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Original football stories and interviews from around the globe

Original football stories and interviews from around the globe.

World Football: 17/04/2010

Factual: Crime & Justice

17/04/2010

BBC World Service - World Football, 17/04/2010

This week World Football investigates the link between Organised Crime and Football.

In Liverpool, two 'former' gangsters reveal how footballers are vulnerable to blackmail, and how two former internationals kept damaging stories out of the press. More than 20 footballers homes have been broken into over the last 3 years, and the fiancée of England international Emile Heskey tells World Football how she was burgled at knifepoint in the suburbs of Manchester. 

The Beckhams' former bodyguard Paul Hughes - who will provide security for some England players at the World Cup finals - discusses his experiences with Alan Green including the possibility of kidnappings in this country. 

And we ask the PFA Chief Executive Gordon Taylor how much he knows about protection money and extortion and how the problem can be tackled.

World Football also reports from Croatia and Macedonia on the problem of match fixing in Eastern Europe - including an interview with the self-proclaimed king of the football mafia in Skopje and The President of Croatia Ivo Josipovich.

UEFA's Robert Faulkner reacts to the claims of match fixing and tells us what they are doing about the problem.

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