Reuters
The 2006 World Cup second-round match between Brazil and Ghana was influenced by an Asian betting syndicate, according to an article that will appear in Mondayâs editions of Der Spiegel, a German magazine.
The magazine reports that large sums of money had been bet on Brazil winning by at least two goals and a former Ghana international acted as an intermediary. Ghana lost the match, 3-0, in Dortmund, Germany. The victory put Brazil into the quarterfinals, where it lost to France. France lost to Italy in the final in a penalty-kick shootout.
The information in Der Spiegel comes from the Canadian investigative journalist Declan Hill, whose book about betting on sports around the world is to be published in German next week.
Hill also asserts that two German Bundesliga matches in the 2004-5 season were also the subject of a betting scheme organized by the Malaysian William Bee Wah Lim, who was sentenced to two years and five months by a Frankfurt court.
German soccer endured the most serious crisis in its history in 2004 when a referee, Robert Hoyzer, admitted to having received more than $100,000 to influence the results of 23 matches, mainly second- and third-division games, in 2004.
