According to Swiss newspaper Le Matin, the team were sent away to contemplate the offer, given US$20,000 for their return taxi fare. They eventually declined, beat Brazil and went on to take gold.
Those Olympics were a global event, televised around the world and staged in the Southern Hemisphere - just like next year's under-20s tournament.
A world-renowned football match-fixing expert was in New Zealand recently to brief police, sporting bodies and government agencies about the risks to the tournament.
"Match fixing has affected football at every level, on every continent the game is played," says Julie Norris, head of Interpol's integrity in sport unit.
"Unfortunately, you can't rule it out at any level. We have seen it occur anywhere, from national teams and top European leagues down to semi-professional football."
Norris, who points out Fifa have set aside US$20 million to combat the issue, says the Under-20 World Cup would be a logical target.
"Fixers often target older players, or players on the way up," Norris says. "Older players might be looking for a pay day, while younger players could be more susceptible to being 'groomed'."
When asked if the A-League could also be vulnerable, Norris answers: "Are you totally sure all [the players] in your A-League would turn down $100,000 or $200,000? You can't discount anything. Any league where [official or unofficial betting] is available is potentially vulnerable."
Last year, 14 members of El Salvador's national team were given life bans after a fixing scandal and a Europol investigation found 680 suspicious matches between 2008 and 2011, including Uefa Champions League games, one involving Liverpool. There have been recent prosecutions in Latvia, Norway, Poland, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey, and the Southern Stars scandal hit Australian football last year.
Some of the cases are almost comical. Former Cremonese goalkeeper Marco Paoloni allegedly put sedatives in his team-mates' drink bottles during a Serie C match with Paganese in 2011 to ensure a fix went to plan in the second half.
The Southern Stars case had the ringleader shouting updated instructions from the dugout about the amount of goals that needed to be leaked.
The most common fix centres around the number of goals in a match, or during a period of the game. Fixers usually approach defenders and goalkeepers.
"The target is to lose, or ensure a certain amount of goals," Norris says. "They will generally approach the weaker team and quite often the defenders. It's harder to pay people to score goals."
However, former All White captain Danny Hay believes fixing would be extremely complicated.
"There are so many intangibles in football," says Hay. "Maybe a yellow card or a particular stoppage but it would be very, very difficult if you think about fixing results or goals being conceded. What if your defence isn't trying but your midfield is dominant, or the opposition strikers are missing everything?"
Hay, who spent time in the English Premier League with Leeds, says he never encountered or heard about match fixing during his long career.
Meanwhile, Norris is impressed by New Zealand's readiness to fight the threat.
"The inter-agency co-operation, planning, risk analysis, intelligence sharing ... it's as good as I have seen."
Match-fixing will also become a specific crime in New Zealand by the end of the year, when the Crime (Match Fixing) Amendment Bill is passed into law.
