

Football is a ruthless business for clubs in the lower leagues of Europe. Fan expectations are high, but money is scarce. So when a mysterious Chinese investor turns up at the club HQ, offering €150,000 to inject into the team, links to football's massive fanbase in the Far East, as well as foreign players, this is an opportunity that's tough for a cash-strapped club to miss.

Such a vulnerable position is exploited by Eric Mao, a FIFA agent who uses a pan-national network to invest in minor clubs across the EU, with a promise to transfer Chinese talent and blood the players on a European pitch.

Using his company, formerly known as Anping Sports Agency, Mao and his entourage have been active in Portugal, Ireland, Romania, Latvia, the Czech Republic and now, it appears, in Spain.

But Mao is not a philanthropist, a playboy or a cool-headed businessman.

The Chinese agent is at the centre of a match-fixing network. His strategy is to buy a troubled or bankrupt club and, following a minor investment, hire his own players, coaches or administrators, many of whom are tainted by past scandals of match manipulation.

Mao’s gang then force the team to lose matches by high margins as part of a betting scam involving, as we understand, Asian bookmakers.

Anping has been named as a “front for illegal match fixing operations” according to an investigation by the Qatar-based International Center for Sports Security (ICSS) seen by EIC Network, which calls Mao “a senior match fixing organizer and leader of a Singaporean match-fixing syndicate”.

Together with journalism network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), The Black Sea can demonstrate how the Mao technique works, using testimonies from players, clubs and Mao’s colleagues, as well as leaked messages and confidential intelligence reports.

The Chinese agent and his entourage put their cash down at a club and stay for between six months and two years. During their period of supervision, the pattern is the same: the team loses matches by high margins, the morale at the club collapses, the fans stop turning up to the stadium, and the clubs usually face relegation, bankruptcy, or closure.

So far, investments by Anping or its related companies have ended in match-fixing scandals in Romania at Academia Clinceni and in Ireland at Athlone Town FC.

Worse, Mao's involvement is often the kiss of death for a football club, with one club linked to his network in Latvia disintegrating, and another in Portugal now bankrupt.

Following recent match fixing scandals, Mao is now working under the alias Harry Zhang, and is behind a new club in Spain’s lower league of the Rioja region, Regional Preferente, according to new information given to EIC Network. The club is called Racing Rioja. The name of his company has also changed from Anping to Beijing Saint Rangers.

But Mao is not just an asset-stripper of lower-league football, EIC Network also exposes how the Chinaman’s entourage is linked to organising players who pose as referees to fix international friendlies in Cyprus.