Proceedings Of The Facey/Swaibu Matchfixing Trial

Former West Bromwich Albion player and football agent Delroy Facey is on trial with fellow footballer Moses Swaibu over an alleged matchfixing conspiracy.
Facey, 34, of Woodhouse Hill, Huddersfield, and former Conference South player Swaibu, 25, of Tooley Street, London, deny the allegations dating from November 2013.
Their trial at Birmingham Crown Court is expected to last two weeks.

At the time of their arrest, Sir Bob Russell MP stated: "English football is rotten to the core."
And so it is.

After first day of trial, not one mainstream media newspaper is yet covering the affair.
Omertà is a conspiracy of silence.

We will provide updates from Matt Lloyd of the Birmingham Mail throughout the case:-

Day One

It is alleged they conspired to bribe other players to perform improperly.
The jury were selected a few minutes ago and will now begin to hear what the case is about from prosecutor Nick Mather.
He begins by telling the jury the case is about football but says they don't need to know anything about the game.
He says: "Football in this case is nothing more than a means to an end to make money."
He says the national sport is obsessed about and talked about constantly.
But he says while it is called the beautiful game it also has an ugly side, and that's the side this case will focus on.

Mr Mather says: "This case is about players being involved in an agreement where they were planning to lose football matches.
"Football is big business in this country, millions of millions of pounds change places."
Why would people fix matches? He asks.
"The simple answer is money.
"It's all about the money."
He says betting on British football is big business, particularly across Asian market.
He tells the jury two men have already been convicted of being the ringleaders in a match fixing trial.

Facey and Swaibu, he says, were used to find players who would be willing to fix matches for cash.
Bets, Mr Mather says, would be placed on results, goals, own goals, red and yellow cards at particular times.
It was Facey and Swaibu's job to find players to take cash to fix such bets.
Of Facey, Mr Mather says: "He was a middle man, a fixer, somebody who identified, cast his net to find players who might be willing to take part in match fixing."
He says in 2010-2011 when he played for Lincoln City Facey was earning £65,000 a year.
But by the time of the match fixing allegations, between November 1 and 27 2013, his income had fallen, and that could be his motive for getting involved with the match fixing ring.

Mr Mather now guiding the jury through what is bribery and conspiracy.
He says a player who takes cash to fix a match, get booked or score an own goal would be guilty of bribery.
Likewise the person who pays them is guilty of bribery.
For a conspiracy he says it is necessary for a plan to be made between two or more people to so something unlawful and intending to do it. He says they don't actually have to go through with the act.
He says: "Things sometimes get in the way of people's best laid plans.
"The referee might be blind, some apparently are, they might not give a yellow card for that tackle."

He says it would be impossible to guarantee results unless every player and the referee on both teams had been paid off.
"All you can do is improve the chances, pay some players not to play very well, and that's what the prosecution says happened in this case."
The nature of the offence is that it would be secret, he says. That those running the betting syndicate would be careful who they approached and would not write things down.
"Common sense says if you're committing a crime you don't go around telling people you are doing it."

He says betting on matches is not confined to the Premier league.
"It doesn't just happen at the top, I should probably put Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion at the top.
"It happens lower down the league."
He says this is because bigger matches are scrutinised more, the Sky Sports effect, where every angle is monitored by cameras.
Lower leagues have fewer spectators and fewer cameras.

He says money is another reason; top players earn too much to be corrupted with less than millions of pounds.
Mr Mather says most players in the lower leagues would tell fixers to get lost.
But he says where pay is a few hundred pounds a week and small bonuses, a few thousand pounds might be enough to convince them to fix a match.
In this case he says the teams and players were all from the lower leagues.
Mr Mathers says it doesn't matter if the jury have never heard of the leagues or teams involved. He says he players in those leagues earn a fraction of the top players, and that is the key point.

Mr Mather says this case began with a private investigator called Terry Steins, a former RAF police officer.
With an interest in match fixing he began investigating and set up a Facebook page to try and root out fixers.
This eventually led to the ringleaders in this case.
One of those was Chann Sankaran.
With support from a film maker and The Daily Telegraph - who stumped up cash asked for by Sankeran.
Sankeran eventually mention an agent and former Bolton player called Delroy who could find players who were "up for a bit of match fixing."

It was at this point on November 16 2011 the National Crime Agency became involved, took over the investigation and sent in an undercover officer called Eddy.
Mr Mather says Sankeran and co-ringleader Krishna Ganeshan had no idea they were talking to people who were outside of their conspiracy.
Mr Mather says there is evidence of Facey approaching players from teams around the country offering them cash to throw matches.
"Why would he bribe them if he wasn't part of this?" Says Mr Mather.
Evidence obtained by the undercover officer is "incontrovertible" that Facey and Swaibu were "well at it."
That evidence includes phone calls and Skype conversations of them offering bribes and talking about fixing matches.
There is deemed a good place to take a break. The jury are given a short break, updates will continue when they return.

The jury are back and prosecutor Nick Mather will continue his opening speech.
The jury are handed a large document which outlines the schedule of telephone evidence in this case.
Mr Mather says he will go through some of it with them but not every line.
He says the schedule is detailed and examines line by line how the defendants were operating but says it is only a snap shot.
Using the schedule, Mr Mather begins looking at meetings which were set up between Joe McArthur - a made up name used by investigator Terry Steins - and match fixing ringleader Chann Sankaran.

Using WhatsApp, Joe set up a meeting at a hotel with Sankaran.
In one message Sankaran said: "Saturday I got game."
Mr Mather says messages like this are important in the context of the case.
He says Sankaran is talking about a rigged football match.
Mr Steins, as Joe, was posing as someone who had an investor lined up to pay cash to bribe players.

Mr Mather says these messages show the context in which Sankaran was operating - betting and fixing matches.
Also he says these conversations between Joe and Sankaran match the style of talk used by Facey and Swaibu.
During the early exchanges included discussions of fixing an England Under 21s World Cup match.
An Australia match was also mentioned - Mr Mather says Sankaran fixed matches in Australia where several players have been arrested on match fixing charges.

Because Joe and Sankaran both knew they were talking about match fixing, they didn't have to mention it explicitly in text messages.
However in one Joe asks: "How much does the boss have to lay to have this match fixed bro?"
Sankaran said it would cost 100,000 Euros to bribe a player and then a £300,000 bet.
The profit on the bet, Sankaran says, would be £420,000.
On June 7 2013 Joe exchanged messages with Sankaran about betting on a match in Australia.
Joe said his businessman investor might stump up money but asked if it was a big game?
Sankaran said bets of £500,000 could be placed.
Sankaran said the bet could be made in Singapore or Indonesia.

Sankaran told Joe he had players going to him offering to fix matches.
Sankaran said in a message; "if you do good business with them they'll do business with us.
"The players buy houses."
He said players were paid up to four months worth of their salary.
Sankaran said of players didn't do as they were asked they wouldn't get paid.

The two talked about international friendly matches and planned after that to bet on a conference match.
Krishna Ganeshan, another of the fixing ringleaders, had text conversations with Delroy Facey on Skype.
Ganeshan was in Australia. He asked if Facey has spoken to The King.
Facey said; "I'm waiting for The King to give me a project to execute."
Ganeshan said they, the fixing syndicate, were ready to 'buy' two clubs in the UK.
However Ganeshan says one coach was a pain to work with because he wanted to win.
The pair discussed Facey being sent to Finland by The King because he wanted him to do a deal over there.
Ganeshan said he was thinking of moving to Malaysia.

Other Skype evidence is a conversation between Michael Boateng (already convicted of bribery for match fixing) and unknown others in which case a discussion is had a it giving away a penalty early.
Someone in the conversation says it will be easier to do of Moses Swaibu is also playing.
It is there Mr Mather halts for the day.

More tomorrow...