By Andrew Warshaw
July 3 – FIFA has asked the German news magazine Der Spiegel to come up with the evidence of its conversation with convicted match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal amid the ongoing confusion over whether Cameroon’s players deliberately rigged their games at the World Cup.
FIFA director of security, Ralf Mutschke, said in a statement that the allegations “put the integrity of FIFA World Cup matches in question, which is a serious allegation”.
Der Spiegel had reported that Perumal correctly predicted before kickoff that Cameroon would lose 4-0 to Croatia and have a player sent off in the first half – exactly what happened.
Perumal denies this, saying he made his comments three days after the match in a Facebook conversation with the Der Spiegel journalist. “I am shocked and amazed that a respected magazine such as Der Spiegel would go so far as to fabricate statements by yours truly with the visible aim of stirring the row over match-fixing,” he said, adding the publication “placed words in my mouth that I did not utter.”
Mutschke says FIFA has monitored all 56 World Cup games so far and has “no indication of any match manipulation on the betting market”. He wants to see what proof Der Spiegel has.
“FIFA has substantial doubts about the allegations published by Der Spiegel,” he said in a statement. “As such FIFA has asked Der Spiegel to provide us with all the communications with Perumal and any other material they claim to possess in order to prove the allegations they have made in public.
“We have carefully monitored all 56 games to date and we will continue to monitor the remaining eight matches. So far we have found no indication of any manipulation on the betting market of any World Cup matches.”
It is presumed that FIFA is, or has already, questioned Perumal on his version of events. Perumal is probably the world’s most notorious match-fixer, who has already been in jail and was recently detained again on an international arrest warrant. The Cameroon FA, for their part, is already investigating claims of match-fixing by their players as part of an overall probe into why they fared so badly at the tournament, losing all three group games.
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