Australians biggest match-fixers, London court told

LONDON: UK-based agent Mazhar Majeed claimed that Australian players and Pakistan stars were also involved in betting scams, Southwark Crown Court heard. Mazhar Majeed, 36, told an undercover journalist that the Australians were the biggest when it came to rigging games.
Claiming match-fixing had been going on for ages, he named celebrated former Pakistan fast-bowlers Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, former captain Moin Khan and batsman Ijaz Ahmed as alleged participants.
Majeed also boasted that he knew Hollywood star Brad Pitt and tennis ace Roger Federer very well and could arrange for them to promote a proposed cricket tournament in the United Arab Emirates, the court heard.
The jury was played covert recordings of meetings between the London-based agent and former News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood, who was posing as a rich Indian businessman seeking major international players for the tournament.
Majeed met Mr Mahmood at a west London restaurant on August 18 last year the first day of Pakistan s Oval Test against England and after the meal discussed match-fixing in the undercover reporter s car, the court was told.
Naming famous former Pakistan national cricketers, the agent said in the recording: It’s been happening for centuries. It’s been happening for years. Wasim, Waqar, Ijaz Ahmed, Moin Khan they all did it.
Majeed went on to allege that Australian players would fix ‘brackets’, a set period of a match on which punters bet, for example, how many runs will be scored. The Australians, they are the biggest. They have 10 brackets a game, he said in the tape played to the court.
Majeed complained that Pakistan cricket players were paid peanuts but said there was very big money to be made from match-fixing. I’ve been doing this with the Pakistani team now for about two-and-a-half years, and we ve made masses and masses of money, he told the reporter.
You can make absolute millions. The agent said his players did not often fix the outcomes of matches but added: We re doing two results coming up soon, within a month.
He told Mr Mahmood it would cost between GBP50,000 and GBP80,000 for information about a bracket, GBP400,000 to fix the result of a 20-20 game, GBP450,000 for a One-Day International and GBP1 million to rig the outcome of a Test match.
Majeed alleged that it was the Pakistan cricketers who asked him to get involved in match-fixing, the court heard. He said in the tape played to the jury: “The players will never tell anybody else. They’re the ones that approached me about this. This is the beauty of it.
“I was friends with them for four or five years. And then they said this happens and I said really? and I was so innocent of it. “I said, really, this happens? Bloody hell, and I didn’t even think of it. I didn’t think with my business mind.”


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