The true-crime documentary series delves into three shocking stories that rocked the sports world, from cheating at the Comrades to rigging South Africa’s 2010 FIFA World Cup warm-up games to an illegal immigration case linked to a Serie A football star.
The first episode, The Marathon Bros, concentrates on the 1999 Comrades Marathon.
In 1999, on Youth Day, as Nelson Mandela stepped down and Thabo Mbeki was named president, relatively unknown 21-year-old Sergio Motsoeneng came ninth – because he’d swapped during the race with his 19-year-old brother Fika!
“I’m never going to condone cheating in any way in our sport – but it is quite ingenious,” said Bruce Fordyce, who won the Comrades a record nine times – eight of which were consecutive. “It is also a fraud, and fraud is criminal… They’re lucky they didn’t do jail time.”
Other interviews include Comrades winners Andrew Kelehe, Cheryl Winn and Nick Bester; Sarel van Der Walt, the journalist who broke the story; and the brothers’ former coach Eugene Botha.
“They had great talent,” said Botha. “They came ninth – but they could have won it.”
False Glory is directed by Arianna Perretta and produced by CMG Productions, who won Best Documentary at the 2023 Broadcast Digital Awards for The Footballer, His Wife and the Crash and were nominated for a 2024 True Crime Award for Football Fraudster.
Perretta and CMG are also behind the recent Showmax true-crime sports series Dark Side of Glory, which investigated a Blue Bulls rugby player who became an axe murderer, as well as the murder of Kenyan runner Agnes Tirop, who’d just set a 10,000 m world record.
False Glory premieres on Showmax on August 19, 2024
Watch the trailer for False Glory:
Words:Fame Frenzy
