A 44-page report by football's world governing body investigating match-fixing in South Africa found that the South African Football Association worked with a notorious match-fixing syndicate, Football 4U, according to the New York Times.

The report states the firm supplied match officials for at least five friendly matches prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa - and attempted to do so for other games - with a series of questionable decisions made throughout the ties.

In one such case, a match between South Africa and Guatemala, it is claimed match referee Ibrahim Chaibou was seen depositing a "quite thick" wad of $100 (£59.65/€73.35) bills, amounting to an estimated $100,000 (£59,652/€73,351), into a bank account in South Africa before officiating the match at the Peter Mokaba Stadium.

It is said that another Niger official was set to referee the match, however, after depositing the money and arriving at the Stadium, Chaibou was the man to walk out with the teams and officiate proceedings.

As the match progressed the report says that FIFA's Early Warning System, which monitors gambling on sanctioned matches, began to detect odd movements in betting as gamblers kept increasing their expectations of how many goals would be scored, a possible sign of insider betting.

The match between South Africa and Guatemala saw a number of questionable decisions, leading FIFA to report that the game was "manipulated for betting purposes" 
©AFP/Getty Images



Throughout the match, Chaibou made a number of questionable decisions which raised alarm bells further.

As early as the 12th minute, a penalty was awarded for handball despite the player being clearly outside the area.

In the 50th minute, Guatemala was awarded a penalty kick for a hand ball, even though a South African defender stopped a shot in front of the goal with his chest, not his arm.

Another questionable penalty was then awarded to South Africa in the 56th minute with the team adding their fourth goal.

The match ended 5-0 to South Africa.

The New York Times investigation into the incident found that the FIFA report stated plainly that "we can conclude that this match was indeed manipulated for betting fraud purposes".

Despite this, FIFA has not outwardly accused anyone of match-fixing in South Africa.

However, the findings of the investigation "inevitably leads to the conclusion" that at least some federation employees "were complicit in a criminal conspiracy to manipulate these matches," the report said.

What's more, the New York Times - which has so far published just the first part of the report - found that no one has been barred from the sport or accused of match-rigging, despite these allegations and many others highlighted by FIFA.



The report also indicated that the United States men's national team was very nearly affected by questionable refereeing in one of its warm-up matches.

The United States played Australia in South Africa, and the Singapore syndicate connected with match-fixing attempted to provide three referees to staff the game, but, instead, South African referees were chosen instead.

A similar incident occurred during a match between South Africa and Denmark in which Steve Goddard, an Englishman who served as acting head of refereeing for the South African Football Association at the time, said he turned down a bribe offer from Football 4U International.

Following the attempted bribe, Goddard pulled Chaibou from the friendly at the last minute after the scheduled referee took ill, using a home-nation referee in a 1-0 South Africa win.

Goddard told the New York Times that as he left the stadium after the match, his mobile phone rang and his life was threatened by the Singapore match-fix group's ringleader, identified as Wilson Raj Perumal.

Neither police nor FIFA received a report of such a threat, but Goddard said he allowed the Singapore group to select the referee for a friendly the next day between North Korea and Nigeria.

Nigeria won the match 3-1 after what the FIFA report called a ''very harsh'' red card and ''very liberal'' penalty kick award from the referee.

The investigation from the New York Times comes just 12 days before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, with the newspaper indicating that this might lead to "problems that could now shadow this month's World Cup".

It added that many countries competing in Brazil are vulnerable to bribes and fixing because they "are financially shaky, in administrative disarray and politically divided".

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