Gerry Dobson

It was the perfect recipe for possible chicanery when Macedonia and Canada squared off.

It was sunny and cool. The stadium was small, run down and situated on the edge of a backwater town named Strumica tucked away in the southeast corner of tiny Macedonia. There wasn't a press box, so I sat in the seats beside Dominic Martin of the Canadian Soccer Associaton.

The television production of the friendly between Macedonia and Canada was bare bones. In our part of the world a large production mobile rumbles into town and parks beside the stadium the day before the game or very early on the morning of the match. A small army of production and technical professionals then turns the stadium into a gigantic television studio with the pitch as the main stage. A minimum of seven cameras are employed and sometimes many more, along with replay machines and all the other toys to ensure that nothing is missed.

In Macedonia, a mini-van pulls up an hour before kickoff. Out jump five guys, little mini-cams in tow with cables slung over their shoulders. Somehow they patch it all together and presto, there's your TV production. The end product is a direct result of the resources put into it.

I remember vividly watching that game unfold with an unheard of four penalties called by Bulgarian referee Anton Genov. Dominic and looked at each other after every one. Was that a penalty? Not sure. Hard to tell. We'll have to look at the DVD of the game later.

The last one should have been the tip off. It came deep into injury time, the last kick of the game actually, after a suspect foul in the Canadian penalty area with a 2-0 scoreline for the home team in a meaningless game. "Why bother?," I thought. Just blow the final whistle already.

Unless of course the referee had to make sure there were four penalties in this game to satisfy betting demands.

At the time we just scratched our heads and got on with it. Now perhaps we know better. Subsequently we discover reports that claim an unusual amount of money was laid down on the number of penalties called and the number of goals scored. Did the referee actually walk over to the Macedonian keeper and remind him of what was at stake before he saved Simeon Jackson's PK? Perhaps he was supposed to let Jackson score. The referee definitely walked over to the keeper and said something. What it was, we'll never know.

Let's be clear, this has nothing to do with the players on either team. They just played the game. Perhaps the referee was playing another game. Meaningless matches like this in the middle of soccer nowhere between two tiny soccer countries are perfect to manipulate. Throw a poor quality TV production into the mix where sketchy coverage and unclear or non-existent replay angles do little to clarify close calls in the box and you have a perfect recipe for a match to be fixed.

UEFA will likely never be able prove anything. But the conditions on that sunny, cool afternoon in a backwater town tucked away in southeastern Macedonia were perfect for such larceny.