AT ISSUE
In his review of Declan Hill's The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime (Books, Sept. 13), John Doyle said he was not convinced by Hill's claim that World Cup matches had been fixed by Asian criminal gangs, and that Brazil's very easy win over Ghana was not because the fix was in, but was rather due to the relative skills of the teams. Hill counters that he has considerable evidence to back his claim
John Doyle's review of my book, The Fix, which outlines match-fixing in international soccer, is like many of the articles that appeared at the beginning of the Alan Eagleson affair in hockey. The glamour of a professional sport so dazzles the eyes of normally hardened journalists that they cannot accept that there may be corruption in their beloved sport, and they castigate anyone who attempts to raise the issue.
In Doyle's case, his misplaced love also leads him to make a number of simple factual errors. To start, he cannot get my nationality right (I am a Canadian, something that has been accurately reported in the international press, but not by him). However, far more serious is his claim that it is only conjecture that many Asian soccer leagues suffer from high levels of match-fixing. As I source in 70 pages of notes and references at the end of the book, there have been a series of police investigations, confessions and public trials, all confirming the widespread nature of the corruption. (One Malaysian cabinet minister even estimated that 80 per cent of the matches in their league had been fixed.)
In the early chapters of the book, I use some of these transcripts and also interviews with players, referees, soccer officials, police officers, prosecutors and the criminals themselves to explain the mechanisms, motivations and methods of these match-fixers. I also show that the Asian match-fixers have so destroyed the credibility of their own leagues that they are now fixing games in many European soccer leagues and that generally little effective action has been taken to prevent their incursions. I also present the reader with the evidence that they may have done the same with top international tournaments such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
It is on this subject that Doyle moves from factual inaccuracies to a number of odd omissions. For example, the book does not end, as a reader of his review may think, with me watching the Brazil-Ghana game in the World Cup. A match that, two days before it began, I had been told the result of by an experienced and known Asian fixer.
Rather, in the book I show that after that match I went to Ghana and tracked down the fixer's "runner," a man I had seen at a meeting with the criminals in Asia. He was relatively easy to find; his photo was on the front page of the national newspaper because he had just been fired as a coach of the Ghana team. His crime? Trying to fix a game between Iran and Ghana. I obtained the transcripts of his tribunal hearing, where he confessed to working with fixers. He then confirmed to me in separate interviews that he had known the fixer, that he had been at the World Cup training camp in Germany with him, and that an approach had been made to fix a World Cup game.
I then interviewed some of the Ghanaian players and officials, who confirmed that they, and other teams, receive these types of criminal approaches at all the international soccer tournaments. The captain of the team - Stephen Appiah - even said that he knew the fixers well enough to accept money from them for winning a match at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, something that is in clear violation of FIFA statues and regulations.
It is clear from all this material, and much more in the book, that the sport at its highest levels is in danger and that it has few effective guardians. The beautiful game needs our help and protection and it is not aided by casual, inaccurate and misleading reviews like Doyle's.
THE REBUTTAL
I stand by my assertion that Hill does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that several World Cup games were fixed by Asian gamblers
BY JOHN DOYLE
Well now. I regret that I was inaccurate when I described Declan Hill's nationality but, frankly, the book is unclear about his exact background.
However, I did not dismiss, wholesale, his allegations of corruption in Asian soccer leagues. In reference to his research into fixed games in Asia, I wrote, "I have no doubt that he's correct in certain matters." Though I did also write, "But frankly, no one who takes soccer seriously takes soccer in Thailand, Malaysia and China seriously at all."
Further, I acknowledged in my review, "Of course, there have been real instances of corruption or attempted fixing in top-level soccer in Europe."
So on that count Declan Hill has little to complain about. His book and his research were not completely dismissed.
From reading Hill's response to my review, I think he is stung that while his research into corruption in Asia is being taken seriously, his allegations of match-fixing at the World Cup in 2006 are not. I stand by my assertion that Hill does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that several World Cup games were fixed by Asian gamblers.
His account of the background to the games played by Ghana - the main focus of his allegations - is particularly important. He writes about seeing a German prostitute at the team hotel and about some Ghana players and officials selling their game tickets for a profit. All that is unsavoury and suggests a lack of discipline and oversight.
But of the Ghanaian team's performance, Hill himself also writes, "It is all subjective. Possibly the players were too nervous to be world-beaters."
I did not call Hill a fantasist, but called the book "windy," which it is, and in some areas lacking credibility. Readers of the book - especially those who have studied, and not only enjoyed, soccer - can judge for themselves.
John Doyle is The Globe and Mail's television critic, and has covered World Cup soccer for many years.
