The Big Fix: The Hunt for the Match-Fixers Bringing Down Soccer

Game of Shadows meets Among the Thugs in this revelatory true-to-life crime thriller and expose involving greed, corruption, an Asian crime syndicate, and the fixing of international soccer matches at the highest levels of the game, including the UEFA Champions League and the World Cup.

In February 2013, the director of Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, made the shocking announcement that 700 international soccer matches had been fixed since 2008, including World Cup qualifying and exhibition matches, with a Chinese criminal syndicate pulling the strings. For the first time, investigative journalist Brett Forrest takes us inside the underworld of one of organized crime's most profitable businesses—a $1 trillion annual international betting market, of which soccer comprises 70 percent.

Forrest uncovered a web of nefarious dealings across the world, even on U.S. soil. As he found, no match is safe—not even the World Cup tournament—and law enforcement officials lack the resources to stop it. But one man has taken this criminal enterprise on: Chris Eaton, former head of security for FIFA. Now with the International Center for Sports Security in Qatar, this rough and tumble Australian and longtime Interpol cop has tracked down some of the biggest fixers and their financial backers and continues his mission to clean up the world's most popular sport.

Filled with headline making revelations, The Big Fix is must reading for soccer fans and true crime aficionados.

Based on years of deep-cover reporting, this gripping narrative takes you inside:

• The Global Syndicate: The rise of Wilson Raj Perumal, the world’s most prolific match-fixer, and the vast Asian crime network he built to defraud a trillion-dollar industry.
• A High-Stakes Investigation: The relentless pursuit led by Chris Eaton, a former FIFA security chief and Interpol cop who declares war on the corruption poisoning the world’s most popular sport.
• Corruption at the Top: A shocking look at how greed infiltrated the highest levels of the game, with fixed matches tainting everything from the World Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
• The Underworld of Sports Betting: A true story that follows the money, revealing how fixers compromise players, bribe referees, and manipulate the billion-dollar betting market in real time.

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.