Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer

by Wilson Raj Perumal

  "Dan relax, OK?" I tried to placate his anger. "The 300 thousand are not going to go missing, they will be paid back. Now let's finish this Tampere deal".

  I apologized and hung up, then I went to the lobby and called Zeekay and his agent to meet with Tampere's CEO, Deniz, who was waiting for us in the meeting room. I made the introductions, then we all sat down and began discussing our deal.

  "What's going on?" Zeekay asked Deniz. "Are we allowed to put our players in your team or not?"

  "Yes", said Deniz. "You are allowed to put them in the team but we make the final decision on whether or not they will be fielded during the matches".

  "OK", inquired Zeekay, "what if my players are better than your players? Are they still going to be on the bench? Then it defeats the purpose".

  "The coach will make the final decision", Deniz argued.

  Deniz was a tough nut to crack. The Finnish wanted the money but would not budge one bit. They probably regarded themselves as being some top-class club or something. We were offering a drowning man a chance to keep his head out of the water and here he was dictating how we were supposed to go about doing it. Zeekay asked for a short break, during which he called Dan.

  "Dan", he said, "this is not going to work, these guys are too stiff. There is no way that we will be able to do business with these fuckers".

  "If that is the case", said Dan, "we will pull out from the deal. Ask them to return our money".

  "OK", Zeekay raised his shoulders. "Your call".

  Tampere had already signed Gabor and one more boy that we had sent from Hungary, so Dan and Zeekay thought to leave them in the club just in case.

  "Let's leave the two boys", Zeekay suggested, "and we will just agree to take care of their salary and accommodation".

  Then he turned to me.

  "Listen", said Zeekay, "I am not your enemy. I am here to ask about the money and I have to report back to Dan, you understand?"

  "I understand", I told him. "You go ahead and do what you have to do. I already spoke to Dan anyways".

  When we returned to our meeting, Zeekay asked Deniz the burning question.

  "How much money have you received?"

  "We received 300 thousand euro", said the fucker.

  Had Deniz listened to my advice, Tampere would have obtained another 600 thousand euro from Dan. Instead, he had decided to play hard before receiving the rest of the money, not after; he was a moron. When Tampere was banned from participating in the 2011 Finnish football season, I couldn't have been happier. All of Tampere's board members were convicted for money laundering, all because of one wrong man: Deniz. And he deserved every last bit of what he went through. I do not hold the rest of the club's committee members responsible, Deniz was single-handedly responsible for the club's demise. He was no different from a regular crook. The Finnish FA had warned Tampere United about receiving funds from Exclusive Sports but, in spite of the warning, he went ahead with the deal and plotted to channel the money through an investment company to cleanse it before pocketing it.

  After the Tampere deal had foundered, I felt downhearted; I was totally down and out and didn't feel like myself anymore. For the following four hours I just pondered on whether I should go to Rovaniemi for RoPS' next match or not. RoPS was set to play a League Cup game against the very same team I had tried to take over, Tampere United, but I was crestfallen and had no idea of what to do next. Plus, I was without cash and didn't have the kind of relationship with Zeekay whereas I could ask him to lend me some. My runner George was supposed to land in Helsinki in a couple of days with 20 thousand euro for me and I was left with only 150 euro in my pockets.

  "Shall I go or not?" I was in two-minds. "Fuck it, let's go".

  The decision was about to change the course of my life again.

  Zeekay, his agent, Lecso and I landed in Rovaniemi in the late evening and checked into a local hotel. Once we were settled, we decided to speak to the RoPS players over Skype; they all gathered in front of their computer while I sat with Zeekay in front of his.

  "Musonda and the rest of you", I said, "listen to me. Can you concede four goals?"

  "No", said Musonda. "We can win this match".

  "Look", I felt tired, "we have strikers and midfielders, but only one defender, Kunda, and no goalkeeper".

  Kunda was another one of the Zambian players. He was the only defender we had on board for that game but was not giving me the commitment that I expected from someone who was being paid ten thousand euro per match.

  "Let's reverse this whole thing", I said. "You guys just focus on defending. If you lose the ball, drag the defensive line back: slide, tackle, throw your body and fight when the ball is in your half of the pitch. Your coach is going to love your performance. When attacking, don't score. Play a lot of square passes down the flanks and send the crosses in the six-yard box where they will be easy prey of the keeper. When you move forward and the marker comes at you, instead of trying to clear him, go wide. The wider you go, the narrower the angle for a pass will be. Once you're on the sideline, just try to put a square ball in the middle; your attack will be gone. Simple. One movement is enough to completely kill an attack, you understand? If you have your forward running through, you just shift the ball with your right leg, switch the play quickly on the other side of the pitch and 'Oh, fuck, sorry mate', you apologize to your teammate and it's over. Slow the game down. You're not going to score and the other team is surely not going to put four goals past you. Listen, it's all in your minds; if you believe that you can do it, then it will happen".

  I wanted to go for Under because everybody else was hitting on Over. By then the entire market in Singapore knew that RoPS was compromised; they were like a team of Geylang prostitutes, everyone knew that they were on the take. We could see from the odds that all the punters back home were expecting four goals or more from the coming match, people were buying Over 3.5, win-4, win-6.

  "No, it's not possible", argued a worried Musonda. "The pitch is too small, the match will end 5-2 or something".

  "Listen to me", I sighed. "Don't score. Pack your defense and play the first half 0-0. Go for one goal in the last ten minutes of the game. We have one defender in Tampere who will work for that one goal. It's as good as money in your pockets".

  In Finnish football nobody was going to beat you by four goals if you locked the defense. Three of the defenders were not compromised, they were clean, which meant that if the six offensive players contributed to protecting and giving cover to the back line, we could have locked the match for 45 minutes quite easily. But Musonda was unconvinced.

  "It's such a small pitch", he insisted. "It's very hard to lock the game".

  "OK, then", I was exhausted, "let's revert to the first plan: I want a total of four goals scored. I have seven players on the field, who can take a double yellow?"

  I have spoken to players hundreds of times and I still can't understand why they think that being sent off is like taking a bullet in the head.

  "Any volunteer to take a double yellow?" I asked a second time.

  The players remained silent and I finally realized that these guys were useless; they could not be used for match-fixing anymore.

  "All right", I turned to Zeekay, "just cancel the match and call off the betting. I don't feel comfortable. I just want to go to sleep. I'll take the six o'clock flight to Helsinki tomorrow morning and then head off to London. I don't even want to watch this fucking match".

  I got up and walked to my room. I was pissed off and just wanted to lay down for a nap. About half an hour later, Zeekay came knocking at my door.

  "Hey Wilson", he said, "Musonda called me. They say that they can go for total goals, four goals".

  "Who's going to take the double yellow?" I asked.

  "Nobody", he answered.

  "When you take a double yellow, the other team will have the lion's share of ball possession", I explained to Zeekay. "Tampere is favorite: 1-1.5, they are already expected to win by t
wo goals. The RoPS boys just need to concede one or two additional goals, finished".

  "Musonda said that they can concede four goals", replied Zeekay.

  "If you want to believe them, go ahead", I cut him short. "What if they cannot concede four? Are they going to score? There can be no assurance that there will be four goals".

  "But we have one player in Tampere as well", Zeekay's Hungarian defender Gabor was starting for Tampere in that same match, "maybe he can do something".

  "They don't want to listen to my instructions", I objected, "and they don't want to take a double yellow. You do what you think is best".

  I had completely lost faith in the RoPS players. Out of the seven of them, not one had volunteered to take a double yellow; I just did not trust them any longer and sensed that their game would be a fuck up. I left everything to Dan and Zeekay; let the masters decide.

  On the following day, before the match started, Zeekay told me that he would wear a baseball cap and use it to communicate with the boys on the pitch. The players were supposed to look at Zeekay for the first 20 minutes of game-play: if he took his cap off during that time, it would mean that business was on, otherwise, they could play at will. Take off the cap, put on the cap: I found it a very fucking complicated thing to do, so I didn't get involved.

  "You go ahead and wear the cap if you like", I said to Zeekay.

  If I'm a footballer and I'm engrossed with the match that I'm playing, I can't be bothered to check every five minutes whether someone on the stands is still wearing a cap or not. There are easier ways to communicate. The RoPS stadium is very small; one could kick a second ball into the field or something like that.

  Finally the match kicked off. RoPS vs Tampere United, League Cup. Gabor, the Hungarian defender playing for Tampere, kept looking at the stands to see if Zeekay was still wearing the cap. While he played, he would turn and look; he did it maybe 20 times in the first ten minutes of the game.

  "What the fuck is this guy doing", I asked Zeekay.

  The ball would whiz past Gabor's feet while he stared at Zeekay waiting for instructions.

  The rest of the RoPS guys were just trying their luck. I knew from the start that there wouldn't be four goals so I had placed my own money on Under 3.5; thirty thousand dollars granted on credit by my agent back in Singapore. Gabor actually scored a goal, putting Tampere ahead, then Mweetwa scored the equalizer from the penalty spot. First half, 0-0; final result, 1-1. If the RoPS players had listened to me, they would have made money. I decided that I would not do business with these stubborn mother-fuckers ever again.

  That night, as I scrolled through my e-mails, I saw a message from Benny, the Macao bookie to whom I still owed 300 thousand dollars. When I had left Singapore, I still owed him 600 thousand dollars; then, after the 2010 World Cup, I had paid him another 300 thousand.

  "Wilson", Benny wrote, "I need you to settle your debt now. I need the 300 thousand dollars or else I will expose you".

  "I'll give you the 300 thousand left, you just hang on", I replied. "Just bear with me a little longer".

  "No", he wrote back, "people are chasing me for this money".

  "If you think that you can intimidate me, you are dead wrong", I was growing irritated. "I already paid you 800 thousand dollars, you think I'm not going to pay 300 thousand? Just give me a couple of months and I'll clear you".

  "I know what name and what passport you are using", he wrote. "Raja Morgan Chelliah".

  As I read his last message it dawned on me: the Viking ferry to Mariehamn; that's how Benny knew. When I visited the Kenyan goalkeeper Willis I left my bag and passport with Dan's Chinese runner Chee Wee. He must have gone through my belongings and relayed the information from my passport to his buddy Bee Hoon, who then probably passed it on to Benny; the three were close. I don't like to be intimidated; when I feel threatened, my blood rushes to my head.

  "Fuck you!" I typed. "You can do whatever you want to do, I am not paying you a penny".

  I closed my laptop and went to sleep.

  We were all staying in the same hotel. I had one room, Lecso and Zeekay were in another room and the football agent was in a third. On the morning of February 24th, 2011, we checked out; Zeekay paid for our bill and we all left for the airport. We took the first flight out of Rovaniemi to Helsinki at six thirty in the morning. I was supposed to meet my runner George in Helsinki to pick up my cash before heading back to London. Zeekay and the others were traveling elsewhere. They didn't tell where they were headed next: after fucking Dan over with the Tampere deal, I was excluded from the syndicate and from their plans forthwith.

  We landed in Helsinki's Vantaa airport after about an hour of flight; it was seven thirty in the morning. Zeekay and I were the last passengers off the plane. We were chatting as we came out of the passenger walkaway and noticed a police officer waiting down the corridor. It was a woman; she was checking the passports of the passengers walking in front of us. Zeekay was right in front of me; she checked his passport, handed it back to him and let him walk off. Then she stopped me and asked for mine; I handed her my Raja Morgan Chelliah passport.

  "This is a domestic flight", I wondered, "why are they checking passports?"

  I was the only person that they had stopped; I felt that something was not right but was confident because mine was an original passport issued by the Immigration Department of Singapore. I had been stopped once by the police after landing in Amsterdam.

  "Excuse me Sire", the Dutch policeman had said, "just give us a minute".

  They had taken my passport and verified its authenticity, then they had returned it to me.

  This time around, strangely enough, I didn't feel too distressed. Even though the real Raja Morgan Chelliah was born in 1987 and was almost 20 years younger than myself, nobody had ever bothered to inquire about my age; people always tell me that I could be 30-something.

  After a short while, the officer spoke.

  "Follow me", she said politely, holding my passport in her hand.

  I was taken to the airport's police holding bay, then a police officer walked in and spoke.

  "We believe that you have used a forged document to get into Finland", he said, "and that you have entered the country illegally by providing false information about your identity".

  The police escorted me to another office where my fingerprints were scanned and sent to authorities in Singapore, then I was returned to the holding bay. Somehow the Finnish police knew about my passport and that my real name was not Raja Morgan Chelliah.

  About half an hour later another policeman walked in; he was holding a picture of me in his hand; a big, A4-sized picture. I couldn't recognize the T-shirt that I wore in the photo.

  "Where the fuck did I get that T-shirt from?" it looked like an old picture.

  The officer examined the photo carefully, then began scrutinizing me.

  "This is not the guy".

  Old photo.

  Someone had been saving this old photo of me for this... But who?

  He checked for a cut on my forehead; I have a little scar just below my hairline, but the officer couldn't spot it.

  "No, no, no", he shook his head, "this is not the guy".

  But the police in Rovaniemi insisted that they hold on to me, so there I was, sitting in the Vantaa Helsinki airport's holding bay.

  On the previous day, the police had ambushed the wrong Indian guy in a Rovaniemi hotel.

  "Hey, are you Wilson Raj Perumal?"

  "I'm Perumal", the man had raised his hands over his head, "but I'm not Wilson Raj".

  Someone had given the Finnish authorities all of my true details: Singaporean, Indian origin, my real name, my picture. The police had called all the hotels in town.

  "When he checks in", they demanded, "please contact us immediately".

  By then I was pretty sure that it hadn't been a random check. I played the scene of my arrest back in my head: Zeekay was walking right in front of me and, when they stopped me, he j
ust kept on walking as if nothing had happened; he didn't even turn around to look. Maybe he knew that it was going to happen. Dan could have told him, but why would Dan want to do something like that to me? Also, I didn't think that Dan would have risked getting me arrested with Zeekay by my side; a ricochet and he could have been busted too. We were in Rovaniemi to fix matches, not on a holiday.

  I stayed in the police holding bay until six thirty in the evening, when they put me on a flight back to Rovaniemi. During the trip, I spoke to the flight marshal that was escorting me.

  "Do you guys have the death penalty here?" I asked.

  "No", he replied, "we're a civilized country".

  "In Singapore", I pointed out, "we hang people like we hang balloons".

  Twelve hours later I was back to square one in Rovaniemi. It was so damn cold; minus 35 degrees Celsius. They put me in a car and I shivered uncontrollably during the entire trip to the local police station where I was locked up in a cell; just myself and four walls. I paced up and down from one wall to the other thinking about who could have tipped the Finnish police off. I remembered the telephone call that I had received from my travel agent in Singapore a couple of months earlier.

  "We are calling from the Hong Kong airport and we would like to know what passport Wilson Raj Perumal is using".

  "Wilson, be careful", my travel agent had said. "Somebody is out to get you".

  Yes, but who? My head was spinning as I tried to figure out who the mother-fucking snitch was.

  "It must be Benny", I resolved. "It must be fucking Benny and nobody else".

  "I know what name and what passport you are using", he had written the night before.

  "It must be this mother-fucker".

  But how could he have pulled this off so quickly? And why would he want to do this? If I am arrested, he's not going to get his money back. It's match-fixing we're talking about; you'll be out there making money; just a few matches, and then you pay; settling outstanding debts was never a problem. I paid him 800 thousand already, it didn't make any sense for him to fix me up.