Singaporean arch-fixer denies links to English plot
A notorious Singaporean football match-fixer has denied any links to an alleged plot in England after a suspect called him his “boss”, a report said yesterday.
A notorious Singaporean football match-fixer has denied any links to an alleged plot in England after a suspect called him his “boss”, a report said on Friday.
Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted fixer who is under police protection in Hungary, told Singapore’s New Paper that he played no part in the scam -- although he admitted he had full knowledge of it.
Two Singaporean men have been charged and five others arrested over match-fixing allegations involving lower-league English games earlier this month.
The arrests follow a videotaped sting by Britain’s Daily Telegraph in which a Singaporean suspect says he is working for Perumal.
But Perumal, a self-confessed arch-fixer who says he used to collaborate with alleged Singaporean mastermind Dan Tan, insisted he was not involved.
“He (the suspect) was acting on his own. He was set up,” he told the New Paper via email.
“I told him to be very careful (that) this may be a set-up,” Perumal wrote.
He added that the suspect was “keeping me posted on what he was doing even though I never asked for it”.
Perumal was jailed for match-fixing in Finland in 2011 and is the reputed whistle-blower who has helped European police uncover hundreds of rigged games.
His fixing career, which started in Singapore in the 1990s, extended to arranging international friendlies -- once with a bogus team -- and rigging the results.
AFP was not able to contact Perumal for comment. In the Daily Telegraph video, the Singaporean suspect calls him the “king” of match-fixing.