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Reports have surfaced that the Belize national team was approached about fixing football matches against the US team.
Remember, match-fixing is rarely about about winning and losing—it's about conceding goals to ensure bets on total goals and margins of victory, Deadspin.com points out.
Three players, goalkeeper Woodrow West, defender Ian Gaynair, and midfielder Andres Makin, Jr., claim to have been approached by the man while in the US state of Oregon. He was described only as an "international".
The report, from 7 News Belize, quoted both Gaynair and West.
Gaynair:
"He started talking that we don't really stand a chance to beat the U.S so he wanted us to promise him that we would lose the game and that he would give us a large amount of money to change our lives in Belize and to help our families. Then as he said that my entire features changed and I just felt a different way, I felt really uncomfortable just to be around the guy because I was already aware about the 'match fixing' and I know that I could get banned for life.
"He saw that my features changed and he saw that we weren't into it so he got frightened and took out a large amount of money to bribe us, a lot of hundred and fifty dollar bills and threw it at us on the table and told us to keep it and to not say anything and to keep the money. Like I told him, 'we can't take that money' because at the end of the day our entire country is behind us and we just made history for these big games so we can't just sell out our country for a little bit of money."
West:
"He got frightened and we walked—'Yolo' [Gaynair] walked away and I followed him because I didn't want to stay back there so when we went he chased us and grabbed us and told us not to tell anyone; and that if we didn't tell anyone - that when we got to Belize he would give us 10,000 Euros."
- Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com
