Game-fixing scandals in Turkey, South Korea, Finland and elsewhere has soccer authorities and law enforcement struggling to battle the problem, the Times reports.
Soccer has been known to have connections to organized crime for decades, but the game-fixing reportedly has intensified recently.
Two of the most heavily publicized incidents were just the tip of the iceberg. In September, Bahrain played what turned out to be a fake Togo team. In December, a referee suspiciously added 10 minutes of extra time to a game between Argentina and Bolivia; it was learned gamblers had bet heavily on a goal being scored in the final five minutes.
In the most recent development, a Finnish district court on Tuesday sentenced Wilson Maj Perumal, pictured, of Singapore to two years in prison for contacting players and referees to fix soccer matches in the Finnish National League.
Hungary, Italy, Germany, El Salvador, Israel, China, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Vietnam and Greece are listed in the Times report as other countries where investigations are under way.
U.S. women's soccer fans and conspiracy theorists looking for an excuse for their team's loss in the World Cup final will not find it here, however. The investigations are not believed to involve Japan or women's soccer at all.
