearance of an effective fight but in reality enabling widespread doping among their athletes. Now we know that at the very heart of athleticism and the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) that was a deeply corrupted system that enabled doping athletes and coaches. Here are the lessons that we can learn: 1) The myth of...