Aden Marwa: Kenyan Football Referee Whose World Cup Dream Was Shattered by Controversial Match-Fixing Allegations

How a BBC Investigation and Alleged Bribe Ended the Career of Kenya’s First FIFA Competition Official

Aden Marwa, a Kenyan football match official and former Chemistry teacher, saw his dream of officiating at the FIFA World Cup collapse just days before he was set to travel to Russia in 2018. Marwa, who had already been granted leave by the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) and was preparing for the world’s biggest football tournament where he would have earned a reported Ksh 2.5 million, was struck off the official list following shocking allegations of match-fixing.

The allegations, captured in a BBC investigative documentary titled Betraying The Game, showed Marwa allegedly receiving Ksh 60,000 (approximately US$600) to manipulate matches during the 2018 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Morocco. The expose came as a massive blow to Marwa, who had previously built a stellar career as an assistant referee, including officiating in the 2011 U17 World Cup, the 2012 and 2013 African Cup of Nations, the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup, and serving as a reserve official in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. This made him the first Kenyan football match official to be involved in a FIFA competition.

Marwa maintains his innocence, claiming that the investigative journalist behind the documentary, Ghanaian Anas Aremeyaw, “fixed him” by handing him the money under the guise of a friendly gesture. “It was at the end of our meeting that he offered me the money, and it was not a bribe. The conversation was something like, ‘why don’t you take this money at least you buy something for your family when you go back home,’” Marwa explained.

Despite his efforts to clear his name by appealing to the Football Kenya Federation (FKF), Marwa says he was dismissed harshly: “When I contacted them for help, they told me, ‘wewe kwenda huko, umetuaibisha.’ I have lived with pain and learnt to accept it.”

The journalist at the center of the controversy, Anas Aremeyaw, has faced criticism and legal challenges for his methods. In 2023, a Ghanaian court implicated him in blackmail during a defamation case, ruling that he practiced “investigative terrorism” rather than genuine journalism.

Aden Marwa’s story highlights both the precarious nature of sports careers and the consequences of controversial investigative journalism, leaving a talented Kenyan referee’s dreams in tatters just as he was about to reach football’s biggest stage.