 Between 15th and 17th January 2018, two players of the iLeague club Minerva Punjab were allegedly offered Rs 30 lakh in a match fixing attempt. Minerva are at the top position in the iLeague this season. The players were offered the money to deliberately lose games. On January 18th, club owner Ranjit Bajaj immediately reported this to the AIFF Integrity Officer. The news click team spoke to Ranjit Bajaj to get more details as well as understand what a sum like Rs 30 lakh could potentially mean to these players. Yeah, so our honour code is that Minerva never lies, cheats or steals or even tolerates anybody who does. And this is also the honour code which we put up in the Shetwood building in IMA and also in the US military academy this right there. That's where the match fixing thing happened and people were asking me why would you do this and put all the pressure on yourself in the middle of the season because you know this can really distract your players. So I told them that there is no, I didn't have a choice, there's no choice, it's not like I'm part honest, there's nothing known as part honest, either you're honest or you're not. And if this happens there's no grey area, there's black or white, so you have to do it simple as that. And the boys know that they've been from day one being all their classes and all their motivational classes, they happen in the same room. And when they see that this is the philosophy we live by, then you know passing this every day in a, when you're eating food in the mess or when you're sitting in your hostels and you're sitting in your rooms, these posters are all over. You can't be living in this place and be a dishonest person, it just doesn't work. Firstly, I would like to say that I'm really shocked and disturbed about this fact which has come out that this is the first in the history of Indian football. I don't believe it's the first. Yeah, we're the first ones to report in the history of Indian football a match-fixing offer, but trust me they've been match-fixing offers earlier. And they've come out. Like the Mumbai FC thing came out and the Rainbow and Tolik Unwagami thing came out last to last 2013 in CFL. These things were there. So I'm really shocked that no club, no official, no player has ever reported this kind of a thing or if they have, the club has not further gone and done it. Because if this was done 10 years ago, when the first time it happened 15 years ago, we start now basically. Why? Because I reported it now. But this should have been done 15 years ago. So it's a very shocking thing because last year I was there, nobody tried to fix my matches because you were coming ninth. This year I never thought that, you know, I was very careful. I have heard of these things. I took it very seriously. I never thought this is going to happen. But when one of my players came to me and said this is the kind of call he's got, I still thought, because it's a local number, I still thought, okay, maybe, you know, somebody is just trying to, you know, play a prank and just like that. Then the next day my foreigner comes to me and tells me that he's got a WhatsApp message after he, somebody's befriended him, properly taken page to befriend him on Facebook. And then done it on WhatsApp and then given him a proper offer with 30 lakh rupees, which says, gives an amount and says, let's meet up and so I can give you the first amount. That shocked me. So then I knew that this was serious. But then on top of that, next day after that, when my Indian player got a call from the same number as my foreigner got, then I knew it was guaranteed it was a proper fixing offer because it's the same party trying to get to any Minerva player. Now, the only silver lining is that my players came to me immediately. And I'm so, so happy and so proud today as a team owner or even as they call me their mentor. So even as a mentor, because if this is something a mentor would love to find in his voice, that they've taken something which I regard as the number one thing is like, they say honesty is the best policy. I don't think it's a policy. You can't have it as a policy. Either you're honest or you're not. So it's not a policy you adopt or adapt. Honesty is not the best policy. Honesty is you're honest. And I think now because of this, at least this will not affect my team anymore. Nobody will be able to fix any of my matches. So that way we are safe. But at the same time I'm really disappointed because I really thought that the efforts of AFC, forget AFF, because AFF apparently has never done this before. And this is the first time. AFC has dealt with this all their lives. So if I have complained to AFC and their response is so f*****g epic that they have not contacted me for now, it's been almost a week. So they should have taken some strict action or they should have told AFF to do something about it. Because now in India you've got a azhar card, OK? And only then you can get a mobile number. So if you've got a mobile number, if it was some other kind of call, you could have traced the guy immediately. And you can get to the bottom of this. And they should make an example that AFF should be the ones lodging a case against these guys and taking it to the fullest extent. Yeah. So then you said how serious they are. How serious they are. In fact, if there is any player from that team may come to know that these guys have already contacted some other players of other clubs who have accepted bribes or not accepted bribes but still not reported it or officials accepted, not accepted, but at least not reported it. And then make examples out of those guys. It means the world. It means so much, I mean, in my team, we're not a big team. We don't pay that much, OK? And to my Indian players, who's getting a salary of 30,000 rupees a month, 30 lakh rupees is what he's going to earn in his entire life. That means for 10 seasons, if he does well, doesn't get any injuries, he might earn that much money. And he's been given that for one match. So do you know how difficult a choice it is for him? Because he knows in India no one's ever been caught for match fixing. No one's even reported it, man. So it's that easy. So there's no way to actually catch you because there's no scrutiny on footballers at all. Then a foreigner, even for a foreigner, because these guys are here and they're not the big name foreigners, they just tend to prove themselves here. Even for them, it's a big thing. Because he can just say, OK, fine, let me just take it and just let me get out of this country next year. F***, man, who's going to come back to India again? So it's a really shocking thing in this amount. It's a life-changing amount. I mean, especially for a footballer. And also the same question comes for match officials because the kind of salaries they're getting, they're not salaryed from AFF. They're people who are doing jobs all over the place. And they just get 10,000 rupees for a match. And they probably do two or three matches in a month. And they get, what, 30,000 rupees? So for them to do this, and they know that all they have to do is give one wrong decision which is going to change the match with a penalty. And that's taken care of. Maybe, I'm just giving an example, maybe his daughter has cancer, OK? And it's not that he's a dishonest man. He's a corrupt man. But because his daughter has cancer, the only way to do it is circumstances, man. Same way with players. Maybe his parents both are in the deathbed. And if he does this, he might save one of them. But if you look at it that way, that means you've given him an opportunity to do it. So if you put a person, why are you testing people? Why are you putting them in that position to see whether they're honest or not? This kind of thing, the accessibility of players should be so hard that means if the guys get there, they should be in lockdown. And the same way, the cricketers are controlled. Any sport which is on TV, you need to control the players. If you don't control the accessibility, gambling and these bookies and everything comes in, simple as that. And this has been going on for donkeys of years now. Like all Southeast Asia, you know. So they've been fixing matches. And even in Middle East, and the maximum number of bookies live in India, man, not there. The biggest bookies live in India. And trust me, if they can fix international cricket matches, they can definitely fix Indian local matches easily. And if they think, which they're getting now, they're getting a feeling that it's very easy to fix football matches than cricket because there's no risk. I mean, the police also doesn't take any action. The state probably doesn't take action, even if it's reported. Nothing happens.