Moses Swaibu: From match-fixing to GameChanger
Crystal Palace protege Moses Swaibu went from big time to a life of crime, match-fixing for betting syndicates, but – via a spell in prison – is making amends with his sport integrity advisory GameChanger360.
Moses Swaibu knew he had hit rock bottom on his first night in prison. Beginning a custodial sentence for bribery offences in relation to match-fixing, he and fellow footballer Delroy Facey couldn’t have been further from the glamour of the game.
“The cell was really, like, grimly broken, the windows cracked. I sat down and had this flashback of playing in the FA Cup. I’m like, ‘Damn man, how have I gone from that to now?’,” Swaibu tells City PM.
“We’ve ripped a bed sheet, and I give him half that goes around his ankles, and I’m just sitting there cold. That was the moment that made me think I have to own it.
“The judge’s summary of our case was in my mind for a whole month. And I was like, ‘when I come out, what do I want to be remembered for?’. And that was the real change.”
Swaibu had been a highly promising defender at Crystal Palace but dropped down the divisions after being released, aged 19. He was introduced to match-fixing opportunities while at Lincoln City but got sucked in when he joined sixth-tier Bromley in 2012.
He went from fixing games to tapping up players at other clubs and ultimately becoming a middleman between Asian betting syndicates looking to manipulate games. On one occasion, Swaibu took home half a million pounds in cash.
“In hindsight, my life was so dangerous at that time,” he says. Swaibu’s fate twisted again in 2014 when he was arrested as part of a sting by the National Crime Agency and the Daily Telegraph while discussing match-fixing with a bogus gang.
He and Facey were sent down the following year, Swaibu for 16 months. Separated from his young daughter, he reflected on his path and resolved to mend his ways. A decade on, he is, he says, attempting to do that with his own integrity consultancy.
Podcast, book and GameChanger 360
Through GameChanger360, Swaibu has collaborated with Fifa, the Premier League, the International Olympic Committee and UFC. Drawing on his own experiences, he hopes to help organisations in sport and beyond become wiser to an underworld of corruption.
“It wasn’t until I came out of prison and sat down with the FA, I was like, if England is the No1 football country in the world, what does that mean for everybody else?” he says.
“I think it’s accelerated at quite a significant rate. I think my case was rare, because I was dealing with them [fixers] direct. Now you have the internet, you have digital wallets.
“It’s gone into the women’s game, young players and athletes are more vulnerable. Anywhere in the world where there’s a live betting market, there’ll also be a market to manipulate.”
Swaibu is developing tech solutions for expanding the business and to that end has been looking to raise over £600,000. He has high hopes for GameChanger360 and, beyond that, ambitions to go into sports politics governance.
He has also written a book, which builds on an award-winning BBC podcast series that told his story. Published next month, it is also an attempt to draw a line in the sand.
“As much as I’ve written a book, I’m just Nemo in this big ocean,” he says. “I did the book to bury the story, so that I don’t have to speak about it again. What I can’t allow is another version of me to even exist. So Moses Swaibu needs to be buried.”