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Since the Europol announcement on their crackdown of an international match-fixing ring some two months ago, there has been a lot written about a Singaporean by the name of Dan Tan Seet Eng, the man supposedly behind a network of global football match-fixers.
Dan Tan’s alleged involvement in this and the uncovering of his identify is complicated and perhaps best explained by BBC in their investigative article here.
Various sources have confirmed that Dan Tan is still in Singapore, though the local press remain relatively silent over his whereabouts. Only “official” statements have been released thus far, including the fact that he is “assisting the police with investigations”.
Over the Good Friday long weekend, a scathing article on Singapore football and fans was published by respected British newspaper the Independent.
The lengthy article (of about 2,000 words) did not reveal much additional information, but it contained some comments from two very renowned media personalities.
‘Until you clean up your act, you’re out’ – Declan Hill
One of them was investigative writer Declan Hill. Hill has spent numerous years researching and writing about match-fixing globally and is perhaps best known for his book, The Fix. It contains much information on how match-fixing operates globally and also has interviews with numerous people, including some names very familiar to Singaporeans.
Hill asserted that FIFA and Interpol should apply pressure on Singapore to hand Dan Tan over to Europol without question. He went on to suggest that our national team should be banned from international tournaments until we “clean up our act”. He alluded to how English clubs were banned for five years in European club competitions after the Heysel football disaster in 1985 as a good example of what Singapore should follow.
As a de facto spokesperson against global match-fixing, Hill has every right to call for tough, if not extreme measures to force Singapore into handing over Dan Tan to the Europol. However, he has clearly missed the point about what is just and fair.
The English (self-imposed) ban on European competitions was a direct reaction to something caused by their fans in the first place (hooliganism). There were also considerations of fan safety after the loss of 39 lives inside Heysel Stadium on that fateful day in 1985.
Surely, it cannot be justified to punish our footballers and fans for the alleged actions of a countryman who has no documented connections to the local football set-up. This would be akin to being directly punished for the crimes of a relative or family member.
In the same article, it was highlighted that our S-League had been “struck by several bribery scandals”. It also mentioned statistically the number of local match-fixing cases and the number of people convicted.
What the article failed to mention was that arguably, more action has been taken by local authorities than any of our counterparts regionally. The fact that we have unravelled more match-fixing cases should mean that we have more efficient surveillance and a stronger anti-corruption culture, rather than the fact that our local league is more tainted than others.
Match fixers and sports bettors have placed bets at IBC bet in Singapore
Yazid Yasin’s involvement in assisting the authorities to stop an attempted fix last year was also briefly highlighted but the article did not give him the credit he was due. People tend to ignore the fact that whilst 680 matches were reportedly investigated for match-fixing across Europe, not a single prominent footballer there had come forward voluntarily to prevent a fix (at least there were no prominent reports of such).
What Yazid has done in Singapore should in fact be publicised and all European footballers should be encouraged to follow his lead and go to the authorities when approached by fixers.
‘In Singapore they don’t have a sports culture, they have a sports-betting culture.’ – Neil Humphreys
What was more disappointing to read was Neil Humphreys’ comments on our culture.
Humphreys is of course a well-respected and renowned media personality on our shores. Amongst other stuff (several books and a TV show), he makes a living out of talking and writing about the Premier League in the local media.
To hear that he actually thinks that there is no “sports culture” in Singapore is indeed very disparaging, especially when I personally look up to him and am a fan of many of his works.
It is apt for Humphreys to make comments on Singapore – after all, he has been living in Singapore for more than a decade now. In the spirit of free speech, it is also fair for Humphreys to express his personal opinion on issues, but it is upsetting when such generalisations are made about our culture.
There is no denying that there is a certain element of a betting culture that exists in Singapore. This is however not a “Uniquely Singapore” phenomenon. Such a culture exists in many other Asian countries as well. Let’s not forget that Macau rakes in the largest casino revenues annually, not Singapore.
Moreover, to say that we have NO sporting culture somewhat undermines the work of all the local professional athletes and the efforts of thousands of fans who turn up to cheer their teams week-in-week-out without making bets of any sorts.
Neil – all generalisations are dangerous, including this one. Even if ALL the global match-fixers are Singaporeans (which is impossible), that does not make ALL Singaporeans corrupt footballers and gambling addicts without love of the game.
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