With the FIFA World Cup barely four months away, world football supremo warned that multimillion-dollar betting syndicates may attempt to rig matches.

However, expressed optimism that this year’s Soccer World Cup will be hooligan-free remain because fans would murder any players involved.

So, why would you want to fix a match?

Well, obviously you can place a substantial bet on it and make a very large amount of money.

This is nothing new. Gambling is supposedly the third oldest profession - after prostitution and spying. The former, of course, involves money, the latter information. Match fixing is the use of information to make money.

So, if you had happened to know that lowly club Wigan Athletic were going to beat Premiership giants Chelsea, you could have put a euro on Wigan to win at 4 to 1, meaning that your one euro stake would have come back as five euros when the favourites lost. In match fixing, we’re talking of millions of dollars.

Match fixing is a spin-off of big-time illegal gamblers. Asia is a hotbed for betting syndicates and illegal gambling, especially on football. Betting on the English and continental European leagues runs into millions of dollars every week in Southeast Asia, and some criminals have tried in the past to fix match outcomes to maximize their returns.

In the early 1990s, a Far East syndicate was linked to a corruption investigation in the English Premier League. Hong Kong police smashed three soccer gambling syndicates and arrested 21 people in a crackdown against illegal betting on last year’s English FA Cup final.

As gambling on the sport grows worldwide, this worldwide football betting phenomenon now threatens to destroy the game’s credibility. It takes two sides to commit bribery in a game and we’re sure the syndicate will fold their criminal activities if there are no takers.

Hang the criminals!

Hang the football hooligans!