The Big Fix - Softcover

Brett Forrest

3.44

231 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007551851 ISBN 13: 9780007551859

Publisher: HarperSport, 2014

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Timed to coincide with the World Cup in Brazil and told in the style of a page-turning thriller, this is the book that will blow the lid off international match fixing in football: a pandemic that has struck at the heart of the ‘beautiful game’

It began as a series of disparate reports coming in from the corners of the football world: referees, players and managers were deliberately fixing results at the behest of illegal bettors. But as the reports kept coming, bit by bit the scale of the problem began to emerge. These weren’t just footballing minnows but major teams and players, playing on the biggest possible stages. The money at stake ran into the billions. And the people pulling the strings were operating for some of the largest, most heinous criminal syndicates in the world.
In THE BIG FIX, Brett Forrest uncovers the scarcely believable scale of a threat to the beautiful game that is only just now coming to light.
Told in the style of a thriller, Forrest tracks down the criminals who occupy this murky world of billion-dollar transactions, as well as the people tasked with hunting them and saving football’s lifeblood.
Published on the eve of the World Cup, this shocking expose reveals a criminal enterprise that threatens to rot football to its core.

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From the Back Cover:

Can the most beloved sport in the world beat the corruption that threatens to tear it apart?

Known as the "beautiful game," soccer is the world's most popular sport, crossing borders and language barriers to entertain billions. But underneath it all is a scandal that threatens to make soccer the ugliest sport in the world. An underworld of international gambling rings, corrupt players and officials, and shadowy figures preys on the far-flung edges of the game, making match-fixing in soccer one of organized crime's most profitable businesses. In The Big Fix, journalist Brett Forrest pulls back the curtain, exposing a web of nefarious dealings across the world, even on U.S. soil.

One man has taken on this criminal enterprise: Chris Eaton, a hardheaded Australian, longtime Interpol director, and the former head of security for FIFA. Forrest follows Eaton's journey from local beat cop to FIFA's security chief for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where Eaton first grasped the extent of match-fixing and the threat it posed to the game. Eaton made it his mission to track down the elusive perpetrators: fixers who crisscross borders, targeting players and clubs on behalf of international criminal syndicates.

The Big Fix takes us inside Chris Eaton's hunt for the world's boldest fixers and their backers--and the fight to save the beautiful game.

About the Author:

Brett Forrest contributes to publications such as Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Time and The New York Times Magazine. He is a Contributing Writer at ESPN The Magazine. Forrest has lived in Russia, Ukraine and Brazil, reporting from nearly 50 countries.

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