Three members of the national soccer team of Belize were reportedly approached by a man in Guatemala and asked to throw the upcoming match with the USA team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup match in Portland, Oregon.
7 News in Belize released a report after the match had already been played and Belize had lost to the USA team by a final score of 6-1. Perhaps that is what prompted the report in the first place.
The USA team was ranked as favorites to take the game anyway so the idea of Belize ‘taking a dive’ does seem a little absurd and offshore sports books did not receive any unusual action on the match.
Greg Sindall, of SportInteraction.com, told the press, “The USA team was paying 1/20 to win the match without any ideas of it being thrown. It would be like players from Florida Gulf Coast being asked to throw and upcoming match against the Miami Heat.”
Las Vegas Handicappers had the United States set as a 2.5 goal favorite and priced at -2,000 to win outright. Belize was set as a +2,500 underdog and a draw paying +1,250.
Representatives from various other sportsbooks also reported normal activity on such a one sided match, saying, “Given those prices, obviously the vast majority of the action was on the USA team and mainly as a banker on parlays, which is to be expected. Nothing odd in terms of action was taken on team USA.”
The contacted players from the Belize, to their great credit, reported the unusual contact saying that the man told them that their team did not stand much of a chance anyway to beat the US, so, the wanted the players to promise him that they would indeed lose the match and he would give them a bunch of money… enough to change their life styles down in Belize… ’money for their families’, he said.
The players involved were Andres Makin Jr., Woodrow West and Ian Gaynair. Gaynair later told authorities, “I felt really uncomfortable just to be around the guy because I was already aware about the ‘match fixing’ and I know that could get banned for life.”
The players then reported that the man, sensing that they were not going for it, took out a large amount of US dollars…hundreds and fifties…and threw it on the table telling them to keep the money and not to say anything about it.
