Free The Big Fix by Brett Forrest Page A

egalitarianism on the field of play, while otherwise valuing the right of its leadership to personal enrichment. As it extolled the human virtues of sport, FIFA became an exclusionary territory of a new European business royalty. It was like a social club that withheld access to potential members, standing on the high ground of tradition, until an applicant opened his wallet.
    FIFA clears roughly $4 billion for staging the World Cup, but like any organization, it looks for ways to trim its expense budget. Fewer expenses, more profit. But what was the right balance between safety and savings? FIFA officials met with their counterparts at Interpol and the Freeh Group, asking for guidance. Was there a more affordable solution to their security imperative?
    Ron Noble deliberated. Noble had promoted Chris Eaton until he couldn’t promote him any further. Still, Noble valued what Eaton could provide, and he knew his particular skills. He knocked on Eaton’s office door one afternoon in March 2010 at Interpol’s Lyon headquarters. He asked Eaton what he knew about soccer. “FIFA needed someone like Chris,” Noble says. “He has credibility worldwide for speaking the truth as he sees it and he isn’t afraid to confront it. He is a tenacious law enforcement investigator.” Noble outlined the opportunity for Eaton. There was a consulting position available at FIFA, coordinating security at the World Cup, in concert with international policing bodies. No matter his vitality, Eaton was approaching retirement age. Noble described the position to Eaton as “a soft landing for your public ser­vice.”
    Eaton had worked in Africa on numerous Interpol assignments. He counted the deputy commissioner of South Africa’s federal police as a friend. He was comfortable in Africa. And he liked the sound of the job. Eaton had been looking for a graceful, though stimulating, way to exit Interpol, and the FIFA position appeared to be the right opportunity.
    After ten years in Lyon, Eaton left Interpol with the blessing of his superiors, setting up camp in Johannesburg. He visited the ten different stadiums that would host World Cup matches. He represented FIFA in its relations with the various international police and military delegations assigned to protect national teams. He began assessing terrorist threats to the upcoming competition based on information gathered from an array of intelligence sources. His new FIFA bosses were impressed. They had never contracted anyone of Eaton’s professionally intense police background. For Eaton, the job was exhilarating, though the work was second nature. He had hit the ground running. However, a new and different threat to the game was about to present itself, and this would knock Eaton off his stride.
    I n the lead-­up to the World Cup, FIFA programmers had developed the EWS computer system, which attempted to identify questionable matches by analyzing betting patterns. A month before the World Cup in South Africa, an EWS administrator received a troubling approach. Peter Limacher, a Swiss attorney, was the head of disciplinary ser­vices at UEFA, the European soccer authority. Limacher informed EWS that he possessed intelligence that fixers were preparing to rig several matches at the upcoming World Cup. He said that this information came from a UEFA operative under his direction.
    If FIFA execs were stunned, they shouldn’t have been. In 2005, as Germany prepared to host the previous World Cup, police revealed the biggest scandal in European soccer. A Germany-­based Croatian gambling syndicate had compromised a referee and players in the German second division. (A first-­division club was also suspected.) Ante Sapina, a Croat, led the ring. A new, related trial, charging four individuals with thirty-­eight counts of fraud, was about to open in Bochum, Germany, on the eve of the World Cup in South Africa.
    Marco Villiger, FIFA’s lead