When BBC Panorama aired the programme regarding bungs in English football over four months ago, 6 clubs were highlighted or implicated in the production - Portsmouth, Bolton, Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea and Middlesbrough.
Although the Quest/ Stevens report was a cover up (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/bung-it-in-bin.html and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/justice-not-even-seen-to-be-done.html), an observer might have expected subliminal punishment to be administered to the loose cannon clubs.
In other European territories, this is a standard method of effectively handicapping recalcitrant clubs without such punishment being obvious to the audience.
To check for evidence, we analysed the match data both for the whole season and the period following the Panorama documentary to see if refereeing bias was any different for the six clubs in comparison with the remainder of the clubs in the division.
And there is a difference...
The six clubs have actually been MORE favoured by officials both since the programme and over the whole season when compared with the other 14 teams. Although the statistical significance of this statement is borderline, there is most certainly no evidence that the teams that were fingered on Panorama have been on the receiving end. Indeed, Newcastle are the most favoured team with respect to referees decision making in 2006/07.
Quest's investigation will surely wither away and die. The outcome of the report would have been significantly harder to bury away if Quest had looked further back than the two year period that was covered.
Just as the public will not find out which Premiership manager placed £12m of bets on football matches over one season with Victor Chandler International (by the way, that's an average of £32,000 on every single match), neither will the true murky depths of the transfer market be laid bare for all to see.
