Sam Sodje Prompts Investigation After Claiming He Influenced Games for Cash
In a shocking new video from The Sun, former Premier League player Sam Sodje revealed he would take cash in exchange for receiving bookings during matches.
You can see his revelations below.
The other player that appears in the video is Oldham Athletic's Cristian Montano, who recounts a story about doing everything he could to earn a yellow card in a match, to no avail.
According to The Telegraph, Sodje is now being investigated by the National Crime Agency. Via that report, Sodje—who played for Reading in the Premier League—also recounted the story of how he was reduced in one match to striking Oldham's Jose Baxter in the groin twice after failing previously to earn a card:
"OK listen. This is when I was playing. Do you know how much I got for that? £70k. Do you know how much I got fined? I got fined ten grand and I missed six games.
"
"I had to do it because the referee wasn't booking me. Come on, who does that? Why would you do it on the pitch? I was tackling, tackling, it wasn't working and I went f*** that, I'm off.
"
Match-fixing scandals are certainly nothing new to world football, although it appears these alleged crimes are starting to gain a foothold in English football. Six men—including three former players—were arrested in late November for fixing matches in the Football Conference following a report by Holly Watt, Claire Newell and Ben Bryant of The Telegraph.
That report also notes that 14 people in Singapore were arrested for their part in a global match-fixing network.
While that is far removed from the Premier League—the Football Conference is England's fifth-tier league—Sodje's latest revelations show just how close these types of issues are coming to England's top division. He even revealed he could fix top-flight games but noted that it would take quite a bit of money to do so.
The ways in which matches are fixed or altered come in a variety of styles. Sometimes, it is as simple as a player getting booked. Other times, players will attempt to influence the overall amount of goals that are scored in a given match.
