BACK in the 1980s, bookies or their runners would go directly to the players. Through their extensive contacts, they knew how to find players, be it in the amateur or semi-pro leagues (there was no professional league back then).

They would call up the players, pretend to be a fan and try to build a friendly relationship, but with a hidden agenda.

The bookies or their runners would go and watch them play. To get into their good books, the bookies might say things like: "Wow, you are a great player, man."

When enough trust was established, the bookies were able to sieve more information from the players. They would then ask questions like: "Can your team win today? I want to bet with my friend".

It might be just one player, but based on his response and information, the bookies could win big money and return the next day to congratulate the player.

"That was a fantastic game yesterday, I won $10,000. Here's $5,000 for you," the bookie might say before handing over the "coffee money". It could be as blatant as that, on the training pitch.

But already, the player was part of the match-fixing syndicate. If things went awry, he would get hounded like what loan sharks do to their debtors.

"Eh, what happened? I lost $50,000. How are you going to pay me back? You better make something happen in the next game to get my money back."

So with threats like these, and temptations like money and women (Geylang trips are not uncommon), the player is caught in the web and may even rope in fellow team-mates to make more money.

From my experience, there was plenty of match-fixing going on during my playing days.

In my case, the leader of the betting syndicate was an Indonesian Chinese. I would receive, stashed in between newspaper pages, Indonesian Rupiah notes that amounted to about $12,000 back in those days.

Like I said, the bookies would recruit anyone in the team they can get, even the reserves. If they managed to get members of the first 11, or key players like the strikers or goalkeepers, it would mean a higher chance of getting the result they wanted at the end of the game.

People in the know would be able to tell by the players' body language.

There was an obvious conflict of interest. For example, a striker was paid not to score. He was usually prolific but kept missing easy goal-scoring chances.

Tell-tale signs

On one hand, he had to worry about keeping the bookies happy. On the other, he had team-mates encouraging him to put one in the net so there was a lot of pressure on him.

Experts in body language reading will be able to smell something fishy.

Players in other positions could also play key roles in fixing a match.

Creative midfielders might suddenly start to pass sideways and backwards instead of initiating attacking chances. Goalkeepers who usually took long goal-kicks could put unnecessary pressure on defenders with a short pass, or defenders could get into communication problems.

Of course, there are bound to be mistakes in football.

But if experts can study in detail the body language, I'm sure they can spot some dead giveaways.

This article was first published in The New Paper.