By Keaton Robbins
Ben Rycroft, a journalist who helped uncover the Canadian Soccer League’s match fixing controversy, says the scandal brings worldwide soccer corruption uncomfortably close to home.
#FixTheCSL has become the official hashtag since news broke about the CSL match fixing scandal. COURTESY- CANADIANSOCCERNEWS.COM
Rycroft has been working on this story for some time now. The match fixing covered three countries and dated back to games in 2009. It involved a German crime syndicate.
Several CSL players have come forward since the allegations to expand on just how severe – and occasionally obvious – the fixing was.
One player Rycroft interviewed, who asked not to be identified, told Canadian Soccer News that he suspected match fixing after being down 4-0 within the first 20 minutes of a game in Brantford.
“The one game last year that brought it to light for me was the Brantford game. We are on an 11 game unbeaten streak, like hottest team out there, first place,” the player told Rycroft. “No team came close to beat us within that 11 games. And to go on an 11 game winning streak, your team has to be performing good and we went there and within 20 minutes in the game it was 4-0.”
Rycroft talked with Humber News about busting open one of the biggest scandals in Canadian sports:
A lot of questions still remain on what will become of the CSL.
Many Canadian soccer fans are screaming for Canada’s governing soccer body, the CSA, to conduct a thorough audit of the CSL.
Click here to see the full length report from the CBC.
What @callitfootball did on that project is worth everyone's time. #FixTheCSL indeed. Ben proves no matter medium, journalism will survive
— Sounder At Heart (@sounderatheart) September 13, 2012
Got home in time to watch @callitfootball on CBC News. All soccer fans in this country need to see this one. #FixTheCSL
— Rudi Schuller (@RudiSchuller) September 13, 2012
https://twitter.com/callitfootball/status/246264435449155585