Before any money changed hands, the Lebanese playerswere given detailed instructions on how to rig football matches. Once they'dcarried out the fix, they went to a Beirut hotel to collect their reward —payments ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 per match.
The discovery last month that 24 players — including sixinvolved in World Cup qualifying matches — had been implicated in cheating hasshocked Lebanon, an Arab country of 4 million where football has helped unitethe deeply divided population still recovering from 15 years of sectarian warthat left the place in ruins when it ended in 1990.
"It was match-fixing at its highest level," said AsaadSaeed Saeed, a Lebanese lawyer who helped investigate the scandal thatstretches well beyond the Middle East.
The players' roles were exposed by a three-memberinvestigation committee of the Lebanon Football Association.
The investigators were led by Jordanian Fadi Zreiqat,general secretary of the West Asian Football Federation. The committeeinterviewed 65 people, including 44 players, 18 club officials and threereferees.
"Player after player came in front of us, and told uswhen and how he was approached, for which game he was asked to act, how muchmoney they offered and who gave him the money," Saeed, who served onZreiqat's panel, told The Associated Press in an interview in Beirut.
More than 170 hours of interviews have been recorded and transcribedas part of a report handed over to Lebanese FA officials, along withrecommended sanctions.
"The players said the money paid for fixinginternational matches, including Asian games, was from $8,000 to $12,000 forone game, depending on the importance of the match, the position of the playerand his ability to manipulate the result," Saeed said.
The players told the investigators of the detailedinstructions they received on how to achieve the fixed results.
"Sometimes they told the players how to play, and saidthey should do a specific move or that they should move around in a certain wayduring the game," Saeed said, adding that all the people questioned wererequired to take an oath, either on the Koran or the Bible, promising to tellthe truth.
"Some said they were told to play in a way to get ayellow card or a red card to be sent off and some even said they wereinstructed to make sure they stay off the field by pretending they were sick orinjured."
Saeed said three names repeatedly came up in the testimonyof those players who admitted to being part of the match-fixing plot: Lebanoninternationals Ramez Dayoub and Mahmoud al-Ali and club official Fadi Fneish.
Midfielder Dayoub has played for Selangor in Malaysia, andstriker al-Ali has played for Persiba Balikpapan in Indonesia. Fneish is anofficial with Beirut-based Al Ahed club who also served as a translator forLebanon's national team.
"The players said one of those three persons eithertalked to them (about fixing) or gave them the money after the deal,"Saeed said.
Some players said they were approached in the dressing roombefore matches at different stadiums, although most plots were developed andpayments made in one of three hotels in Beirut, Saeed said.
When investigators interviewed Dayoub, al-Ali and Fneish,all three denied the allegations.
"They were the only ones who said they know nothing,absolutely nothing about such things as buying and selling matches and saidthey were not involved in any conspiracy in football," Saeed said."By saying they have never even heard of match-fixing, we believed theywere like (criminals) denying the crime even though all data and evidence wecollected showed they were involved."
Subsequently, the three men received the harshestpunishments from Lebanon's FA: Dayoub, al-Ali and Fneish were banned for lifeand each fined $15,000. FIFA, football's international governing body, wasasked to extend the ban worldwide.
Dayoub and al-Ali also publicly denied any involvement inmatch-fixing and are appealing their bans. Neither of the two players respondedto attempts by the AP to seek comment, nor did a lawyer representing them.
The Asian Football Confederation said it reviewed a summaryof the report from the investigation in Lebanon, but found no evidence thatDayoub played a role in helping Qatar beat Lebanon in a 2014 World Cupqualifying match.
The Lebanon investigation focused on finding thematch-fixing ring leaders and active participants, not trying to discover whichand how many matches were rigged.
"The committee hopes the results of this investigationwill close the file of match-fixing permanently and turn the page in Lebanon'sfootball," said Zreiqat, the chief investigator.
Saeed said he wished the committee could probe further,saying investigators should have been given the authority to look into theplayers' bank accounts and video records of the hotels to find materialevidence. Under Lebanese laws, they were not allowed to look at either, leavingthe panel to recommend sanctions based on testimony of players, officials andreferees.
"We are fully aware that we did not extinguish theproblem, but at least we stopped it from spreading," Saeed said. "Iwish we had the powers to go further and investigate deeper to find out who isthe big boss here. We've established that the three are involved, but there issomeone above them and we don't know who that is."
Lebanon has never qualified for the World Cup. And the onlytime the country qualified for a continental tournament was in 2000 when Lebanonhosted the Asian Cup in Beirut.
There is no professional football competition in Lebanon anddomestic clubs tend to be tied to political parties that are deeply rooted inthe country's various Muslim and Christian sects.
While the quality of the domestic league is poor, Lebanesefans have rallied behind the national team which has, under German coach TheoBuecker, beaten stronger teams including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates inthe past year and even Asian heavyweights like South Korea and Iran.
With the national team finally translating some of thepassion for football into quality on the pitch, the match-fixing scandal cameas a huge blow.
"Personally, I am very disappointed with a couple ofguys I really trusted," Buecker was quoted as saying by Gulf dailySport360. "I was putting a lot of effort, a lot of time a lot of work intomaking a path in this country, and some really stupid idiots have destroyedeverything."
The scandal also hit the team's morale ahead of a World Cupqualifier against Uzbekistan this week (March 26), contributing to a 1-0 lossin Tashkent. Lebanon did beat Thailand 5-2 in Beirut on March 22 in qualifyingfor the 2015 Asian Cup.
The win over Thailand was a boost for the players anddisappointed fans, although revelations of cheating and corruption were stilltoo raw for many to forgive.
Some are convinced the loss in Qatar reached far beyondfootball and almost amounted to treason.
"It was horrible, just horrible for the fans,"said Charbel Krayem, a football writer for Al Akhbar newspaper in Beirut.
The fans "felt bad because the players had no problemsgetting paid for selling a match, selling the game and selling theircountry."
Also striking was the fact that among the sanctionedplayers, six were players on Lebanon's Under-21 team.
"The revelation that Lebanon is raising a bunch ofgamblers, who would one day wear the national jersey is the most sickening forme," Krayem told the AP.
Dayoub's and al-Ali's families were shocked by thepunishment and said in recent interviews with Al Arabiya satellite TV channelthe allegations were unproven.
Both players come from modest backgrounds. Al-Ali's mothersaid her son does not even own a house. She said the player, his wife and theirfive children live with them in northern Lebanon where clashes between Lebanesefactions on the opposing sides in Syria's civil war frequently erupt, puttingcivilians in crossfire.
"If Mahmoud has properties and I don't know what else,we'll leave," said al-Ali's father, a coffee vendor. "What would bethe problem if there is all this money? Why would we sit in danger?"
Dayoub's mother said the ban was unjust and ruined her son'sfuture.
"Ramez does not have (bad) morals at all," shesaid. "I am his mother, one of the closest people to him, I would havefelt something. If my son had in fact done what they say, I will be the firstone to call for him to be punished."