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.
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.
SPIEGEL: Is that something you would have expected?
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.
(interview continued at link)
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.
SPIEGEL: Is that something you would have expected?
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.
(interview continued at link)
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