‘Mundus vult decipi’: the (lack of) consequences of a large-scale match-fixing scandal on Belgian football

We conducted an in-depth single case study of one of the largest fraud scandals in the history of football: the Belgian Zheyun Ye case. In 2004-2006, a Chinese businessman gained influence over Belgian professional football clubs for the purpose of fixing matches and betting on the outcome of these matches. Using a mixed-methods design, we studied the harms (i.e. psychological, physical, material, reputational) that were experienced by individuals and organisations in the aftermath of the case. For this purpose, we collected data in court documents (n = 41.547 pages), open sources, and semi-structured interviews (n = 7) with a number of (in)directly involved actors in this case. The case Zheyun Ye is both unique and symptomatic of the state of Belgian football and sports betting in the years 2000s. We show through our findings that it had widespread and serious consequences for certain actors, although football remains a highly resilient economic sector.