Sunday 5 January 2014

Football Is Fecked

It is worthy of remembrance that Football Is Fixed was launched on November 11th 2006.

We have been exposing corruption in world football, with particular focus on the Premier League, for over seven years.
We have published over 1250 posts in that time (the vast majority now archived).

The first post 'Manipulated Markets' is reproduced in part below...
... we wouldn't alter one single word.

"English Football is currently reeling from the impacts of the Stevens inquiry into the bung culture, the standard and ethics of referees and the revelation that Victor Chandler International allegedly took bets from some Premiership Managers and Players. The words “tip” and “iceberg” spring to mind.
I have traded professionally on global football betting markets for the past 15 years. In my experience, all the brokers, market makers and bookmakers that I have traded with take bets from insiders in the game. It is regarded as buying information. Undoubtedly, some of this exchange of information borders on the corrupt. The recent betting scandal in Germany and the uproar in Italy’s Serie A show that this isn’t merely a British problem.
Asian Market Makers regularly accept bets of greater than £1million without blinking (Gianluigi Buffon – the Juventus goalkeeper – was found with betting slips for several million euros in his possession during the Moggiopoli scandal). Inevitably, the liquidity of the Asian markets persuades some football people to enhance their earning capacities. To my knowledge, such individuals include players, managers, referees, bookmakers, agents and the criminal fringe. It isn’t just the Italian mafia centres of Napoli, Palermo and Reggio di Calabria that are actively involved in football markets!
To date, all attempts to clean up the game have been peripheral. In Germany, some selective sweeping under the carpet and wrist slapping went on in response to the referee Robert Hoyzer admitting that he took money to alter football match outcomes. But, I believe that there are other match officials in the Bundesliga who were merely demoted or, indeed, allowed to continue to officiate. In Italy, in the aftermath of calciocaos, two referees were suspended but the other six who were under investigation are still involved in Serie A.
Although there are many corrupt players, it is the match officials who are the key component of this crisis. Some have links to individual clubs, some to bookmakers and some to the underworld. There are also many honest people in the game who are just trying to do their jobs. However, until football cleans up its act, corruption will persist. Falling attendances in Italy and England are partially related to deficiencies in the sport on offer. Although the prawn sandwich brigade remain oblivious to anything, the true fans know when they are being short changed. The recent assertion by Graeme Souness that British football is “the most honest in Europe” is simply laughable."
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We selected the name 'Football Is Fixed' in an act of strategic duality whereby the fact that football was/is fixed could be offset by it eventually being mended - so football would indeed become fixed!
Foolish hope.

We outlined in a recent post six areas that have to be addressed if football is to elevate itself above a version of horseracing with a ball and goalposts (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-to-solve-match-fixing-once-and-for.html).
The probability of even one area being addressed with integrity is remote!

But, even if we were to live in a world where betting markets could be regulated to prevent match fixing, the rules to be put in place would be Swiss-cheesed with loopholes to enable the same corruptions to happen again.
Over time, these loopholes would expand into newly available structures to enable future match fixing...
... just like capitalism after the Depression.

So, further attempts to rescue the game are now seen as futile.

To commemorate this momentous state of affairs, we are renaming our Twitter feed FIXBALL IS FECKED.

In the future, blog posts will become less frequent but still hard hitting.
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Our time ahead is to be taken up with the FIFAss - a closed-ended hedge fund which is being launched later this month and is already fully subscribed, a mobile phone App offering betting advices, information and support to be released in time for the World Cup, plus club consultancies outside of Britain as the English game is, in the words of Sir Bob Russell MP, "rotten to the core"...
... listen up - not one bad apple but rotten to the core!

In example, our primary Asian broker has provided us with details of the 17 largest bets placed on Premier League games this season...
... 16 have won, one referee has been involved in 8 of the games and another in 6!

WE COULD, IF WE SO WISHED, ENTIRELY DEMOLISH ENGLISH FOOTBALL - WE HAVE BETTING PATTERNS, RECORDED MEETINGS AND PHONE CONVERSATIONS, TESTIMONIES, POLICE RECORDS OF THREATS RECEIVED, FULSOME DETAILS OF SPECIFIC INSIDER TRADING AND MATCH RIGGING AND STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT PATTERNS THAT REVEAL THE CORRUPTIONS UNDERPINNING ENGLISH FOOTBALL AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS.
THE DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE LODGED WITH OUR LAWYERS ARE DAMNING.

IF WE THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE FUTURE INTEGRITY OF THE ENGLISH GAME, WE WOULD PUBLISH THIS INFORMATION.

BUT IT WOULDN'T.

WHAT IS THE POINT IN FULLY DISCLOSING AND ITEMISING THE MATCH FIXING BY OWNERS, AGENTS, REFEREES AND PLAYERS WHEN THE ORCHESTRATORS OF THE INFRASTRUCTURES THAT ALLOW MATCH FIXING ARE IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER AT FIFA, UEFA, INTERPOL, THE PREMIER LEAGUE, THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION, THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE AND A WHOLE ARRAY OF GLOBAL BOOKMAKERS?

INSTEAD THE FULL PROOF REMAINS AS OUR COLLECTIVE SECURITY.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013