How cricket ceded power to cricket's Godfather

When the stakeholders, the strategists and the savants have had their say over the reconstruction of the ICC by India, Australia and England, it has been telling that many have used the ‘tent’ analogy. Cricket needs India, or more specifically its strongman Narayan Srinivisan, on the inside urinating out, rather than the outside, urinating in.

The quote was attributed to Lyndon B Johnson, who was describing FBI director J Edgar Hoover. Hoover favoured intimidation and threats to get what he wanted. No-one ever took him on.

Srinivasan appears to enjoy similar immunity. In June he emerged unblinking in front of the flashbulbs at a press conference in Melbourne to make his first statement as president of the ICC, completing the most audacious powergrab in cricket history.

The cricketing family had ceded power to Srinivasan, who looked every inch the Godfather with a sporting check jacket and goldfish-bowl sunglasses, and his co-horts Giles Clarke of the ECB and Wally Edwards of Cricket Australia. Together they called themselves ExCo (Executive Committee), a trinity which will pocket the bulk of a potential £2.5billion worth of ICC revenue in the next eight years, while the rest will feed on scraps. Associate members will lose about £182 million.

Mike Brearley called it the greatest crisis since Packer. Other luminaries such as Clive Lloyd and Ehsan Mani, the former ICC president, pleaded with the other nations to stand up for themselves. But just when they should have been up in arms, they could barely lift a finger.

Srinivasan now holds the purse strings, threatening the fabric of the sport: its integrity. The financial carve-up may leave everyone bar India, Australia and England knocking on the door of the poor house, but cricket’s reputation as a sport which was at least run with a modicum propriety is in doubt. It’s not just about the money.

It’s about good governance. The rules and regulations. The checks and counterchecks. The conventions which give an organisation the best chance of making the right decision. It is not a side of sport which inspires the fan in the cheap seats to rouse a roar from his craw. Bad governance is the opposite. It can infect the faithful with apathy, leaving once clicking turnstiles to rust in rigidity. Srinivasan and his cabal appear to come up short.

Ehsan Mani perhaps describes it best. “Fifa is doing better with its governance now than cricket. Who is Sepp Blatter? I’m not sure whether it’s Srinivasan or Clarke.”

Clarke is probably not in Srinivasan’s league. He did team up English cricket with Allen Stanford, the disgraced Texan financier who was convicted of a £4.4 billion fraud for the grotesque Twenty20 for $20 million game but having smoothed Srinivasan’s path to the top, he may only be the Indian industrialist’s poodle.

Srini, as he is called, has been barred from running the BCCI by the Supreme Court of India for his role in the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal. The franchise his company – India Cements - owns, the Chennai Super Kings, have been implicated and his son-in-law, the team manager Gurunath Meiyappan, has been found guilty of passing on team information to bookmakers. An investigation is ongoing.

It says a lot about ExCo’s attitude towards respectability that a man considered not fit for office with his home board, by no less than the highest court in India, should be allowed to assume control of the world game.

“I absolutely believe in innocent until proven guilty,” Mani says. “He’s under suspicion and the most decent thing to do is to only assume charge once he has had his name cleared. You put the credibility of the game first but this is just how it’ll be run in the future.”

Srinivasan, however, does not do humility. In front of a disbelieving media in Melbourne, he claimed that he removed himself from the presidency of the BCCI. It was some swank because he appealed the decision - twice.

Before even the involvement of the Supreme Court, a BCCI inquiry had found Srinivasan had no case to answer with regard to the spot-fixing allegations. So why did the court get involved? Srinivasan had either chosen, or approved the names of, the two retired judges who cleared him.

It gives a clue as to how the ICC will be run under Srinivasan. At the BCCI, he reduced the role of the all-important secretary to that of a rubber stamp. Sanjay Jagdale, one former incumbent, admitted he “didn’t really have much to do with Indian cricket”. Srinivasan was involved in every decision and appointment, no matter how minor.

Ravi Shastri, the former allrounder turned commentator, says Srinivasan is “misunderstood”. “Great man,” he says. “Gets an unfair press because he does things his way and makes no bones about how he wants those things done. He’s involved every calls and people in BCCI need that. He’s the best prepared, the most knowledgable.”

Inderjit Singh Bindra, the closest Indian cricket has to a moral authority, former BCCI president and principal advisor to the ICC president, compared Srinivasan to Jagmohan Dalmiya, his former mentor, who used to stalk cricket’s powers of corridor with similar menace.

“He says Haroon Lorgat should not be in charge of the South Africa board and he is suspended. He says DRS is not acceptable so it is not acceptable. He knew he could control everything. He told me he wanted to be the next Dalmiya, who was the Godfather. But Srini is far more dangerous. He has more resources. All the paperwork [for BCCI] is done by his India Cements employees.”

Mani says Srinivasan and ExCo has ridden roughshod over corporate governance. “They’ve totally disregarded the ICC code of ethics when it was all put into play,” he says. “The code is very clear that no member could have a conflict of interest, no member or group of members could act in their own interest. This is all spelt out in the old code which has now been scrapped.

“In a five-man committee, it’s whatever these three decide. According to ICC papers and the new revamped articles they’re setting up is that ExCo is the sole committee, the only committee that can make recommendations to the ICC for financial distribution, constitutional, personnel, anti-corruption, ethics and integrity matters.”

There are crashing conflicts of interest and alarming errors of judgment aplenty. Srinivasan, as owner of the Super Kings and BCCI president, is financially reliant on the success of the IPL, a tournament which in turn relies heavily on the other ICC nations’ biggest stars. There was also the bizarre appointment of Peter Chingoka onto the new governance committee. Chingoka, the Zimbabwean, has been banned from travelling to the EU for his ties to Robert Mugabe. Before his resignation from Zimbabwe cricket following allegations of financial misconduct, ExCo deemed him fit for their new era.

“It’s an attitude we can do what we wish,” says a former ICC board member. “What anyone thinks or feels, it doesn’t matter. It’s only putting an individual on a committee. It’s nothing. They’ve done worse. The Future Tours Programme was agreed by all members in June 2011. It was binding. But ExCo said it wasn’t and ripped it up. The Woolf report [a paper which demanded ICC independence] was ignored.

“Srini’s not scared to blackmail. The message is clear. ‘If you don’t do as I say, this is what I’ll do’.”

There is also an issue with ‘do as I say, not as I do’. When it comes to anti-corruption, what hope does the sport have of being clean when its head is being investigated for fixing?

“The anti-corruption unit should be totally independent,” says Mani. “Now it is answerable to Srinivasan. His BCCI right-hand man Sundar Raman sits on the anti-corruption review. It is not credible.”

There is also a stark warning from Tim May. May resigned last year as chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations because he was “sick of operating in a landscape where things were determined by threats and intimidation”.

May, who lost his position on the ICC cricket committee to Laxman Sivaramakrishnan because of BCCI “intimidation”, says players will find it harder to be honest and fair.

“Everyone’s a product of their environment and their culture so if you’re in a sport and the governance of that sport is not principally sound, honest or without integrity then that filters down to the culture that you exist within. It can suggest if the administration is corrupt, the players will then question when the administrators lecture them, or have put before them various behavioural codes. ‘How come we have to meet higher standards than you?’.”

For now, Srinivasan leads. But for how long? Srinivasan, Clarke and Edwards will share the role, each doing a two-year term before the cycle begins again. But wherever Srinivasan has been in cricket administration – the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and the BCCI – he has changed the constitution to allow him to hold a position for longer than ever before.

What is to stop him deciding an Indian should run the game in perpetuity, having successful argued his country should have the most say as it earns the most money?

“He can do what he wants,” says Mani. “He has all the power and all of the self-interest. He can bully and intimidate. No-one stands up to him. There is no good that can come from this.”

Srini looking at the stars

If the world game is looking for a chink in Narayan Srinivasan’s armour, then search no more. The ICC chairman is extremely superstitious and is understood to employ a personal astrologer.

Such is Srini’s faith in the mystic arts that he has used an astrologer to advise on team strategy for his franchise, the Chennai Super Kings, in the Indian Premier League. Vastu Venkatesan, an astrologer based in Chennai, also offers insight to help Srinivasan run his business empire.

During IPL 2013, Venkatesan advised Srinivasan on Chennai’s batting order and what to do if they won the toss to give Chennai the best chance of winning the toss. Team officials were also ordered to wear specific coloured t-shirts to improve chances, pictures of deities and goddesses had to be hung up in the dressing room while the opposition should be given “red towels” for bad luck

Before the final against Kolkata Knight Riders, Srini’s astrologer told him that “special prayers” had to be said for MS Dhoni as there were “not friendly” omens for the India captain. It didn’t work. Chennai lost.

This article was first published in The Cricketer magazine

Searching for Sanjeev: Hansie Cronje's fixer

At first glance the cul-de-sac just off the Finchley Road in north London is calm, cosseted by the bosom of suburbia. The bins have been neatly arranged for the morning’s collection. Mock Tudor homes are blemished by satellite dishes. Ready-to-roar 4x4s shimmer out front. The odd net curtain twitches. At No 4, the gate has been left open. In haste or a sign that the owner will return?

“Yes, they’re still there,” says the woman at No 6 with a hint of American drawl.

“The Chawlas?”

“Yes...haven’t seen them for a few weeks, though. Perhaps they’re on holiday.”

Before she opened the door a perturbed, wide-eye had appeared behind the glass. Her voice wavered in the way that they do when strangers call. She is right to be nervous, although not for the right reasons. She is living next door to one of India’s most wanted. A man on an Interpol hunted list. A man Delhi police believe was the brains behind the match-fixing scandal that tore cricket asunder. His name is Sanjeev Chawla. Hansie Cronje’s fixer.

Chawla is an international man of mystery, a ghost. Delhi police have wanted him ever since Cronje’s shame broke news and hearts in April 2000. More than 13 long years ago. They thought they had their man once, when he was in possession of Scotland Yard, but he was released. They are about to try again.

In July, Chawla and Cronje, who died in a plane crash in June 2002, were named in a 70-page chargesheet by Delhi police for “fixing matches played between India and South Africa from February 16, 2000 to March 20, 2000 in India". Despite the passage of time, it is understood the failure to bring to justice two men for committing the heinous crime of disrespecting a game adored by billions, is a wound that will not heal.  A sore which has weeped more since the Indian Premier League fixing investigation.

“This is criminal conspiracy,” said Ravindra Yadav, additional commissioner of police. “People went to watch the games thinking they would be played in the true spirit. They did not know the outcome was fixed. That's why we have filed the charges." Yadav wants Chawla extradited. “We are almost sure he’s in London.” Good luck finding him.

Night after night Chawla’s bolthole in London’s jewish quarter is quiet. The lights are off and no one is ever at home. The telephone rings unanswered. The buzzer of the intercom – a clue to Chawla’s nervousness about unwanted visitors - echoes eerily in the void beyond. He is rumoured to have hideouts all over the country and, when the Cronje furore reached its zenith, he used to sleep in his car to avoid reporters.

Once, he answered my call. With his guard uncharacteristically lowered, he confirmed he was Chawla. But when asked whether we could talk cricket, he garbled “ugotwrongnumba’ and hung up. Chawla is wary. Possibly he has told friends, associates and employees to be the same. “Sanjeev?” they will bluster. “Don’t know him, sorry”.

Not much is known about the man who brought cricket to its knees. His family were from Pakistan. The Chawlas moved to Jangpura, a neighbourhood in south Delhi,  in 1953 and ran a clothing business which within ten years  had fixed assets worth £800,000. Chawla was born in April 1967. In 1993 he left for London to run an import-expert clothes outlet, under the auspices of Commercial Clothing Limited, in Oxford Street. He lived in a flat in Hendon, drove a rickety BMW and sometimes borrowed money from staff.

Rajesh Kalra, who according to police was “arguably the biggest cricket betting operator in Delhi with worldwide links”, appeared to back a belief that Chawla was more interested in gambling on cricket than his clothes shop. He told a news agency in 2000: “[Sanjeev] is a deep water fish. He has been around for a while in the world of cricket betting.”

Kalra was to prove a key cog in the wheel of illegal fortune. He met Chawla in London in September 1999 and plans were hatched to fix matches to the tune of £1.5 million. Manmohan Khattar and Sunil Dara, two Delhi bookmakers, were added to the gang. Towards the end of the year more meetings were held in Delhi and Mumbai. Kalra, Khattar and Dara have each been named in the chargesheet.

A former cop who worked on the investigation said that it was the job of Khattar and Dara to ensure the bets were placed. “Chawla wasn’t working alone,” he said. “They were placing the bets in the Indian market after receiving the information from Chawla. He was a very intelligent man. A great charmer, good looking. He was a very organised man.”

Evidently. Chawla was able to make friends with Cronje through a connection with Hamid Cassim, who hailed from Johannesburg and claimed to be close to members of the South African team. Clive Lloyd, the manager of the West Indies, claimed to have seen Chawla in a VIP box during the team’s tour to South Africa in 1998-99.

Cronje told the King Commission - the enquiry in South Africa during which a nation’s hero was revealed a villain – how he first met Chawla. He knew him as ‘Sanjay’ and was introduced by Cassim in a Durban hotel during the triangular one-day series involving England and Zimbabwe in early 2000. “They said I could make a lot of money if we would lose a match,” Cronje said. In a written confession, he revealed Chawla gave him $10-15,000.  Chawla has denied ever meeting Cronje. The charge sheet boasts evidence from a cleaner at a hotel in Mumbai who saw Cronje "going inside Chawla's room empty-handed and coming out with a bag".

When Delhi police released the now infamous Cronje tapes, recorded during the Pepsi one-day series in in India in March 2000, Chawla was the voice police believed was at the other end of the line. The game was up.

Chawla: Is [Pieter] Strydom playing?
Cronje: Yes he is playing. Yeah.
Chawla: [Nicky] Boje?
Cronje: Boje is playing.
Chawla: And who is playing? [Herschelle] Gibbs?
Cronje: Gibbs and myself.
Chawla: Yeah, what about anybody else?
Cronje: No, I won’t be able to get any more.
Chawla: You won’t be able to get more?
Cronje: No.
Chawla: Ok, just tell me. But you have only four with you and not anybody else?
Cronje: No.
Chawla: [Lance] Klusener and no one?
Cronje: No, no, impossible, impossible. They were saying that they were already doing Cochin. The other guys are already angry with me because I have not received their money you know.
Chawla: But I told you I have already given him altogether 60.
Cronje: Ok.
Chawla: And tomorrow I can deposit the money in your account, it is not a problem because of the time difference. Tomorrow itself I can deposit the money.
Cronje: Ok. Everything is fine. Spoken to Gibbs and to [Henry] Williams and Strydom. Everything is fine.

On the basis of such evidence Cronje was banned for life in October 2000 by the King Commission. Gibbs and Williams were banned for six months, Boje and Strydom, who under oath both denied ever having been involved in fixing, were exonerated. Chawla was safe in London.

“How much money did he make?” wondered the Delhi police source. “Hard to say. Very difficult to say how much any bookie would make from fixing because there were many layers to this kind of corruption. But it would have been, I presume, several crore.” One crore roughly equates to £120,000. The chargesheet claims more than twice that amount was handed over by Chawla to Cronje.

That the world listened in to the conversation between Cronje and Chawla appears to be the fault of Kalra, the much-vaunted gambling expert. It was his mobile phone that Chawla had given to Cronje. The same phone police were monitoring because two Mumbai businessmen had complained they were being threatened by extortion.

It is that suggestion of menace at play in a twisted, tawdry tale which has added to the intrigue surrounding Chawla. Match-fixing and the mafia have been bedfellows since the 1980s. The underworld is not shy of extortion, either. It is an unfair link, however, as police do not believe Chawla was a gangster. He was too “sophisticated”.

What does Rajesh Kalra think? Kalra is easier to find than Chawla, although he is only marginally more willing to talk. Over a crackling cellphone line from Ghana, where he was on business, Kalra was irked to be asked about his involvement in the Cronje affair and the charges by police. He spat back answers.

“I never met Cronje. You know Sanjeev? He’s the one who knows everything. I never met Hansie Cronje.

“But Delhi police have named you?”

“I don’t know about that. They haven’t given me notice of that. They have to prove it in the court. I haven’t see the papers.”

“I want to talk to Sanjeev.”

 “Go and see him. He’s a good man, a through gentleman. He’s a good person. He’s a good looker. Very suave. Take some women with you and you’ll be fine. A good sense of humour.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Never, never, never. Whatever has happened has happened, no bullshit with him. He’s the last person on earth to be associated with that. I know that.”

After Cronje, Chawla went back to work in the clothing business. He also owned a restaurant on the Commercial Road in Whitechapel. It closed after a fire. He has held nine directorships in companies since 1996. Commercial Clothing Limited was dissolved in 2004 with liabilities of £21,000.

Today he is listed as a director of Aksu, another clothing company. Its registered address is in Kennington, south London. One of his business partners is Kasim Akkus, a renowned restaurateur in London since 1975. Akkus runs ISK Catering, a company which Chawla was director of from May to June this year.

At his restaurant on Great Portland Street Akkus greets customers with a smile and thumbs up. Including me. On a weekday lunchtime I eat chicken kiev and rice. He takes a seat in front of me, still wearing his chef’s shirt, to meet with a friend over a plate of salad. They talk quickly, pausing occasionally to glance at the television showing a Turkish soap opera.

Before leaving I thank him for my meal and ask Akkus about the scores of signed photographs of celebrities which adorn the walls. One is of John Sergeant, the veteran journalist more famous for his clumsy performances on Strictly Come Dancing. “He came here a lot,” says Akkus after I tell him Sergeant knew my father.

There is another photo which caught my eye. It hangs outside the lavatories. It is of Javed Miandad playing a cover drive. The former Pakistan batsman’s son is married to the daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, the notorious gangster who used to have a vice-like hold on the illegal Indian betting markets. “I know all the cricketers, Pakistani peoples,” says Akkus.

But does he know Sanjeev? “Sanjeev?...No, I don’t know him”. Surprised, I remind him of the names of Akus directors. His face lights up and he laughs. “Ah! Sanjeev! Indian guy. He’s my shareholder. I think he’s a good guy. I’m not friends with him. In ISK [ISK Catering] the S is for Sanjeev. I am the K, for Kasim. 

He’s a charming man. He know many people.”

Does he know that Delhi police want to extradite him? “I don’t know. I meet him five or six times. I don’t know him very well. If you leave your name and number I will give him a message.”

That evening I am once again outside Chawla’s home in that safe, serene, tree-lined street in north London. A light is on upstairs. It goes out as I buzz. No answer. I walk to a nearby coffee shop, composing a text message to Chawla, telling him I will try again in 15 minutes. When I go back the lights are still off. Later that night, Chawla replies: “I request you to please not call again as this is invasion of my privacy and causing emotional distress to me and my family. I don’t want to speak to anyone regarding anything, kindly respect this.”

“You will have to talk sometime,” I tell him. 

This article was first published in The Cricketer December 2013

Troubled Vincent sitting duck for fixers

It is an uncomfortable -- but wholly rational -- truth that corruption in cricket, and any sport for that matter, will never be wiped out. Why? Because we are human. In an Indian Cricket League match or English county 40-over clash, 22 men will take to the field. It only takes one to be a bad apple.

Over the last few days, the leaked testimonies, claims and counter-claims would have you believe there is more than just one bad apple. A cartload? An orchard? It is impossible to put a number on it, although during my investigations spanning almost five years I've heard the names of approaching 50 taken in vain.

But to really begin to understand how rotten cricket is, or could be, it is important to appreciate the anatomy of match-fixing. How, exactly, does it work?

In Lou Vincent's example, he has the perfect personality traits to be considered vulnerable: a troubled man with money worries parachuting in and out of foreign lands to ply his trade in the twilight of his career.

His story, according to the outpouring noted down by anti-corruption investigators, is another stereotype. From being approached to carrying out the fix to receiving the money, it is almost the classic modus operandi which players have been warned about in countless anti-corruption tutorials.

In the beginning, Vincent was a sitting duck. His battle with depression and alcohol alerted unscrupulous sorts who saw an opportunity to manipulate a human being for monetary gain. This ability by corruptors to hone in on the weak is disturbing. They search for any flaw, and fixers or bookies have been known to search social network sites for any chink in the armour.

Reading Vincent's testimony, it is clear the fixers tested him out. He was offered praise, sex, gifts and, finally, money. Often a corruptor will invite a player to his hotel room and just say "here's $20,000, take it, go and have a good time, it's because I like you as a player".

One former fixer in India told me he had seen this on countless occasions and never had he seen a player turn it down. They were hooked.

What follows is usually something more subtle, although in Vincent's case he appears to have begun fixing relatively quickly.

The fixers will test a player out with small requests for information with big rewards. Then they will ask for something seemingly irrelevant in a game, to check their mettle.

If those tests have been passed, they will turn up the heat. You owe us now. A batsman will be pressured into batting slowly in a one-day match or a bowler will be asked to go for a certain amount of runs in a certain amount of overs. The spot-fix.

The devil is in the detail with the spot-fix. Vincent claimed he was ordered to crawl along at the crease for three-over segments. He told the henchmen that a fix would be on by changing the colour of his bat handle, stepping away when a bowler was running in or wearing a particular coloured sweat band. Black, fittingly, most of the time.

Crucially, this was to allow time for the fixer to place his bets on the vast and unregulated Indian betting system. It is a myth that you can wager on weird and wonderful outcomes in India. Bets are restricted to four markets only -- the match odds, innings runs, session runs and who will be the favourite at the innings break.

It is the session market -- also known as the bracket -- which Vincent would have been attempting to manipulate. With inside information of what Vincent had agreed to do, the fixers would have been able to make huge sums in exactly the same way that an insider trader would on a stock market.

Bookmakers offer a runs quote for the session market -- say 65-66 in the first 10 overs of a 50-over game. That quote will change after every ball, going up or down relative to how the run rate is progressing. If you know what is going to happen, riches are almost guaranteed. If a bowler has been nobbled by a fixer, the same method is applied.

Such minute manipulation is almost impossible to prove and it is why the smart cricketers who indulge will never stray from such a specialism. How does an anti-corruption unit prove, beyond doubt, that a batsman or bowler has deliberately underperformed for what could amount to only six deliveries?

Rarely is there a money trail. Corrupt players are paid in soft assets. There have been cases of speedboats being the bounty or, as the infamous player X revealed to Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, Dubai property. When such money is brought back into a country following a sale, it is easier for a player to claim it as profit of his wheeling and dealing.

If a player is paid in cash, and Vincent says he was, then the hawala system will be used. The hawala system is glued by trust. Money is transferred via a network of hawala brokers, often family members, or hawaladars. But the money does not, in fact, go anywhere, either physically or electronically, and the system can be defined by the term: money transfer without money movement.

A customer will approach a hawala broker in one city and give a sum of money to be transferred to a recipient in another city. The hawala broker calls another hawala broker in the recipient's city, gives instructions of the funds and promises to settle the debt at a later date. All parties are given a code or password and at the start and end of the process.

It is understood that Vincent was told to give the serial number of a $20 note to his bookmaker, who would then pass this on to the broker. When Vincent met up with him, he would repeat the serial number and also undergo a voice recognition test.

So far, so simple.

The problem comes when players or fixers get greedy. They try to spread their net and catch more players. They want bigger returns so they attempt to rig a whole match.

Undoubtedly, this is what has led to Vincent being charged by the ECB. It is probable that there are many, many cricketers who are not that stupid.

Alas, the apple does not fall that far from the tree.

This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald on May 24

Will the World Cup be fixed?

With just a handful of days before the start of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, claims that fixers targeted Nigeria's warm-up game against Scotland could not have come at a worse time.

Following other recent revelations, football's integrity is already in the spotlight, although the World Cup itself has remained stain-free.

Surely the fixers would shy away from such a high-profile tournament, watched by billions around the planet and with football's governing body on red alert for corruption?

Not so, according to Ralf Mutschke, Fifa's head of security.

The former Interpol executive and police officer says he cannot give the World Cup a clean bill of health and has even identified the matches that carry the greatest risk.

According to Mutschke, the following is all true:

·         Certain teams and groups have already been identified as vulnerable to fixers

·         The last round of group matches, involving teams with nothing to play for, are most in danger

·         Warm-up games are also under threat

·         Fixers have already approached players and referees

·         The fix of choice will focus on the number of goals in a match

For the last two years, Mutschke and his team have been planning meticulously to prevent World Cup games from falling victim to the fixers.

"We are not expecting fixers to be travelling to Brazil and knocking on the hotel door of players or referees, but I know there will have been approaches to players and referees," he says.

"I cannot tell you the teams we are watching most closely. I can't tell you the groups which we are watching most closely. But I will say that England's group is not the highest risk."

As part of Mutschke's anti-fixing campaign, each World Cup game will get a rating for potential corruption, determined by intelligence and past history.

"Everyone has a history," he says. "Teams have history, players have history, refs have history. We know warm-up matches were thrown in the last World Cup, so that is also useful information to help us counter  things."

Match-fixers are most likely to entice players or referees to influence two betting markets: the Asian handicap and the over-under goals market.

More than 99% of wagers in Asia will be placed on these two markets. On the Asian handicap, teams are handicapped according to their form, so a stronger team must win by more goals for a bet to be successful.

Over-under markets are simpler. Gamblers are given the opportunity to bet higher or lower on 2.5 goals, 3.5 goals and so on.

"I would say I am most worried about these two markets," Mutschke said. "The match result is a possibility, but it is much harder to organise because you need so many players. With the Asian handicap or over-under, you may only need the referee or one or two players."

Mutschke and his team intend to speak to every team and match official when they arrive in Brazil for the World Cup, which begins on 12 June.

"We had training sessions with referees in Zurich," he says. "We are also going to meet them prior to kick off in Rio and we also will visit the team and players for security sessions. We will give them a reminder to report an approach from fixers.

"We'll establish reporting channels for athletes and officials. We'll also be bringing an integrity manager who will coordinate those measures with Fifa's Early Warning System (EWS), which monitors betting patterns."

What happens when those reporting channels bear fruit or, during a match, the EWS alerts investigators to corruption?

"We have an officer in the stadium and he will act on my decision," says Mutschke. "It will depend on the information and the response required.

"He can just monitor the situation regarding players, referees, others. He could approach people during half-time or directly after the game. He also can use technical equipment to identify possible fixers in the stadium."

Mutschke says fixers have become bolder in their attempt to rig contests, making up-front offers to players and officials rather than attempting to groom them over time.

"I've had reports that people are approaching players and offering $20,000 without a grooming period," he says. "Before, it was all about grooming, getting closer to the target, but we have a lot of records now about cold approaches. They go to the player or ref and offer money to throw a match. If he does not agree, they go to the next guy. This happens very often. It's pretty bold."

Chris Eaton, Mutschke's predecessor at Fifa, believes the threat level at the World Cup to be "low" but says criminals could be tempted by the huge rewards that are potentially on offer.

"It's low because of the size of the event," says Eaton, now head of the International Centre for Sport and Security (ICCS). "That's a dissuader to fixers. It's easier for them to target minor European leagues or international friendlies.

"Nevertheless, the amount gambled on the World Cup will run into any many billions of dollars and the criminal mindset is one which will not be able to ignore the opportunity."

With the betting market in Asia expected to turn over close to $1bn per match when the action begins, it is not hard to see why.

To put that sum into context, the regulated industry in the United Kingdom expects close to a £1bn bonanza for the whole tournament, making it comfortably the biggest betting event of all time.

Eaton's ICCS recently teamed up with the Sorbonne University in Paris to analyse the anatomy of corruption in sport.

A report released earlier this month estimated that organised crime launders £85bn a year through betting corruption on sport.

It is the sheer weight of money involved that makes it easy for criminals to remain untraceable, according to Dr Andrew Harvey.

For the last two years, he has been working with FifPro, the world player's union, to prevent corruption. "The high liquidity of the market would make it attractive to fixing as it enables large bets to be hidden more effectively," says Harvey. "That will be attractive to a potential fixer.

"Yes, all matches will be covered by the Fifa EWS betting monitoring system, making it harder to get bets on, but it won't be impossible as the systems cannot monitor betting volumes on the unregulated markets."

Mutschke, Eaton and Harvey may all differ on the threat level to the World Cup, but they agree on one aspect: the tournament may be the pinnacle of a player or referee's career, but it does not mean it will not be fixed.

This article was first published by the BBC on May 29 

Ravi Bopara faced match-fixing inquiry into Bangladesh Premier League

Ravi Bopara, the England and Essex batsman, was investigated by the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) after an inquiry into this year’s Bangladesh Premier League and was almost suspended for an alleged failure to supply various documents 12 months before last summer’s Champions Trophy.

Bopara, who has played 94 one-day internationals and 13 Tests, was cleared of any wrongdoing. He had been asked to supply bank and phone statements, and was interviewed for two hours.

Another English player was understood to have been under suspicion during the investigation, which culminated in nine players being charged, including Darren Stevens, the Kent all-rounder. Stevens has been accused of failing to report an illegal approach. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Although Bopara is innocent, the incident will cause alarm in England as it is proof that corruption ­allegations are not an issue restricted to the sub-continent. Last year, Mervyn Westfield, the Essex bowler, was jailed for spot-fixing in a domestic one-day match.

The ECB may be concerned that a player with such a profile as Bopara has come under the microscope and could stiffen its resolve not to allow players to appear in franchise Twenty20 competitions, wary that they could be vulnerable to match-fixing rings.

Bopara, who is playing for six weeks for Prime Bank in the Dhaka Premier Division, a 50-over league, was a member of the Chittagong Kings franchise in the BPL, which ran for a month from January 18. The 28-year-old was asked by the ACSU on February 15 to hand over his bank statements for the previous 12 months, three years of phone records and his mobile phones, including Sim cards.

He was unable to comply until before the start of the Champions Trophy in June because he was abroad, first in Bangladesh, then in South Africa, where he appeared for the Dolphins in their Twenty20 competition. He was within seven days of being suspended by the ICC  because all players sign a code of conduct that allows access to such information.

On its database, the ACSU holds the telephone numbers of match-fixers and would have cross-referenced these with any calls Bopara made or received. Bank statements would have been scrutinised for suspicious payments. Andy Flower, the England team director, was aware of the inquiry.

Bopara was cleared to play in the Champions Trophy once his lawyer, Yasin Patel, liaised with the ACSU. “The delay was caused because he couldn’t access hard copies of the information as he was travelling the world doing his job,” Patel said. 

“Then, when he was back in England ..... he endured a two-hour interview with ACSU  and ECB representatives which finished at around two in the morning.

“He had no legal representation and it was more like an interrogation. There are no safeguards or protections for the players whatsoever. They are conducting police-like interviews, and that is neither moral nor correct.”

ECB officials helped to “facilitate” the meeting, but have not been contacted about it since by the ACSU. It is understood that David Collier, the ECB chief executive, telephoned Bopara to “remind him of his responsibilities”.

Patel believes that the ACSU’s approach will hamper attempts to clean up the game. “The ACSU rely on players coming forward to share information about match-fixing. Which player will want to do that [now]?” he said.

This article was first published in The Ties on October 26 2013 

Srini's son-in-law passed on betting information about other teams and players

THE IPL betting conspiracy involving Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of BCCI chief N Srinivasan, has spread to the whole tournament with a Mumbai Crime Branch Report stating that the Chennai Super Kings manager was passing on information to bookmakers about other teams and some of the world’s superstar players.

In an escalation of the crisis, there is evidence that Meiyappan discussed match results, innings totals for games not involving the Super Kings and the form of superstar players such as Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, Dale Steyn and Siddharth Trivedi, who was carpeted for fixing.

The report also reveals that Meiyappan bet 1.4 crores on the Super Kings to lose against Rajasthan Royals on May 12 2013, a match which was called into question by the Mudgal Report into IPL corruption.

Meiyappan was found by the court-appointed committee to have indulged in betting and passing on information, as alleged, and has been proved to be the team official of Chennai Super Kings. The committee, led by Justice Mukul Mudgal, submitted its final report to the Supreme Court with the proviso that it was for the court to decide on any action to be taken.

But the Mumbai’s police report to Justice Mukul Mudgal shows that Meiyappan’s gambling activity extends beyond Chennai.

After lawfully recording conversations between Meiyappan and Vindoo Dara Singh, who was part of an India-wide network of bookies which also extended to the UAE and Pakistan, Mumbai police concluded that Meiyappan was in breach of the IPL Code of Conduct and Section 130 of the Mahrashtra Police Act ‘Cheating at Games’.

But it is the amount of inside information that Meiyappan was privy to that will cause concern for cricket fans. Between April 30 and May 16 there were 240 calls between him and Vindoo. Between May 12-15 according to the report “almost all intercepted calls...related to betting on matches.”

On May 12 Meiyappan told Vindoo Bangalore would score 190 against Kolkata and “then there bowling will come...Kolkata come to 150.” Bangalore actually made  115-9 and lost by five wickets.

Three days later, Vindoo spoke with another bookmaker, Pawan Jaipur, and told him that Meiyappan had said that Kolkata would beat Pune Warriors on that day. Meiyappan was wrong as KKR lost by seven runs.

Another conversation on May 14 showed Meiyappan telling Vindoo that there “were no other changes in the team”. 

Meiyappan also gave information to Vindoo during matches from May 12-14. Gayle would “get runs” for Bangalore against KKR on the 12^th and during the same match he described Trivedi as a “chucker” and “tough to play”. The next day he said that Steyn was “crucial” if Sunrisers Hyderabad were to beat Mumbai Indians.

Damningly, Meiyappan revealed the strategy of his own Super Kings players to the bookie. During play in the match against Rajasthan, Meiyappan said that Ravindra Jadeja would not lose his wicket. He remained not out.

And two days later for the contest against Delhi Daredevils, Meiyappan complained that Sehwag would “bat like an animal” and said that if his team’s bowler, Mohit Sharma, “has one bad day...DD will get runs.” Earlier, he had spoken to Vindoo and had passed on team news. “No other change...I am giving you weak link in bowling.”

He was also exposed for the huge sums that he bet on Super Kings to lose in the tainted Rajasthan game and discussing with Vindoo during play the best strategy for making the most money.

Before the match, the report confirms that Meiyappan told Vindoo the Super Kings would score 130-140 (they made 141) and that he had placed 20 lakh on Rajasthan to win.

He then places another bet, of 30 lakh, on Rajasthan at 21.09hrs. There are two further 30 lakh bets on Rajasthan recorded at 21.16hrs and 21.20.

In a further breach of the anti-corruption code, Meiyappan tells Vindoo of the state of the wicket in Ranchi and weather reports for Chennai. There are also calls in which Vindoo asks for more information about Super Kings strategy.

In another worrying link, the report states that Vindoo and Asad Rauf, the Pakistan international umpire spoke 80 times on a cell phone. Rauf was described as “most wanted” after he was recorded placing bets on IPL matches and passing on inside information.

Rauf, who was shown to also be in contact with Pawan Jaipur and had received gifts from him, invoiced the BCCI $58,208 for officiating in 16 matches during IPL, three of which involved Super Kings.

A version of this article was published in the Economic Times on March 7