SINGAPORE (AFP) - Notorious Singaporean football match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal has said he has "no regrets" despite gambling away the millions he earned through rigging nearly 100 games worldwide over two decades.
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, Wilson Raj said he earned "five to six million dollars" from influencing "80-100" matches in his two-decade fixing career. But the 49-year-old said he had squandered away all his illicit earnings because of a gambling habit.
"I have no regrets. It was like, it was a phase of my life and I enjoyed it and I travelled around the world. I had a good time," Wilson Raj said in the interview, published late Wednesday on the CNN website.
Wilson Raj, who claims he influenced top-tier games including those at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Atlanta Olympics in 1994, said there was little guilt involved in being a match-fixer.
"It (football) is no longer a sport. It is more like a business now. We are just trying to make money out of this business," he said.
Wilson Raj is currently in Hungary, where he is under police protection and assisting match-fixing investigators. He was arrested in Finland in 2011 and served one year of a two-year sentence for fixing top-tier games there.