We posted last Sunday that Arsenal were one of only two prominent Premiership teams that hadn't yet sold out to corrupt owners (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/08/arsnes-arsenal-about-to-go-arse-over.html).
Yesterday, that situation changed in the most disturbing way imaginable. Former Arsenal vice-chairman (the word "vice" being particularly meaningful here) David Dein sold his 14.58% stake in Arsenal to Red And White Holdings (R&WH) - an investment vehicle owned by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov. Aside from the reward of pocketing £75 million ($150 million) on a stake that originally cost him just £300,000, Dein will become chairman of R&WH. Dein will head up the R&WH's attempts to increase their stake in the Gunners, but the firm insist they have no immediate plans to mount a takeover. Dein was forced off Arsenal's board in April after falling out with his fellow directors over their failure to support his plan to back a takeover by American businessman Stanley Kroenke. There are now fears that R&WH will team up with Kroenke to launch a hostile bid for Arsenal.
So far so similar to standard capitalist business practice worldwide. What sets this deal apart from the norm is Mr Alisher Usmanov.
Usmanov is 278th on the Forbes Rich List and is Russia's 18th richest man with assets totalling £2.75 billion. His prime business interests include being sole proprietor of Gallagher Holdings Ltd, owner of the Kommersant newspaper and Gazmetall steel and mining empire, he owns half of Metalloinvest and is a director of Gazprominvestholding which manages the debts of Russian monopolistic gas giant, Gazprom. The man also owns a mobile phone company, a couple of television stations and is very interested in the diamond trade.
These are the bits of his life, alongside his interest in fencing, that Mr Usmanov wishes for the world to see. Inevitably in the world of Russia's oligarchs, there is an awful lot more below the surface that Uzbek Usmanov wishes to hide from prying eyes.
Usmanov is "a typical oligarch with a very murky past" which leaves him open to pressure from the Kremlin (see: http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2006/10/editor-of-kommersant-out.html). Last year, Usmanov bought Kommersant (a leading Russian business journal that was, at the time, critical of Putin) at the Kremlin's request. The newspaper was formerly owned by Boris Berezovsky - a man who is no stranger to controversial football corruptions as we have posted previously and who has been recently implicated in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Usmanov himself stated after the purchase: "no-one asked me to buy the publisher, although I should say that my purchase of it was not against the wishes of the authorities". In today's Russia, this is a clear indication that Usmanov enjoys Putin's approval. After taking over Kommersant, the editor-in-chief was immediately sacked while the defence correspondent, Igor Safranov, mysteriously fell to his death from a Moscow window three months later. The new editor of Kommersant is Andrei Vasilyev who is a close collaborator of Berezovsky and the word on the street in Moscow is that Usmanov is plate-spinning trying to keep well-in with both Putin and Berezovsky so that he may retain his power bases no matter which route Russia moves along in the near future. Usmanov also shares close links to Roman Abramovich via their shared links to the metals sector.
In the grey world of Russian oligarchy, there are two ways to assess an individuals past and current hidden agendas - their previous/current business and political links and the views of those who have come into close contact with the operator historically.
Described widely as "the hard man of Russia" which, when one considers the other hard men of the country, is a pretty disturbing motif, the Mail On Sunday calls Usmanov a "sinister...oligarch". Usmanov has very close links to fellow Uzbek, Gafor Rakhimov - in Uzbekistan, when people utter Rakhimov's name, they prefer to say it quietly. Rakhimov is Uzbekistan's richest self-made businessman and The Observer has labelled him "a major figure in Uzbekistan's booming heroin trade". Rakhimov is also accused of conspiracy and rampant involvement in organised crime and he is close to the Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov as, indeed, through his friendship with his daughter, is Usmanov. Rakhimov cooperates with Usmanov via Gazprom which is a channel for massive slush funds and linkages to offshore financial centres (OFCs). Gazprom's Sergei Kuprianov states: "he [Usmanov] devises vehicles for handling our most difficult and sensitive transactions". In support of this view, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, states that Usmanov "was in charge of Gazprom's bribery and slush funds" and, in his book "Murder In Samarkand" describes human rights abuses including boiling people to death. Reports have claimed that Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service was monitoring Usmanov for alleged links to suspected mafia figures and a report by Lena Smirnova entitled "Uzbekistan: The Disappeared" suggests that cute and cuddly Mr Usmanov is linked to the abduction of Uzbek dissidents living abroad - a view that is supported by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
All in all, in the warped world of Richard Scudamore (the chief executive of the Premier League), Alisher Usmanov is evidently a fit and proper person for potential future ownership of one of the big four English football teams!
Dein has encouraged Arsène Wenger to sign a new contract and claims that the pair will work together again in the future. Wenger was known to be disappointed about the manner of Dein's departure but has remained silent, in public at least, about his views on the developing takeover battle at the Emirates although he is known to be disconcerted about the manner in which English clubs are being bought up by global inappropriates. We await Wenger's views.
Kroenke and R&WH now own 26.77% of the shares in Arsenal which, if they combine forces, would make them the largest single shareholder in the club. It also would put them close to the 29.9% benchmark that would require a takeover bid to be launched.
The battle for the soul of Arsenal is only just beginning.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 31 August 2007
Saturday, 23 June 2007
Propaganda And The Peripheral Press
Busy lives result in many of us having to depend on a variety of externalised sources for our societal information. The previous post suggested that such a dependency is inappropriate and that we are not able to rely on the media to act as an independent channel to the truth. One of the prime ways that media achieves this sleight of hand is via the reframing of an argument, reality or news story. A spectrum of tactics is utilised to divert our attention from where we should be looking to an altogether safer environment where the global elite and the media barons wish for us to look. The media undertakes a critical role in the filtering of information and in the subject matter that is allowed to pass editorial control. As an example, lets look at how media in the west has dealt with the continuing crisis in the Middle East both with respect to the war of terror and the Palestinian crisis.
Firstly, a little background...
The coalition of the willing is active throughout the Middle East with the publicised aim of bringing democracy to the region. The initial spin around the illegal occupation of Iraq was that the west was out to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while unearthing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and bringing the former rulers to summary justice. All of these publicised factors were a veil behind which the reality of the west's agenda lurked - this alleged process of democratisation never mentioned oil or the west's long-term strategic geopolitical agenda in the region.
The USA have not utilised the winning of hearts and minds as a military backcloth since Vietnam. The shock and awe tactics developed against the Vietcong have been the strategy of choice in the intervening years and Iraq is no different. Instead of trying to win popular support, the US has instead approached conflict on a behavioural level whereby tactics are developed that bludgeon the population into an acceptance of western democracy - think Fallujah, for example. Baudrillard famously claimed, quite correctly, that the first Iraq war never actually took place as the armed forces of the protagonists never actually fought each other face to face - as good an example of the triumph of shock and awe over hearts and minds as one is likely to find! The shock and awe mentality has spread through to the gross violations of the Geneva Convention that are represented by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The torture techniques that were successfully utilised against the US in Vietnam have formed the bedrock of America's own tactics in extracting (flawed) information from prisoners in the current phase of the American's imperial agenda. Many of the forms of torture are highly behavioural in style and, yet, are very successful in breaking the wills of the alleged enemy combatants - 24/7 heavy metal music, waterboarding, the use of wild dogs and sexual humiliation have the same collated impact as more physical forms of abuse.
Since the 2nd World War, the US has intervened repeatedly across the planet under the flag of freedom. Initially, it was freedom from communism that allowed the butchery and starvation of many Greek people, for example, to be justified on the grounds that a few starving children were of no relevance when compared with the good fight against the commies. At this time, the CIA was globally active destabilising democratically elected regimes in furtherance of America's imperial aims. As an example, compare how CIA agent Larry Devlin was sent to the Congo to poison the government leader Patrice Lumumba with the huge fuss over the poisoning of some minor Russian recently in London. Lumumba was eventually kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1961 with the acquiescence of the Belgians and Americans. The number of column inches relating to these two news items is revealing.
Bringing the argument up to date, I intend to focus on the attitude of the powers that be to the democratic election of Hamas to rule Palestine. The coalition of the willing are big on democracy (apart from the US 2000 election, that is) and one might have thought that a non-rigged election might be applauded. Don't be soft. Global sanctions were the first tactic to be introduced, followed by the imprisoning of over half the Hamas MPs in Israeli jails. When this failed and a peace deal was reached between Hamas and Fatah that promised the hope of a better future for all Palestinians, the coalition got serious. In February, Condoleeza Rice held meetings with Fatah, Israel and pliant Arab leaders. A strategy was established to provide arms and training to Fatah with the prime purpose of overthrowing a democratically elected government through the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule. Israel loosened their vice-like grip just enough to allow the weapons into the territories with the inevitable result of yet more bloodshed. The Americans also backed the attempted coup against Venezuelan hardman Hugo Chávez in 2003 in an attempt to undermine the man's Bolívarian revolution and we could itemise numerous other recent examples where the coalition of the willing have clearly demonstrated an aversion to democracy when such democracy does not serve their strategic agenda.
So how does our free press deal with this sixty year old global agenda? Quite simply, it doesn't. All coverage of the militaristic agendas of the world's sole superpower is conspicuous by it's absence. For example, look at assassination. The deaths of Litvinenko (the unfortunate Russian) and Rafik Hariri are an omnipresent factor in all news coverage of Russia and our glorious war. But, where is the press coverage for the murders of Yasser Arafat or Savimbi? Or look at the warping of the arguments. The coalition line goes that there can be no accommodation of Hamas until the group recognises Israel's right to exist. Where is the press coverage regarding Likud's lack of recognition of the right of a Palestinian state to exist? The press also wishes for us to perceive these wars in isolation rather than combining them as an ongoing campaign to achieve prescribed military aims.
The conflicts in the Middle East only make full sense when one views the agendas that have been implemented over the last half century in an holistic manner. Look at a map of the region with oil deposits highlighted and all the incremental wars and invasions start to make sense. Oil pipelines, control of the region from Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan are the key factors. Democracy, weapons of mass destruction and alleged assassinations were simply so much spin. The US allows Israel illegally held nuclear weapons but threatens more armageddon if Iran go down the same route. The whole agenda is kneejerkingly simplistic and reactive. By targeting Islam as a whole, America has missed out on a more creative tactic of setting the Shias against the Sunnis at America's bidding and vice versa. Any moral high ground that may have acted as a persuasion to the myopic masses has been totally undermined by illegal war, torture, terror and rabidly non-democratic processes.
Arthur Schlesinger established that the global agenda moves in a series of fits and starts. Every 40 years or so, there is a new climax of psychopathic behaviour that reaches such a crescendo that the elite have to take notice of the masses and, consequently, decelerate. This law is based on the valid premise that most people just wish for an easy life but that when societal, business, governmental and military psychopathy reaches a zenith, the cry goes up that enough is enough and we are all rewarded with a window of pseudo-social living until the next generation can be bought off through their lack of political memory. The last two zeniths were represented by the Depression and the aftermath of Vietnam. Our current cycle began with the nadir of the imposition of shareholder capitalism in the early eighties and the increase in enlightened cynicism is suggestive of an imminent new zenith.
It is by no means certain that the planet will be able to survive the next wave of psychopathy unless considerable restructuring is undertaken in the near future.
And what may we expect from our free press? It is to all of our disadvantages that our present media does not inform us about geopolitical realities and corruptions but chooses to focus instead on propaganda and the periphery. Even in France, 75% of the media is in the possession of just two military defence companies. We cannot expect such organisations to take a neutral line.
In the words of Bertrand Russell: "the authorities no longer have sufficient belief in the justice of their cause to think that it can survive the ordeal of free discussion." Expect more of the same ad nauseum...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Firstly, a little background...
The coalition of the willing is active throughout the Middle East with the publicised aim of bringing democracy to the region. The initial spin around the illegal occupation of Iraq was that the west was out to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while unearthing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and bringing the former rulers to summary justice. All of these publicised factors were a veil behind which the reality of the west's agenda lurked - this alleged process of democratisation never mentioned oil or the west's long-term strategic geopolitical agenda in the region.
The USA have not utilised the winning of hearts and minds as a military backcloth since Vietnam. The shock and awe tactics developed against the Vietcong have been the strategy of choice in the intervening years and Iraq is no different. Instead of trying to win popular support, the US has instead approached conflict on a behavioural level whereby tactics are developed that bludgeon the population into an acceptance of western democracy - think Fallujah, for example. Baudrillard famously claimed, quite correctly, that the first Iraq war never actually took place as the armed forces of the protagonists never actually fought each other face to face - as good an example of the triumph of shock and awe over hearts and minds as one is likely to find! The shock and awe mentality has spread through to the gross violations of the Geneva Convention that are represented by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The torture techniques that were successfully utilised against the US in Vietnam have formed the bedrock of America's own tactics in extracting (flawed) information from prisoners in the current phase of the American's imperial agenda. Many of the forms of torture are highly behavioural in style and, yet, are very successful in breaking the wills of the alleged enemy combatants - 24/7 heavy metal music, waterboarding, the use of wild dogs and sexual humiliation have the same collated impact as more physical forms of abuse.
Since the 2nd World War, the US has intervened repeatedly across the planet under the flag of freedom. Initially, it was freedom from communism that allowed the butchery and starvation of many Greek people, for example, to be justified on the grounds that a few starving children were of no relevance when compared with the good fight against the commies. At this time, the CIA was globally active destabilising democratically elected regimes in furtherance of America's imperial aims. As an example, compare how CIA agent Larry Devlin was sent to the Congo to poison the government leader Patrice Lumumba with the huge fuss over the poisoning of some minor Russian recently in London. Lumumba was eventually kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1961 with the acquiescence of the Belgians and Americans. The number of column inches relating to these two news items is revealing.
Bringing the argument up to date, I intend to focus on the attitude of the powers that be to the democratic election of Hamas to rule Palestine. The coalition of the willing are big on democracy (apart from the US 2000 election, that is) and one might have thought that a non-rigged election might be applauded. Don't be soft. Global sanctions were the first tactic to be introduced, followed by the imprisoning of over half the Hamas MPs in Israeli jails. When this failed and a peace deal was reached between Hamas and Fatah that promised the hope of a better future for all Palestinians, the coalition got serious. In February, Condoleeza Rice held meetings with Fatah, Israel and pliant Arab leaders. A strategy was established to provide arms and training to Fatah with the prime purpose of overthrowing a democratically elected government through the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule. Israel loosened their vice-like grip just enough to allow the weapons into the territories with the inevitable result of yet more bloodshed. The Americans also backed the attempted coup against Venezuelan hardman Hugo Chávez in 2003 in an attempt to undermine the man's Bolívarian revolution and we could itemise numerous other recent examples where the coalition of the willing have clearly demonstrated an aversion to democracy when such democracy does not serve their strategic agenda.
So how does our free press deal with this sixty year old global agenda? Quite simply, it doesn't. All coverage of the militaristic agendas of the world's sole superpower is conspicuous by it's absence. For example, look at assassination. The deaths of Litvinenko (the unfortunate Russian) and Rafik Hariri are an omnipresent factor in all news coverage of Russia and our glorious war. But, where is the press coverage for the murders of Yasser Arafat or Savimbi? Or look at the warping of the arguments. The coalition line goes that there can be no accommodation of Hamas until the group recognises Israel's right to exist. Where is the press coverage regarding Likud's lack of recognition of the right of a Palestinian state to exist? The press also wishes for us to perceive these wars in isolation rather than combining them as an ongoing campaign to achieve prescribed military aims.
The conflicts in the Middle East only make full sense when one views the agendas that have been implemented over the last half century in an holistic manner. Look at a map of the region with oil deposits highlighted and all the incremental wars and invasions start to make sense. Oil pipelines, control of the region from Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan are the key factors. Democracy, weapons of mass destruction and alleged assassinations were simply so much spin. The US allows Israel illegally held nuclear weapons but threatens more armageddon if Iran go down the same route. The whole agenda is kneejerkingly simplistic and reactive. By targeting Islam as a whole, America has missed out on a more creative tactic of setting the Shias against the Sunnis at America's bidding and vice versa. Any moral high ground that may have acted as a persuasion to the myopic masses has been totally undermined by illegal war, torture, terror and rabidly non-democratic processes.
Arthur Schlesinger established that the global agenda moves in a series of fits and starts. Every 40 years or so, there is a new climax of psychopathic behaviour that reaches such a crescendo that the elite have to take notice of the masses and, consequently, decelerate. This law is based on the valid premise that most people just wish for an easy life but that when societal, business, governmental and military psychopathy reaches a zenith, the cry goes up that enough is enough and we are all rewarded with a window of pseudo-social living until the next generation can be bought off through their lack of political memory. The last two zeniths were represented by the Depression and the aftermath of Vietnam. Our current cycle began with the nadir of the imposition of shareholder capitalism in the early eighties and the increase in enlightened cynicism is suggestive of an imminent new zenith.
It is by no means certain that the planet will be able to survive the next wave of psychopathy unless considerable restructuring is undertaken in the near future.
And what may we expect from our free press? It is to all of our disadvantages that our present media does not inform us about geopolitical realities and corruptions but chooses to focus instead on propaganda and the periphery. Even in France, 75% of the media is in the possession of just two military defence companies. We cannot expect such organisations to take a neutral line.
In the words of Bertrand Russell: "the authorities no longer have sufficient belief in the justice of their cause to think that it can survive the ordeal of free discussion." Expect more of the same ad nauseum...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 14 May 2007
The Freakonomics Of English Premiership Football
Never again will Mr Graham Poll referee a Premiership football game unless the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) and the Premiership are able to develop some random reason to provide Poll with another season of experimental officiating. We always expected that Poll would go out with a bang but his selection for Portsmouth's end of season earner with Arsenal (which also existed on a secondary and tertiary level as a match to determine Portsmouth's UEFA Cup qualification and Arsenal's bid for 3rd place) was a good final fling for the Thing from Tring. The match did not exist as a truly competitive event - if either club was really focused on the potential gains of a victory, they would not have been resting half their respective teams. Also, there might have been a booking or two. The dominant structure on the match was the late betting market in both Asia and Europe as a massive late gamble (one of the largest of the season) cascaded on Portsmouth. Graham Poll is a master of control of such events and his Asian links will be sorely missed on an impact level for the powers-that-be in the Premiership. The timeline of events relating to Portsmouth's disallowed goal are revealing:
Portsmouth score; Poll gives goal; assistant referee signals goal; assistant referee changes his mind; Poll changes his mind; no goal. Perhaps the PGMOB could release the communications from the miked up officials (both on and off the pitch). We confidently expect that Mr Poll, a year's extension notwithstanding, will achieve significant hierarchical achievement elsewhere within the game of global football. The PGMOB will also be glad to see the back of Dermot Gallagher (who also retires at the end of the season) and we share their pleasure although we expect a conveyor belt of suitably obedient individuals to replace these reptiles.
Elsewhere, the bookmakers ensured that the final round of matches of the 2006/07 season filled their satchels to bursting. In the English Premiership, the unlikely happens regularly.
The matches at Liverpool and Chelsea were standard template end of season agreed draws and a draw is virtually always good news for the layers. Indeed six of the last round of games of minimal or no significance finished with a level scoreline.
The other major news (from press coverage, far more significant than the genocide in Darfur or the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been the soap played out in East London. We have previously stated our views on the West Ham United abuse of power in several posts (most recently, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/magnussens-millions-save-day.html). We have remained silent over the season's conclusion as we had no desire to impact upon our proprietary trading activities but, now that the season is over, there are a few extra pertinent points that need to be raised regarding club power in the Premiership. As we stated in the previous post, the reasons provided for the non-deduction of points as punishment for undertaking business dealings with Media Sports Investment (MSI) were selective and spurious. The only justice-based sentence would have seen the Hammers relegated (having "great" fans and the season's late stage being rather flippant justifications, really). The degree of external support, aside from that given by the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, has been extensive. So confident were William Hill bookmakers that Manchester United wouldn't win their final match of the season against West Ham that they offered new customers a "free" bet on Man Utd at Even money - the actual market odds were around 8/13 (1.62). We do not believe that such an offer would have been made on one of the biggest betting days of the year without confidence in an outcome that was virtually absolute in it's corrupt structure. I have no desire to go into details but Manchester United were never going to win this game and Atkinson's penalty refusal against O'Shea was only the last of a run of favourable decisions that have fallen in the Hammer's favour in the season run in (remember the ludicrous "goal", penalty and sending off given in their favour by Howard Webb at Blackburn, for example). So, eventually, with the help of the FA, the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, the PGMOB and some of their opponents, West Ham United have survived in the Premiership.
Dichotomous attention has been given to Wigan Athletic and they have been, by far, the most negatively targeted outfit in the top league (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html). This manipulation continued right to the final whistle of their match at Sheffield at the weekend. Dean did provide them with a penalty after having earlier denied them two other spotkicks but the decision he gave could only have been more blatant if Jagielka had caught the ball and run out of the penalty box in a rugby stylee! Still no equaliser for the Yorksiremen and with Wigan tiring, Dean harshly sent off McCulloch but the Latics held on and, deservedly, stay in the Premiership (despite a total of ten minutes injury time). Emile Heskey was omnipresent and showed his high quality which has been constantly publicly devalued since he was unfortunate enough to be Michael Owen's partner when the little man wasn't always putting everything into his game.
Sheffield's demotion will be fought through the courts and Wigan's Dave Whelan has promised backing. There are now known to be seven teams who are collaborating to confront the Premier League. Scudamore was scurrying around late last week utilising the standard English approach to a crisis - divide and rule and, if no luck there, bribe. By arranging meetings with some of these clubs and by the variable conversational constructs that are alleged to have been put forward by Scudamore in these meetings, the Premier League has merely given a vivid statement to the opposition with regard to the weakness of the Premier League's position which is not known to be a particularly successful legal practice. There was a desperation by English spectacular football society to keep the West Ham scandal out of the global gaze for the climax of the season - the latest Quest update was also delayed until after the season's end. Scudamore's shuttle diplomacy thinly veiled as bribery was a final desperate attempt to be able to market the Premiership as successful and clean as opposed to corrupt and tainted.
There are other peripheral affairs that have devalued both the title race and the relegation issues - the agreement between Man Utd and Everton over Tim Howard's non-appearance against his former club in a very massive game; the media and bookmaker's milking of a non-existent title race to bolster their profits; Fulham surviving through beating a pub team from the Wirral; agreed mutually beneficial results (preferably with a little bit of private betting activity on the side); the input of PGMOB referees etc etc.
And, we are supposed to see this as competitive level playing field. The Premiership and Serie A have many similar corrupt structures and the conclusion of this season's English league will provide us with a summer of fake intrigue as the authorities and the judiciary deal with the issues. Points deductions and potential punitive relegations have been exported from the Italian game and, by performing such non-viable contortions, the Premier League has ensured, just as in Italy, that every future disciplinary decision will be measured by the yardstick of West Ham United. As the authorities are, in reality, giving West Ham £45m as a punishment then we should expect similar arbitrariness throughout any processes in the future. The sole determinants of outcome will be power/money. Over the last year, the following Premiership clubs have had minimal or no punishment despite links to corruption via bungs or illegal gambling or breaking Premiership rules or more than one of these illegalities:
Bolton Wanderers; Charlton Athletic; Chelsea; Liverpool; Manchester United; Middlesbrough; Newcastle; Portsmouth; West Ham United.
Unsurprisingly, Bury, Rotherham United and, for that matter, Sheffield United have not been similarly fortunate.
The sooner that the English population at large accepts this corrupt edifice in it's full gory glory the better. This is the prime reason why we repeatedly provide you with examples and updates of earlier examples of the ruination of our game. In Italy, which mimics our corrupt infrastructure in many ways, society accepts the power machinations in sport and politics. Dietrologia is the Italian word for "the study of what is behind something" ie a study of corruption. No Italian dinner party is complete without a couple of hours of healthy dietrologia. It is a significantly preferable psychological profile to address one's reality than to blinker one's existential boundaries to what it suits one to believe. And, it is more fun. Watching Graham Poll's last hurrah was much more interesting than the random walk of the twenty two players and the ball. I'll miss him for that at least - he was better than a shit game of football...
Portsmouth score; Poll gives goal; assistant referee signals goal; assistant referee changes his mind; Poll changes his mind; no goal. Perhaps the PGMOB could release the communications from the miked up officials (both on and off the pitch). We confidently expect that Mr Poll, a year's extension notwithstanding, will achieve significant hierarchical achievement elsewhere within the game of global football. The PGMOB will also be glad to see the back of Dermot Gallagher (who also retires at the end of the season) and we share their pleasure although we expect a conveyor belt of suitably obedient individuals to replace these reptiles.
Elsewhere, the bookmakers ensured that the final round of matches of the 2006/07 season filled their satchels to bursting. In the English Premiership, the unlikely happens regularly.
The matches at Liverpool and Chelsea were standard template end of season agreed draws and a draw is virtually always good news for the layers. Indeed six of the last round of games of minimal or no significance finished with a level scoreline.
The other major news (from press coverage, far more significant than the genocide in Darfur or the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been the soap played out in East London. We have previously stated our views on the West Ham United abuse of power in several posts (most recently, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/magnussens-millions-save-day.html). We have remained silent over the season's conclusion as we had no desire to impact upon our proprietary trading activities but, now that the season is over, there are a few extra pertinent points that need to be raised regarding club power in the Premiership. As we stated in the previous post, the reasons provided for the non-deduction of points as punishment for undertaking business dealings with Media Sports Investment (MSI) were selective and spurious. The only justice-based sentence would have seen the Hammers relegated (having "great" fans and the season's late stage being rather flippant justifications, really). The degree of external support, aside from that given by the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, has been extensive. So confident were William Hill bookmakers that Manchester United wouldn't win their final match of the season against West Ham that they offered new customers a "free" bet on Man Utd at Even money - the actual market odds were around 8/13 (1.62). We do not believe that such an offer would have been made on one of the biggest betting days of the year without confidence in an outcome that was virtually absolute in it's corrupt structure. I have no desire to go into details but Manchester United were never going to win this game and Atkinson's penalty refusal against O'Shea was only the last of a run of favourable decisions that have fallen in the Hammer's favour in the season run in (remember the ludicrous "goal", penalty and sending off given in their favour by Howard Webb at Blackburn, for example). So, eventually, with the help of the FA, the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, the PGMOB and some of their opponents, West Ham United have survived in the Premiership.
Dichotomous attention has been given to Wigan Athletic and they have been, by far, the most negatively targeted outfit in the top league (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html). This manipulation continued right to the final whistle of their match at Sheffield at the weekend. Dean did provide them with a penalty after having earlier denied them two other spotkicks but the decision he gave could only have been more blatant if Jagielka had caught the ball and run out of the penalty box in a rugby stylee! Still no equaliser for the Yorksiremen and with Wigan tiring, Dean harshly sent off McCulloch but the Latics held on and, deservedly, stay in the Premiership (despite a total of ten minutes injury time). Emile Heskey was omnipresent and showed his high quality which has been constantly publicly devalued since he was unfortunate enough to be Michael Owen's partner when the little man wasn't always putting everything into his game.
Sheffield's demotion will be fought through the courts and Wigan's Dave Whelan has promised backing. There are now known to be seven teams who are collaborating to confront the Premier League. Scudamore was scurrying around late last week utilising the standard English approach to a crisis - divide and rule and, if no luck there, bribe. By arranging meetings with some of these clubs and by the variable conversational constructs that are alleged to have been put forward by Scudamore in these meetings, the Premier League has merely given a vivid statement to the opposition with regard to the weakness of the Premier League's position which is not known to be a particularly successful legal practice. There was a desperation by English spectacular football society to keep the West Ham scandal out of the global gaze for the climax of the season - the latest Quest update was also delayed until after the season's end. Scudamore's shuttle diplomacy thinly veiled as bribery was a final desperate attempt to be able to market the Premiership as successful and clean as opposed to corrupt and tainted.
There are other peripheral affairs that have devalued both the title race and the relegation issues - the agreement between Man Utd and Everton over Tim Howard's non-appearance against his former club in a very massive game; the media and bookmaker's milking of a non-existent title race to bolster their profits; Fulham surviving through beating a pub team from the Wirral; agreed mutually beneficial results (preferably with a little bit of private betting activity on the side); the input of PGMOB referees etc etc.
And, we are supposed to see this as competitive level playing field. The Premiership and Serie A have many similar corrupt structures and the conclusion of this season's English league will provide us with a summer of fake intrigue as the authorities and the judiciary deal with the issues. Points deductions and potential punitive relegations have been exported from the Italian game and, by performing such non-viable contortions, the Premier League has ensured, just as in Italy, that every future disciplinary decision will be measured by the yardstick of West Ham United. As the authorities are, in reality, giving West Ham £45m as a punishment then we should expect similar arbitrariness throughout any processes in the future. The sole determinants of outcome will be power/money. Over the last year, the following Premiership clubs have had minimal or no punishment despite links to corruption via bungs or illegal gambling or breaking Premiership rules or more than one of these illegalities:
Bolton Wanderers; Charlton Athletic; Chelsea; Liverpool; Manchester United; Middlesbrough; Newcastle; Portsmouth; West Ham United.
Unsurprisingly, Bury, Rotherham United and, for that matter, Sheffield United have not been similarly fortunate.
The sooner that the English population at large accepts this corrupt edifice in it's full gory glory the better. This is the prime reason why we repeatedly provide you with examples and updates of earlier examples of the ruination of our game. In Italy, which mimics our corrupt infrastructure in many ways, society accepts the power machinations in sport and politics. Dietrologia is the Italian word for "the study of what is behind something" ie a study of corruption. No Italian dinner party is complete without a couple of hours of healthy dietrologia. It is a significantly preferable psychological profile to address one's reality than to blinker one's existential boundaries to what it suits one to believe. And, it is more fun. Watching Graham Poll's last hurrah was much more interesting than the random walk of the twenty two players and the ball. I'll miss him for that at least - he was better than a shit game of football...
Friday, 5 January 2007
20 Reasons Not To Bet On British Horseracing
British horseracing is riddled with corruption. 10 years ago, I undertook a PhD at The Centre for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at Salford University and my thesis was entitled "The Impact of Conspicuous Money on Outcome in British Horseracing Markets".
Via the catalyst of my tutor, Professor Neville Topham, I was able to meet with the powerbrokers of the industry sector in this country. One of the most fascinating series of encounters was with Rodney Brack - the Chief Executive of the British Horserace Betting Levy Board (BHBLB). In the initial interactions, we discussed the mechanisms that allow certain key operators within the sport to affect the outcome of races. Jokes were shared and there was a general air of good-natured bonhomie.
Prior to a later meeting at the BHBLB offices in London, Mr Brack had decided to do a background check on me. The Direct Action Movement, the Hunt Saboteurs and the Animal Liberation Front came up and, suddenly, we were at a very different race meeting! The CEO moved into duplicitous overdrive and everything that had been black was now white and vice versa. Corruption? Nonsense. Fixed races? You are biased. Previous discussions? Denials. I considered going public with my proof of the corruption in horseracing but eventually decided to utilise my knowledge in a more creative manner.
Below are the prime reasons why one shouldn't go anywhere near horserace betting markets unless you are muscled up with either inside information from the horse's mouth (as it were) or a state-of-the-art trading model.
1. For most races, the outcome is determined by betting patterns and liabilities. Form is virtually irrelevant. These betting patterns are not publicly available.
2. In football, we must endure corrupt players, referees and managers. The parallels in racing are jockeys, clerks of racecourses, trainers/owners. Corrupt bookmakers and industry sector officials are ubiquitous in both sports.
3. Never bet on the All Weather. These events are the most corrupted and randomised.
4. Many stables are betting stables and they employ proprietary trading strategies that can only be deciphered by a few select individuals. This adds volatility to the market.
5. Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) are used widely in the sport.
6. All sources of potentially valuable information are industry-owned and, consequently, cannot be trusted.
7. Gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. Very few bookmakers allow winning accounts.
8. It is cruel.
9. The watering of racecourses (ostensibly to soften the ground) is a very manipulative tool that significantly affects the results of races.
10. The jockeys are well paid but obedient and they carry out the instructions of the key market operators.
11. The Racing Post and The Sporting Life and ALL the mainstream media print the information that the betting industry wishes them to print. Disinformation is the norm.
12. The technology utilised for photo finishes is able to be manipulated.
13. On the few occasions when there is a certainty, nobody will lay you a decent sized bet without cropping your price.
14. Betting rings are full of criminals, psychopaths, posh totty and associated slime merchants - it is not a sophisticated office space with it's permanent stench of corruption. Most people are losing money and, subconciously, they understand that they are being taken for a ride.
15. It panders to the establishment and reinforces class issues. Your money allows the upper and upper-middle classes to give prizes to each other; it provides taxation for the government and profit for the bookies and their shareholders.
16. Some of the leading Saudi owners have very opaque strategies for the horses in their ownership. It can seem like the equivalent of deciphering OPEC at times.
17. The key traders place their bets in private very early or as late as possible on the rails. The big betting firms only play the ring in the period leading up to the race. One must maximise the information to be competitive in such corrupted markets and it is often difficult to get your money on late.
18. The handicapping of racehorses is manipulated in favour of insiders.
19. Like the gypsy musicians in Romania, Irish trainers and jockeys are given respect by the establishment in this country. But it is a lacklustre, sneering and condescending respect - these people still think Eire is part of the British empire.
20. It is not a sport. It is a rigged casino game transferred to the countryside. Only a small minority of horseraces in this country are totally clean.
Via the catalyst of my tutor, Professor Neville Topham, I was able to meet with the powerbrokers of the industry sector in this country. One of the most fascinating series of encounters was with Rodney Brack - the Chief Executive of the British Horserace Betting Levy Board (BHBLB). In the initial interactions, we discussed the mechanisms that allow certain key operators within the sport to affect the outcome of races. Jokes were shared and there was a general air of good-natured bonhomie.
Prior to a later meeting at the BHBLB offices in London, Mr Brack had decided to do a background check on me. The Direct Action Movement, the Hunt Saboteurs and the Animal Liberation Front came up and, suddenly, we were at a very different race meeting! The CEO moved into duplicitous overdrive and everything that had been black was now white and vice versa. Corruption? Nonsense. Fixed races? You are biased. Previous discussions? Denials. I considered going public with my proof of the corruption in horseracing but eventually decided to utilise my knowledge in a more creative manner.
Below are the prime reasons why one shouldn't go anywhere near horserace betting markets unless you are muscled up with either inside information from the horse's mouth (as it were) or a state-of-the-art trading model.
1. For most races, the outcome is determined by betting patterns and liabilities. Form is virtually irrelevant. These betting patterns are not publicly available.
2. In football, we must endure corrupt players, referees and managers. The parallels in racing are jockeys, clerks of racecourses, trainers/owners. Corrupt bookmakers and industry sector officials are ubiquitous in both sports.
3. Never bet on the All Weather. These events are the most corrupted and randomised.
4. Many stables are betting stables and they employ proprietary trading strategies that can only be deciphered by a few select individuals. This adds volatility to the market.
5. Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) are used widely in the sport.
6. All sources of potentially valuable information are industry-owned and, consequently, cannot be trusted.
7. Gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. Very few bookmakers allow winning accounts.
8. It is cruel.
9. The watering of racecourses (ostensibly to soften the ground) is a very manipulative tool that significantly affects the results of races.
10. The jockeys are well paid but obedient and they carry out the instructions of the key market operators.
11. The Racing Post and The Sporting Life and ALL the mainstream media print the information that the betting industry wishes them to print. Disinformation is the norm.
12. The technology utilised for photo finishes is able to be manipulated.
13. On the few occasions when there is a certainty, nobody will lay you a decent sized bet without cropping your price.
14. Betting rings are full of criminals, psychopaths, posh totty and associated slime merchants - it is not a sophisticated office space with it's permanent stench of corruption. Most people are losing money and, subconciously, they understand that they are being taken for a ride.
15. It panders to the establishment and reinforces class issues. Your money allows the upper and upper-middle classes to give prizes to each other; it provides taxation for the government and profit for the bookies and their shareholders.
16. Some of the leading Saudi owners have very opaque strategies for the horses in their ownership. It can seem like the equivalent of deciphering OPEC at times.
17. The key traders place their bets in private very early or as late as possible on the rails. The big betting firms only play the ring in the period leading up to the race. One must maximise the information to be competitive in such corrupted markets and it is often difficult to get your money on late.
18. The handicapping of racehorses is manipulated in favour of insiders.
19. Like the gypsy musicians in Romania, Irish trainers and jockeys are given respect by the establishment in this country. But it is a lacklustre, sneering and condescending respect - these people still think Eire is part of the British empire.
20. It is not a sport. It is a rigged casino game transferred to the countryside. Only a small minority of horseraces in this country are totally clean.
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