Match fixing is destroying The Beautiful Game in Asia, and corruption has spread its tentacles into ‘squeaky-clean’ Singapore. Feeding off the insatiable gambling habits of the local population, illegal football betting has made a select few bookies—particularly one named Tiger— very rich and far too powerful.

Against such a backdrop, Chris Osborne, a young, handsome striker from the West Ham United academy, arrives on the Singapore football scene. Once tipped to play for England, a series of unexpected events at West Ham and Melbourne Victory has seen Chris end up at an S-League club in a desperate bid to get his faltering career back on track. However, not even a boyhood spent growing up in London’s East End prepares him for the bent bookies, dubious team-mates, a seductively beautiful journalist and the underground party drugs scene that welcome him to life in paradise.