Sports Celebrity Subjects
Mahmood won the "Reporter of the Year" award in 1999 for his exposé of Newcastle United bosses Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall, who mocked fans and branded Geordie women "dogs" after taking Mahmood, posing as the sheikh, to a brothel in Marbella.
Footballer John Fashanu was exposed for match fixing. Fashanu offered to fix matches for Mahmood and took a cash deposit. Fashanu claimed that he knew about the sting all along and was only appearing to be corrupt so as to gather evidence for the police.
In January 2006, Mahmood met England head coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, posing as a businessman interested in opening a sports academy. Eriksson, however, asked him to take over Aston Villa FC, and revealed that he intended to leave England after the World Cup to become Aston Villa manager, and that he would approach David Beckham from Real Madrid to become captain. On 23 January, the Football Association announced that Eriksson would leave his job after the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and it was thought that the News of the World allegations played a part in this decision. This was later denied by both parties, with Eriksson explaining that there was a prior arrangement to terminate his contract immediately after the World Cup.
On 28 March 2010, Mahmood revealed former world champion boxer Joe Calzaghe taking cocaine. The boxer and Strictly Come Dancing contestant admitted using the drug after being caught in a sting, and vowed to seek help for addiction.
In May 2010, Mahmood exposed World Snooker Champion John Higgins and his agent Pat Mooney for apparently agreeing to fix the outcome of future individual frames which would not necessarily alter the course of a match. Meeting in a hotel room in Kiev, Ukraine on the morning of Friday 30 April, where Higgins and his manager had travelled after his exit from the 2010 World Championship, to ostensibly meet the undercover News of the World team the newspaper described as men posing as businessmen interested in organising a series of events linked to the World Series of Snooker. On video, Higgins and Mooney are seen to agree to throw four frames in four separate tournaments in exchange for a €300,000 total payment. On the publication of the story on Sunday 2 May, Barry Hearn, Chairman of the WPBSA, immediately suspended Higgins from WPBSA tournaments, promising a full investigation, stating "Those responsible, if proved, will be dealt with in a very harsh and brutal way. People have a right to see pure sport – that's what I want snooker to be." Mooney resigned from his post as director of the WPBSA. Higgins subsequently issued a statement denying he had ever been involved in match fixing, and said of the meeting, "I didn't know if this was the Russian mafia or who we were dealing with. At that stage I felt the best course of action was just to play along with these guys and get out of Russia". Mooney also said "we were genuinely in fear for our safety".
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