Summary: Much has been said about match-fixing and spot-fixing in recent years and it remains the most significant threat to worldwide sporting integrity, but revelations that emerged from calcioscommesse and Operation VETO have only begun to untangle what is widely believed to be the biggest scandal yet, emerging from the shadowy world of the Far East and Singapore in particular. However, two Italian investigative journalists, Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano, who produced The Fix for the Al Jazeera People and Power series, have now emerged to give us a rich and detailed account of one of the major figures in this global scandal, Wilson Raj Perumal, who remains detained in Hungarian witness protection as he awaits a trial against his former associates. Not only does Perumal have much to say, he also has a number of astonishing revelations about some well-suspected events ranging back to 1994 along with some new details on match-fixing operations that reach to every part of the world and into some competitions and events that were once not considered. Some of these incidents include the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the infamous three floodlight matches in England, fixing World Cup qualifiers and friendlies and even the CONCACAF Champions League with precise recollection to weave the remarkable story of how one man of modest means surfaced to control so many football matches, delivering him to the plateau of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Righi and Piano have spent several months questioning Perumal and validating his claims, constructing a fascinating and gripping story titled, Kelong Kings, tracking the notorious match-fixer from his youth to his crushing fall in Finland in 2011. For the very first time we get an inside look at how the members of the Singapore syndicate found their way into the business of manipulating matches, what drives their relentless drive to conquer even the smallest and most unsuspecting players and leagues, and how one of the most notorious figures in this illegal business built up a cache of influence and power leading him to the loftiest heights in world football. The questions that Wilson Raj Perumal inspires are endless, and the billions generated by criminal gangs worldwide only serves to confirm that integrity and football have reached a crisis state, with Asian syndicates having divided up the sport with almost surgical precision armed with a betting syndicate willing to take action on most any match no matter the size and master agents can move millions of traditional currency while never being detected.
