Financial gaps in football fuelling match-fix scourge

Brett Forrest can recall the spark that led to his book on match-fixing in soccer: the curiosity of his editor at ESPN the magazine.

“He said, ‘I keep seeing these crazy scorelines coming from soccer games, what’s going on? I’ve been reading about match-fixing, will you make a few calls and see what’s going on?’”

Forrest spoke to Chris Eaton, then head of security at Fifa, who opened his eyes to the realisation that these fixers had “penetrated the game at almost every level, in almost every country, that they were highly active and that this was growing — it made me realise there was a real story here.”