FIFA banned former Nigerian coach, Samson Siasia, for match fixing in 2019 and many people have assumed that he was banned for fixing Nigeria's matches. That's not the case. Samson Siasia Banned For Life By FIFA For Bribery, Match Fixing
There is a notorious Singaporean match fixer known as Wilson Raj Perumal. He is notorious for organising a lot of scam/fixed friendly matches for African countries, especially Southern African countries. His activities have led to the resignation, banning and dismissal of a lot of sports officials in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. He is also known for fixing matches in Asia and his activities led to the Asia-gate match fixing scandal. Mr Perumal has tried to fix matches in the Finnish League and the English Premier League.
Mr Perumal allegedly contacted Siasia and told him that there was a job vacancy in Australia. He was to help Siasia get the job if Siasia agrees to field players that Mr Perumal would select. Siasia had previously played in Australia in the 1990s.
However, the Australian club never accepted Siasia's demands, so he never got the job. Investigations into Mr Perumal revealed e-mail exchanges between him and Siasia. (Mr Perumal has been arrested and jailed in both Singapore and Finland for match fixing). This came to the notice of FIFA and the rest is history.
Mr Siasia said that he never met Mr Perumal and that he didn't do anything wrong. He said that he never accepted Mr Perumal's offer. He said Perumal contacted him by e-mail about a job offer in Australia, but the deal fell through because they couldn't pay what he wanted.
The Court for Arbitration in Sports reduced Mr Siasia's ban to five years because it said that Mr Siasia did not benefit anything (monetary or otherwise) from the interaction and he did not actually fix any match (he was never employed by the Australian club). Furthermore, they said that it was a first time offence and so it would be too harsh to ban him for life.
Samson Siasia: Life-Ban Reduced To Five Years By Court Of Arbitration For Sport
It is being reported that Mr Siasia plans to challenge the decision of the court.
However, Mr Perumal does have a connection with Nigeria. He claims in his book that he ferried Nigeria and Honduras to the final rounds of the 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup by fixing their qualification matches. Mr Siasia was not the coach at the time.
Picture 1: Wilson Raj Perumal.
Picture 2: Samson Siasia
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Post a Comment