SEA games football match-fixer gets four-year jail time

Singapore’s most prolific match-fixer in terms of convictions was sentenced to four years in jail Monday for conspiring to fix a match in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

Rajendran Kurusamy has pleaded guilty to charges of bribing East Timor’s under-23 football team manager and players to lose a preliminary match against Malaysia on May 30 in Singapore.

Kurusamy have met with Orlando Marques Henriques Mendes, team manager and technical director of the Football Federation of Timor Leste, in Singapore on May 28, with the help of an Indonesian referee Nasiruddin and former player Moises Natalino De Jesus.

Mendes was offered 15,000 Singapore dollars ($10,700)  to hold a goalless score-line for 20 minutes in a first-round match against Malaysia, before losing by a few goals. Mendes allegedly accepted the bribe and at least seven players were offered $4,000 ($2,844) each.