Duo accused of offering bribes to footballers in StarHub League Cup match offered bail
Rajendar Prasad Rai, 42, was offered bail of $300,000 and was later seen walking out of court.ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
Published 5 October 2015
Amir Hussain
SINGAPORE -Two Singaporean men facing charges of corruption for allegedly offering bribes to football players here appeared in court on Monday.
Rajendar Prasad Rai, 42, and Francis Donahue Marcel, 39, were offered bail of $300,000 and $50,000 respectively. Rai was later seen walking out of court.
Their case will be mentioned again on Nov 2.
Both men had appeared in court last Monday. They are accused of agreeing with each other to offer $3,000 each to three or four football players from the Singapore Recreation Club (SRC) football team, to fix the outcome of a StarHub League Cup match between the club and Khalsa Balestier FC.
The match was played on July 19, 2014, and Balestier Khalsa beat SRC 2-0. The players offered the bribes were not named in court documents.
Rai, a director in a plastic manufacturing company, is also accused of abetting a corrupt offence overseas.
He allegedly instigated one Shree Manish Kalra Jeetender Kumar Kalra to give 25,000 Euros (S$39,800) to three Macedonians, as a reward for fixing the outcome of a football match between Belgian club SC Charleroi and VVV Venlo from Holland.
The match was played in Antalya, Turkey on Jan 11, 2013, and ended with a 1-0 win for Venlo.
Meanwhile, Marcel, who is chairman of Admiralty FC, the only National Football League club in the StarHub League Cup in 2013, also faces three charges of living on the earnings of three prostitutes between April and August 2012.
He also faces one count of harbouring a woman for the purpose of prostitution between April and August 2012, and two charges of managing pubs in Circular Road as places of assignation for prostitution during the same period.
If convicted of corruption, Rai and Marcel face up to five years in jail, and a fine of up to $100,000. If found guilty of the charges involving prostitution, Marcel faces a maximum fine of $10,000 and five years in jail.
