Fabien Barthez was attacked by his own team's fans in the club car park following Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Rennes which virtually condemns les Canaris to Ligue 2 for next season. The slippery slaphead has, subsequently, decided to leave relegation stricken Nantes with immediate effect as his work there is done. Rudi Roussillon, the Nantes president, reckons that Barthez had been "traumatised" and had "gone to find some comfort with his family" following the episode in which five fans tried to pull him from his car following ninety minutes of anti-Barthez chanting from sections of the club's fans.
We do not condone violence but Barthez has made a career of brinksmanship both in his on and off field endeavours and his attitude to risk was always likely to result in confrontation with someone at some point. As we have previously posted (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/02/yo-eo.html), Barthez has continued his historical match manipulations since coming out of retirement for an extra little earner at Nantes.
All professional analysts were aware of the foibles of Barthez when Ferguson made the error of signing him for Manchester United - we could itemise numerous matches at Marseille where his performances were closely correlated to suspicious patterns in the betting markets. His behaviour continued at Old Trafford and he was directly responsible for several interesting outcomes in major televised games before his absolute non-performance for United in their 6-5 aggregate loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League Quarter Final in 2002/03 which finally persuaded Sir Alex to grab the axe (check out the man's "efforts" to prevent Ronaldo's hat trick).
During his time in Manchester, Barthez was a bit of a fixture in the city's casinos. Indeed, there were jokes at the time that he undertook his match training at the poker tables. When our Trading Team assess the corrupt players within the game, it is surprising how frequently an interest in casinos/gambling forms part of the psychological profile. Inevitably, if one mixes with the crooked it becomes more likely that one's reality becomes warped to a lowest common denominator level.
There are two varieties of player that put betting market activities ahead of their professionalism - the solo operator and the player who acts adjacently to bookmaking organisations. It is significantly more likely that players who socialise with market makers are eventually going to be owned by them whether such ownership be related to a shared strategy or a power gradient often related to blackmail (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-queer-up-north.html). The bookmakers particularly target goalkeepers due to the enhanced impact of a goalkeeping error on the outcome of a match. Additionally, fans seem to have decided (probably quite correctly) that goalkeepers must be a little eccentric and, consequently, nicknames like "the clown" (Bruce Grobbelaar) and "calamity" (David James) may be utilised to disguise the keeper's hidden agendas. As regular readers will be aware, the layers do not solely target goalkeepers but outfield players must be critical to a team's success if their underperformance is to have the desired effect. Leisure traders often make the error that one criminalised player merely results in a team playing a man light but this simplicity undervalues the collective impact of a corrupt insider. When a forward is owned by the bookmakers, his lack of effort effectively removes the other forward(s) from the game and a "quarterback" midfielder can break up all of a team's attacks with ease resulting in a far greater impact on match outcome. In addition to positional priorities, the bookmakers also aim high with respect to the quality of the player - there evidently being little to gain from owning an infrequently used substitute right back, for example. Barthez, like David James, is at the very top of his profession when he acts honestly which is one of the factors that makes it so simple for analysts to determine the manipulators - excessive variation in match performance correlated with betting patterns is always a worrying sign with regard to integrity.
A corrupt player has two prime non-betting concerns. Firstly, the player must maintain a profile that ensures his place in the team and, secondly, the player must convince the fans. Barthez has repeatedly fallen short of these targets throughout his career simply because he pushes it too far. Barthez operates to a standard template. When he first arrives at a club or on the arrival of a new manager, he cements his place in the team prior to undertaking his corrupt activities. The data below relates to his period at Nantes this season in Le Championnat games together with external breakpoints (the figures in brackets relate to goals conceded/shots on target).
Nantes 1 Nice 0 - (0/2)
Troyes 1 Nantes 0 - (1/9)
Barthez falls out with manager Georges Eo over having to attend training.
Nantes 0 Lorient 2 - (2/5)
Nantes 2 Valenciennes 5 - (5/8)
Georges Eo sacked.
Marseille 0 Nantes 0 - (0/9)
Nantes 1 Auxerre 1 - (1/6)
Sochaux 1 Nantes 2 - (1/5)
Nantes 2 Nancy 1 - (1/4)
Monaco 2 Nantes 1 - (2/2)
Barthez substituted after dreadful error in Sedan game.
Saint-Etienne 2 Nantes 1 - (2/9)
Nantes 0 Lens 0 - (0/1)
PSG 4 Nantes 0 - (4/7)
Nantes 0 Rennes 2 - (2/7)
Comparing Barthez's performance in the games where he is focused on positive performance as opposed to other external concerns is revealing. Barthez has let in six goals from 45 shots on target when he has his professional hat on and fifteen goals from 29 shots on target when he is otherwise engaged. There is evidently a slight differential between 13% and 52% shot-to-goal ratios. We could back up our argument with details from certain betting markets but our legal people have said "non".
We advised readers to short sell Nantes as soon as Barthez arrived at FC Nantes Atlantique and further emphasised our opposition when Michel Der Zakarian replaced Eo. We hope that this tawdry episode is the final occasion that Barthez is able to enhance his bank balances at the expense of the fans, his teams and the game.
Monday, 30 April 2007
Saturday, 28 April 2007
HRH Queen Elizabeth II To Invest In Arsenal?
When Ladbrokes (or any other major bookmaker) disclose details of alleged insider gambling on an event or an occurrence, the default response of any right minded individual should be enlightened cynicism. Yesterday's spectacular society news that Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, has approached English Championship team Southampton with a view to a takeover bid falls into this territory. Apparently, Mr Allen is attracted by his love of the south coast region and the family image of the club. Yeah right... Leading global investors always base their financial decisions on such minutiae.
Checking out the timeline on this news story is revealing. Bookmakers reported a frenzy of betting activity on Southampton returning to the Premiership by 2008 with a Ladbrokes spokesperson adding that "if an Abramovich-type figure arrived at a Championship club it would completely change the goalposts" and "we have had inquiries for some pretty hefty sums...". The London Evening Standard (a bastion of journalistic integrity) offered support for the fallacy and, in response to this media disinformation, the share price of Southampton Leisure Holdings plc climbed 35% in one day. After all the mugs had been accommodated at both the Stock Exchange and the bookmakers came the outright denial from a spokesperson for Paul Allen. To quote the spokesperson "there is no truth to the rumour and Mr Allen does not have any interest in purchasing or making a bid on this football team. I'm not sure where the rumour was started but it's certainly not true".
Southampton have been saddled with long term debt since jumping on the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) bandwagon so beloved by Britain's neo-conservative government. The PFI allows major infrastructural schemes to go ahead without the government of the day having to dip into treasury coffers while allowing private masonic firms to profit handsomely at the expense of British taxpayers - typical of the short-termism that seemingly underpins all aspects of a shareholder capitalist society. There is no doubt that Southampton have been seeking investment and talks with Mr Allen's representatives may have taken place but the outright denial tends to prick the disinformational balloon.
Looking more closely at the various actor's hidden agendas usually reveals the truth behind such breaking news. Firstly, why would any bookmaker release information suggesting a particular market outcome unless they are fully aware that such information is bobbins? The corrupt and psychopathic nature of these organisations does not lend itself to altruism towards the clients who are there to be taken advantage of at all opportunities. Secondly, Southampton have been seeking external investment since getting rid of tweed-clad twit Rupert Lowe. There is no better manner to generate a perception of value in a particular investment than a public portrayal of interest from a first world operator like Mr. Allen or Thaksin Shinawatra (with regard to Manchester City). The former will elicit other interested investors while the latter will bump up the price that Ray Ransom's consortium will be expected to pay for the Blues. Thirdly, the disinformation sells newspapers.
Inside information is a key aspect of all market analysis and numerous academic studies have attempted to determine the impact of such knowledge in the marketplace. All inside information takes on the form of a chain - in this manner, it shares parallels with pyramid selling schemes. If the information is true, the initial recipients of the valued data possess a considerable first mover advantage as the markets are inefficient in that all public information is not in the price. By the time this information has reached the press, any value will have disappeared. Indeed, often the price will overshoot due to a market overreaction and there is analytical validity to taking a contrary position when the informational trend peaks - short selling Southampton's shares late on Friday afternoon for example. If the inside information is fallacious then, once again, insiders can profit by the trading activities of the uninformed either via creative arbitrage or selling/buying at the peak/trough.
The key aspect of inside information for a market analyst is the ownership of the information. If Ladbrokes are telling the world to bet on Southampton then the natural inclination should be to question why they are telling you this. The only inside information that I believe in is the sort that is primary in source ie a trusted contact with the ability to influence an outcome informs me of such information on an exclusive basis. Additionally, there are occasions where I include non-primary inside information in my analysis but this occurrence is dependent on other people putting their own money where their mouths are! The legendary horseracing professional gambler Phil Bull solved this conundrum quite simply. Bull hammered the bookmakers for many years by staying out of the loop and trading on his own proprietary analysis. Often he would find himself in the position where the world and his dog were aware that such and such a horse was up for a particular race. If this information did not correlate with his proprietary analysis, he ignored it. He often joked that he accepted the occasional missed position in the knowledge that 90% of the time his strategy worked.
The most entertaining aspect of this whole charade is the rumour circulating the trading rooms this morning that a certain Harry Redknapp is among the people handsomely profiting from this non-news event. Redknapp, whose contacts allegedly made £16 million from Betfair through insider trading on his managerial move from Southampton back to Portsmouth, is akin to Ian Paisley in the six counties - nothing but nothing happens in his territory without his approval and/or knowledge. At the time, the inappropriately rich Mr Redknapp playfully quipped "all I know is that my two sons got the needle and said, 'thanks dad, it seems everyone's had a bet on you except us'".
Sweet... Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it?
Checking out the timeline on this news story is revealing. Bookmakers reported a frenzy of betting activity on Southampton returning to the Premiership by 2008 with a Ladbrokes spokesperson adding that "if an Abramovich-type figure arrived at a Championship club it would completely change the goalposts" and "we have had inquiries for some pretty hefty sums...". The London Evening Standard (a bastion of journalistic integrity) offered support for the fallacy and, in response to this media disinformation, the share price of Southampton Leisure Holdings plc climbed 35% in one day. After all the mugs had been accommodated at both the Stock Exchange and the bookmakers came the outright denial from a spokesperson for Paul Allen. To quote the spokesperson "there is no truth to the rumour and Mr Allen does not have any interest in purchasing or making a bid on this football team. I'm not sure where the rumour was started but it's certainly not true".
Southampton have been saddled with long term debt since jumping on the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) bandwagon so beloved by Britain's neo-conservative government. The PFI allows major infrastructural schemes to go ahead without the government of the day having to dip into treasury coffers while allowing private masonic firms to profit handsomely at the expense of British taxpayers - typical of the short-termism that seemingly underpins all aspects of a shareholder capitalist society. There is no doubt that Southampton have been seeking investment and talks with Mr Allen's representatives may have taken place but the outright denial tends to prick the disinformational balloon.
Looking more closely at the various actor's hidden agendas usually reveals the truth behind such breaking news. Firstly, why would any bookmaker release information suggesting a particular market outcome unless they are fully aware that such information is bobbins? The corrupt and psychopathic nature of these organisations does not lend itself to altruism towards the clients who are there to be taken advantage of at all opportunities. Secondly, Southampton have been seeking external investment since getting rid of tweed-clad twit Rupert Lowe. There is no better manner to generate a perception of value in a particular investment than a public portrayal of interest from a first world operator like Mr. Allen or Thaksin Shinawatra (with regard to Manchester City). The former will elicit other interested investors while the latter will bump up the price that Ray Ransom's consortium will be expected to pay for the Blues. Thirdly, the disinformation sells newspapers.
Inside information is a key aspect of all market analysis and numerous academic studies have attempted to determine the impact of such knowledge in the marketplace. All inside information takes on the form of a chain - in this manner, it shares parallels with pyramid selling schemes. If the information is true, the initial recipients of the valued data possess a considerable first mover advantage as the markets are inefficient in that all public information is not in the price. By the time this information has reached the press, any value will have disappeared. Indeed, often the price will overshoot due to a market overreaction and there is analytical validity to taking a contrary position when the informational trend peaks - short selling Southampton's shares late on Friday afternoon for example. If the inside information is fallacious then, once again, insiders can profit by the trading activities of the uninformed either via creative arbitrage or selling/buying at the peak/trough.
The key aspect of inside information for a market analyst is the ownership of the information. If Ladbrokes are telling the world to bet on Southampton then the natural inclination should be to question why they are telling you this. The only inside information that I believe in is the sort that is primary in source ie a trusted contact with the ability to influence an outcome informs me of such information on an exclusive basis. Additionally, there are occasions where I include non-primary inside information in my analysis but this occurrence is dependent on other people putting their own money where their mouths are! The legendary horseracing professional gambler Phil Bull solved this conundrum quite simply. Bull hammered the bookmakers for many years by staying out of the loop and trading on his own proprietary analysis. Often he would find himself in the position where the world and his dog were aware that such and such a horse was up for a particular race. If this information did not correlate with his proprietary analysis, he ignored it. He often joked that he accepted the occasional missed position in the knowledge that 90% of the time his strategy worked.
The most entertaining aspect of this whole charade is the rumour circulating the trading rooms this morning that a certain Harry Redknapp is among the people handsomely profiting from this non-news event. Redknapp, whose contacts allegedly made £16 million from Betfair through insider trading on his managerial move from Southampton back to Portsmouth, is akin to Ian Paisley in the six counties - nothing but nothing happens in his territory without his approval and/or knowledge. At the time, the inappropriately rich Mr Redknapp playfully quipped "all I know is that my two sons got the needle and said, 'thanks dad, it seems everyone's had a bet on you except us'".
Sweet... Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it?
Friday, 27 April 2007
Magnussen's Millions Save The Day
The record Premiership fine of £5.5 million ($11 million) handed out to West Ham United over the illegal registrations of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano is fifty per cent of a right and proper punishment. The FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel decided in it's wisdom that the mitigating factors should not result in the Hammers receiving a punishment of points deduction that would have effectively ended their two year hiatus in the top flight. Firstly, let's look at the facts of this case.
West Ham were desperate to complete the signings of the two Argentinians prior to the August transfer deadline and illegally entered into third party contracts involving four offshore companies to ensure that the players arrived from Corinthians in time. The players registrations were owned by a shadowy London-based outfit called Media Sports Investment (MSI) headed by Iranian businessman Kia Joorabchian. The word in the gutter is that MSI is a front for the operational manipulations of controversial Israeli agent Pini Zahavi together with Roman Abramovich. Indeed, there were many words in the gutter at the time of the transfers regarding the potential takeover of West Ham by MSI which would, in all likelihood, have led to West Ham merely taking on the form of Chelsea reserves. The MSI takeover fell through and the East Londoners were instead purchased using the profits from Eggert Magnussen's St Petersburg/Leningrad brewing empire.
West Ham United were fined a record amount (eighteen times the amount Chelsea were fined for tapping up Cashley Cole) for both the "obvious and deliberate breach of the rules" and for "dishonesty and deceit" in keeping the contracts from the prying eyes of the Premier League.
So far, all is well and good. But, why are there no points deductions for the Hammers? The disciplinary panel wheel out numerous smokescreens including the change of club ownership in November, the guilty plea and, most peculiarly, the season being at a crucial stage where the impact of points deduction would be greater than if it had been imposed midway through the campaign.
So what? There are several pertinent points here:
1) Javier Mascherano moved to Liverpool on January 31st which is when the irregularities first came to light. To use the fact that the FA Premier League decided to hold the inquiry in late April as a reason for no points deduction is a rather selective argument to put it mildly.
2) The defence of change of ownership also possesses a certain arbitrariness. Paul Aldridge (the former chief executive) was not even called as a witness which is a fairly neat way to filter the truth but Scott Duxbury, who was in charge of legal and commercial affairs at the time of the deal, remains a director of West Ham. Duxbury claims that he was unaware of the rules governing third party influences over players. Change of ownership then but not change in personnel.
3) Rotherham United have been deducted 10 points this season which has resulted in their relegation from England's League One. This formed part of an agreement with creditors without which the Yorkshiremen would have gone out of existence. In Serie A, Siena were similarly targeted with a 1 point penalty for a delay in payment of social security contributions. This penalty may also influence their relegation battle. And Bury were thrown out of the FA Cup for playing a non-registered player. Judicial equivalence would suggest that each of these three crimes fade into insignificance when compared with the misdemeanours perpetrated at West Ham.
4) West Ham United have gained numerous points through the skills of Carlos Tevez in particular - the man was not named supporter's player of the year for nothing. In every previous case that we are able to find of illegally registered players being included in teams, proportionality between points gained and points deducted has been the norm.
5) As we have stated previously, West Ham were heavily favoured by the match officials last season both in the Premiership and in their successful run to Trevor Brooking's FA Cup Final party. We strongly believe that the punishment would indeed have included points deductions if the defendants had been, say, Wigan Athletic or one of the other clubs that are not welcome in the Premiership. Magnussen's millions, Sir Trevor's influence and a suitable geographical location in England's capital are all key factors here.
In conclusion, this is evidently not a judicial level playing field. Curbishley and Magnussen's brigade deserve to be demoted for flagrantly flouting the rules of the game. The fact that some of the current hierarchy were not at the club when the misdemeanours occurred is irrelevant. Magnussen should have undertaken tests of due diligence when acquiring West Ham and the fine pales into insignificance when compared with the financial benefits of staying in the Premiership. Wigan Athletic have every right to feel aggrieved as not only are West Ham able to field Carlos Tevez in tomorrow's crucial relegation clash (as long as registered by midday Saturday) but also the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) has decided in it's wisdom to select a certain Graham Poll to officiate.
This is just another one of those Premiership farces that one simply couldn't make up. How sordid...
West Ham were desperate to complete the signings of the two Argentinians prior to the August transfer deadline and illegally entered into third party contracts involving four offshore companies to ensure that the players arrived from Corinthians in time. The players registrations were owned by a shadowy London-based outfit called Media Sports Investment (MSI) headed by Iranian businessman Kia Joorabchian. The word in the gutter is that MSI is a front for the operational manipulations of controversial Israeli agent Pini Zahavi together with Roman Abramovich. Indeed, there were many words in the gutter at the time of the transfers regarding the potential takeover of West Ham by MSI which would, in all likelihood, have led to West Ham merely taking on the form of Chelsea reserves. The MSI takeover fell through and the East Londoners were instead purchased using the profits from Eggert Magnussen's St Petersburg/Leningrad brewing empire.
West Ham United were fined a record amount (eighteen times the amount Chelsea were fined for tapping up Cashley Cole) for both the "obvious and deliberate breach of the rules" and for "dishonesty and deceit" in keeping the contracts from the prying eyes of the Premier League.
So far, all is well and good. But, why are there no points deductions for the Hammers? The disciplinary panel wheel out numerous smokescreens including the change of club ownership in November, the guilty plea and, most peculiarly, the season being at a crucial stage where the impact of points deduction would be greater than if it had been imposed midway through the campaign.
So what? There are several pertinent points here:
1) Javier Mascherano moved to Liverpool on January 31st which is when the irregularities first came to light. To use the fact that the FA Premier League decided to hold the inquiry in late April as a reason for no points deduction is a rather selective argument to put it mildly.
2) The defence of change of ownership also possesses a certain arbitrariness. Paul Aldridge (the former chief executive) was not even called as a witness which is a fairly neat way to filter the truth but Scott Duxbury, who was in charge of legal and commercial affairs at the time of the deal, remains a director of West Ham. Duxbury claims that he was unaware of the rules governing third party influences over players. Change of ownership then but not change in personnel.
3) Rotherham United have been deducted 10 points this season which has resulted in their relegation from England's League One. This formed part of an agreement with creditors without which the Yorkshiremen would have gone out of existence. In Serie A, Siena were similarly targeted with a 1 point penalty for a delay in payment of social security contributions. This penalty may also influence their relegation battle. And Bury were thrown out of the FA Cup for playing a non-registered player. Judicial equivalence would suggest that each of these three crimes fade into insignificance when compared with the misdemeanours perpetrated at West Ham.
4) West Ham United have gained numerous points through the skills of Carlos Tevez in particular - the man was not named supporter's player of the year for nothing. In every previous case that we are able to find of illegally registered players being included in teams, proportionality between points gained and points deducted has been the norm.
5) As we have stated previously, West Ham were heavily favoured by the match officials last season both in the Premiership and in their successful run to Trevor Brooking's FA Cup Final party. We strongly believe that the punishment would indeed have included points deductions if the defendants had been, say, Wigan Athletic or one of the other clubs that are not welcome in the Premiership. Magnussen's millions, Sir Trevor's influence and a suitable geographical location in England's capital are all key factors here.
In conclusion, this is evidently not a judicial level playing field. Curbishley and Magnussen's brigade deserve to be demoted for flagrantly flouting the rules of the game. The fact that some of the current hierarchy were not at the club when the misdemeanours occurred is irrelevant. Magnussen should have undertaken tests of due diligence when acquiring West Ham and the fine pales into insignificance when compared with the financial benefits of staying in the Premiership. Wigan Athletic have every right to feel aggrieved as not only are West Ham able to field Carlos Tevez in tomorrow's crucial relegation clash (as long as registered by midday Saturday) but also the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) has decided in it's wisdom to select a certain Graham Poll to officiate.
This is just another one of those Premiership farces that one simply couldn't make up. How sordid...
Prawn Sandwiches v. Roast Fish And Cornbread
Thankfully the Cricket World Cup is nearly over although tomorrow's Final between Australia and Sri Lanka in Bridgetown has the potential to be a great game as the teams are, by some distance, the most deserving finalists. The tournament will be provided with a proper climax that betrays the death of Bob Woolmer, the corruption, gambling and shoddy organisation that has preceded it.
Tomorrow it will be six weeks since the murder of Woolmer. Mark Shields, the Jamaican police commissioner, admits that he is no nearer to finding the culprit(s) which is a situation that suits many of the other devious characters in the game of international cricket. The investigation has determined that Woolmer was probably poisoned using a date rape drug, weedkiller or toxic snake venom to incapacitate him before he was strangled. Aside from that, Shields claims he is stumped.
As we have detailed previously, the betting patterns on the Pakistan v Ireland game were revealing and the solution to this crime lies in a thorough analysis of betting market activity. Although the money that led to the death was traded in the South Asian markets, in an enclosed trading system, the impact of such trading permeates through to all linked betting markets. The leading bookmakers in London are fully aware of these market dynamics and the trades that they accepted may be easily sourced. Obviously, this may only lead to a chain of individuals but it would seem a rather suitable place to begin an inquiry. If our Trading Team are able to piece together this partial picture on a sport which is peripheral to our main concerns, it is most surprising that Ladbrokes, William Hill, Betfair and the rest of the big London firms have not publicised the peculiar betting patterns that existed across both matches on that fateful Saturday. If I were a layer and I was detecting significant money on two outcomes that, in combination, had a 800/1 chance of fruition, I would alert the relevant authorities - and I mean prior to the match. The bookmakers are not willing to go public with what they know even after the death. Why?
Bookmakers dread anything that links their business sector with corruption. Even on occasions when London firms are not directly involved in a particular manipulation, the publicity for such corruption feeds through to the public consciousness and people may start asking questions of other sporting events too. Obviously, spectacular society cannot allow this state of affairs. So they keep their heads down while continuing with their psychopathic business strategies hoping that the news item disappears from public perception. We said at the time of Woolmer's death that the very least that the global game of cricket should be seen to be doing was to ban all further betting on the World Cup. Obviously, that was a non-runner. But, much more disturbingly, there have been a number of other corrupted games since the murder - check out the data on South Africa versus Bangladesh for example. Turnover and profit is all that entertains the imaginations of these operators and the bookies were never going to let a murder get in the way of their trading strategies.
And the media is complicit in this state of affairs too. The disappearance of the Woolmer news item has been remarkably swift - when was the last occasion that any of the mainstream British media pursued this story? Personally, I cannot remember one occasion in the last 6 weeks where Sky Television has even mentioned the murder. Similarly with the extension of the investigation into match fixing in Serie A - the British media is desperate to prevent linkage between sport and corruption and, if such linkage is unavoidable due to the magnitude of the story, then the media trawl out the old argument that corruption is for other countries but would never happen in good ol' Gross Britannia. Really?
Some of the same British bookmakers that have trading pattern evidence of the peculiarities in the two gambling games on the Saturday of Woolmer's murder are also directly involved in manipulations of outcome of English football matches both collectively and individually in a fragmented cartelisation structure. If we chose to do so, we could inform you of which bookmakers are linked to which corrupt individuals across the planet in a range of different sports - we have absolute concrete evidence. One of the most surprising aspects of the possession of this information regarding the corruption of the world's leading sports is the lack of interest from the regulatory authorities and governments with respect to this criminality. Nobody wishes for the apple cart to be upturned. Governments create massive amounts of income through their adjacent linkages to the gambling sector - in Britain, think super-casinos, lotteries, horseracing, poker being made legal in pubs, online gambling as well as the colossal turnovers related to the major sports etc etc. We have to ask the question - "who guards the guardians?". Unfortunately, the answer is nobody...
The World Cup itself has been disastrous in other ways. The elimination of the gambling nations of India and Pakistan produced a Super-Eight's series that simply wasn't super at all. There were numerous mismatches between Ireland/Bangladesh and the leading teams and the competition structure allowed the major teams to rest players in matches to maintain a potential edge for later in the competition. The ticket pricing has resulted in empty grounds as people in the Caribbean have far more sense than to hand over a month's wages to watch a corrupt cricket match in a new stadium on the edge of town with no public transport and a ban on the musical instruments that would have provided the games with the atmosphere that has been sadly lacking. If you are going to have the World Cup Finals in the West Indies then celebrate the things that make West Indian culture so vibrant - don't ban them. Instead half empty grounds full of weirdo nationalists in idiotic fancy dress has been the backdrop.
Meanwhile Ian Botham's debauched partying on his yacht (no doubt utilising the earnings from his betting activities) and Sir Tim Rice inviting all the ex-England players to his private yacht provides a clear indication of the odious income gap that exists between first world establishment figures and the disenfranchised islanders who have had their competition stolen off them by bookmakers, the ICC, insider traders and the chosen few. The robbery of our sporting events by such individuals is nowadays the norm. For example, due to the certainty of one and the possibility of two English teams reaching the Champions League Final in Athens, all true fans are busy buying up air tickets to any of the Greek islands to ensure that, if their team gets there, they will have a chance of, at least, being in the city for the event - I have even heard of some Man Utd fans who are flying to Pisa and ferrying down the Adriatic. The tour operators are using the laws of supply and demand to fleece these individuals resulting in excessive payment for what, after all, is only a probability of being able to watch their team. Leaving aside the quasi-religious nature of their obsessions, these are true fans devoted to their team. Yesterday, I enjoyed (sic) a lunchtime conversation with a certain Matthew Etherington (a Sky television producer). He offered me a ticket for the Champions League final and proceeded to boast how easy it is for the public school strata to source freebies for such events - he even suggested renting a private plane for the journey from Kerkyra to Athens. What planet??? Yet another indication of how a people's game has been stolen by the toffs and the private income brigade.
So, to the Final itself. Australia are awesome but Sri Lanka omitted their three key bowlers (Malinga, Vaas and Muralitharan) from the qualification game against the Aussies to maintain an element of surprise for the Final and, on their day, Sri Lanka can beat anybody. My cricket contacts tell me the wicket will suit the Aussies but I expect a tight tussle even though the Aussies have previous experience of the Bajan wicket.
The only sporting memory that I will retain from this World Cup were the two consecutive fastest hundreds in World Cup history posted by Matthew Hayden against South Africa and the West Indies - no betting, no corruption, no insider trading just pure sporting talent and class.
Two glorious innings do not justify this scam of a competition.
Tomorrow it will be six weeks since the murder of Woolmer. Mark Shields, the Jamaican police commissioner, admits that he is no nearer to finding the culprit(s) which is a situation that suits many of the other devious characters in the game of international cricket. The investigation has determined that Woolmer was probably poisoned using a date rape drug, weedkiller or toxic snake venom to incapacitate him before he was strangled. Aside from that, Shields claims he is stumped.
As we have detailed previously, the betting patterns on the Pakistan v Ireland game were revealing and the solution to this crime lies in a thorough analysis of betting market activity. Although the money that led to the death was traded in the South Asian markets, in an enclosed trading system, the impact of such trading permeates through to all linked betting markets. The leading bookmakers in London are fully aware of these market dynamics and the trades that they accepted may be easily sourced. Obviously, this may only lead to a chain of individuals but it would seem a rather suitable place to begin an inquiry. If our Trading Team are able to piece together this partial picture on a sport which is peripheral to our main concerns, it is most surprising that Ladbrokes, William Hill, Betfair and the rest of the big London firms have not publicised the peculiar betting patterns that existed across both matches on that fateful Saturday. If I were a layer and I was detecting significant money on two outcomes that, in combination, had a 800/1 chance of fruition, I would alert the relevant authorities - and I mean prior to the match. The bookmakers are not willing to go public with what they know even after the death. Why?
Bookmakers dread anything that links their business sector with corruption. Even on occasions when London firms are not directly involved in a particular manipulation, the publicity for such corruption feeds through to the public consciousness and people may start asking questions of other sporting events too. Obviously, spectacular society cannot allow this state of affairs. So they keep their heads down while continuing with their psychopathic business strategies hoping that the news item disappears from public perception. We said at the time of Woolmer's death that the very least that the global game of cricket should be seen to be doing was to ban all further betting on the World Cup. Obviously, that was a non-runner. But, much more disturbingly, there have been a number of other corrupted games since the murder - check out the data on South Africa versus Bangladesh for example. Turnover and profit is all that entertains the imaginations of these operators and the bookies were never going to let a murder get in the way of their trading strategies.
And the media is complicit in this state of affairs too. The disappearance of the Woolmer news item has been remarkably swift - when was the last occasion that any of the mainstream British media pursued this story? Personally, I cannot remember one occasion in the last 6 weeks where Sky Television has even mentioned the murder. Similarly with the extension of the investigation into match fixing in Serie A - the British media is desperate to prevent linkage between sport and corruption and, if such linkage is unavoidable due to the magnitude of the story, then the media trawl out the old argument that corruption is for other countries but would never happen in good ol' Gross Britannia. Really?
Some of the same British bookmakers that have trading pattern evidence of the peculiarities in the two gambling games on the Saturday of Woolmer's murder are also directly involved in manipulations of outcome of English football matches both collectively and individually in a fragmented cartelisation structure. If we chose to do so, we could inform you of which bookmakers are linked to which corrupt individuals across the planet in a range of different sports - we have absolute concrete evidence. One of the most surprising aspects of the possession of this information regarding the corruption of the world's leading sports is the lack of interest from the regulatory authorities and governments with respect to this criminality. Nobody wishes for the apple cart to be upturned. Governments create massive amounts of income through their adjacent linkages to the gambling sector - in Britain, think super-casinos, lotteries, horseracing, poker being made legal in pubs, online gambling as well as the colossal turnovers related to the major sports etc etc. We have to ask the question - "who guards the guardians?". Unfortunately, the answer is nobody...
The World Cup itself has been disastrous in other ways. The elimination of the gambling nations of India and Pakistan produced a Super-Eight's series that simply wasn't super at all. There were numerous mismatches between Ireland/Bangladesh and the leading teams and the competition structure allowed the major teams to rest players in matches to maintain a potential edge for later in the competition. The ticket pricing has resulted in empty grounds as people in the Caribbean have far more sense than to hand over a month's wages to watch a corrupt cricket match in a new stadium on the edge of town with no public transport and a ban on the musical instruments that would have provided the games with the atmosphere that has been sadly lacking. If you are going to have the World Cup Finals in the West Indies then celebrate the things that make West Indian culture so vibrant - don't ban them. Instead half empty grounds full of weirdo nationalists in idiotic fancy dress has been the backdrop.
Meanwhile Ian Botham's debauched partying on his yacht (no doubt utilising the earnings from his betting activities) and Sir Tim Rice inviting all the ex-England players to his private yacht provides a clear indication of the odious income gap that exists between first world establishment figures and the disenfranchised islanders who have had their competition stolen off them by bookmakers, the ICC, insider traders and the chosen few. The robbery of our sporting events by such individuals is nowadays the norm. For example, due to the certainty of one and the possibility of two English teams reaching the Champions League Final in Athens, all true fans are busy buying up air tickets to any of the Greek islands to ensure that, if their team gets there, they will have a chance of, at least, being in the city for the event - I have even heard of some Man Utd fans who are flying to Pisa and ferrying down the Adriatic. The tour operators are using the laws of supply and demand to fleece these individuals resulting in excessive payment for what, after all, is only a probability of being able to watch their team. Leaving aside the quasi-religious nature of their obsessions, these are true fans devoted to their team. Yesterday, I enjoyed (sic) a lunchtime conversation with a certain Matthew Etherington (a Sky television producer). He offered me a ticket for the Champions League final and proceeded to boast how easy it is for the public school strata to source freebies for such events - he even suggested renting a private plane for the journey from Kerkyra to Athens. What planet??? Yet another indication of how a people's game has been stolen by the toffs and the private income brigade.
So, to the Final itself. Australia are awesome but Sri Lanka omitted their three key bowlers (Malinga, Vaas and Muralitharan) from the qualification game against the Aussies to maintain an element of surprise for the Final and, on their day, Sri Lanka can beat anybody. My cricket contacts tell me the wicket will suit the Aussies but I expect a tight tussle even though the Aussies have previous experience of the Bajan wicket.
The only sporting memory that I will retain from this World Cup were the two consecutive fastest hundreds in World Cup history posted by Matthew Hayden against South Africa and the West Indies - no betting, no corruption, no insider trading just pure sporting talent and class.
Two glorious innings do not justify this scam of a competition.
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Chaotic Butterfly Effect 1 Proper Football 0
The suspension of seven Italian referees to add to the already sidelined Massimo De Santis who is banned until 2011 is a rather selective punishment as we posted previously (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/thank-goodness-corruption-only-occurs.html). In this post, we offer an analysis of the machinations that allow other perpetrators to continue with their corruption of match outcomes despite the overall effort to clean up the game in Italy.
Analysis of the thirteen referees who have been banned or suspended at various points in the 2006/07 season is firstly undertaken to check for correlation between crime and punishment. From our proprietary database, the following number of links between the targeted referees and the clubs that have been punished for their match manipulation may be collated:
Juventus - 6 linkages resulting in relegation; the loss of two Serie A titles; financial instability; mass exodus of players and staff.
Milan - 4 linkages resulting in a loss of 8 points.
Lazio - 3 linkages resulting in a loss of 3 points.
Reggina - 1 linkage resulting in the loss of 11 points.
Fiorentina - 1 linkage resulting in the loss of 15 points.
It hardly requires the application of rocket science to see that the punishment is highly partial. Aside from the heavy handed treatment of the Old Lady of Torino, the two right wing clubs (Milan and Lazio) have effectively got off virtually scot-free. Both of these teams have assured themselves of Champions League football next season while Fiorentina will miss out purely due to the disparity in punishment. Similarly, Reggina, despite achieving a points totalisation that would place them in the top half of Serie A, will be probably resident in Serie B for season 2007/08. Evidently, the power status of Berlusconi, Galliani and Lotito ensured preferential treatment.
In support of this assertion, we have looked at the linkages that exist between Italian referees still on the roster and the leading Italian teams. The results are disturbing for those who believe that that Serie A has moved forward on the issue of corruption.
Rosetti - links with Lazio, Milan and Roma.
Trefoloni - favours Milan, Inter and Roma.
Palanca - supportive of Milan and Juve.
Girardi - big on Roma.
De Marco - generous to Milan and Fiorentina.
Pantana - shows bias to Roma.
Between them, these officials have presided over 65 games in season 2006/07 (20% of the total). Other officials also exhibit bias but we have only highlighted the referees where such bias is statistically significant.
We have previously indicated that corruption of football in Italy is correlated with politics. Milan got away with murder while Berlusconi was in power and Roma have been similarly aided in the current season. Undertaking similar analysis that was provided for the Premiership (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html) with regard to refereeing bias in the current season for a selection of Serie A teams is indicative of these biases. An index figure of 100 represents bias totally in favour of a club and 0 represents bias totally against a club's interests. As Romano Prodi gained political power effectively at the end of last season in Italy, the figures for 2005/06 are added in brackets for comparison between the world according to Berlusconi and the one related to Prodi.
Milan 36 (74) differential -38
Inter 46 (50) differential -4
Fiorentina 62 (68) differential -6
Roma 77 (60) differential +17
Lazio 56 (61) differential -5
Reggina 47 (52) differential -5
The marked structural dissimilarities between the two seasons for the two clubs most closely linked to aspects of the political hierarchy are clearly evident. Roma + Prodi = +17; Milan + Prodi = -38.
Additionally, UEFA's refereeing roster has included six Italian referees in the last two years - Paparesta (who has just been re-banned); Messina (banned); De Santis (banned); Farina, Trefoloni and Rosetti. From our data above, it can be seen that we have minimal confidence in the impartiality of Rosetti and Trefoloni also - five of the six referees that UEFA has utilised are, in our analysis, prone to corrupt activities. In this manner, the invidious manner of Italian refereeing expands on to a European stage and the premier continental club and international competitions are similarly blighted. Although we choose the Italian game to focus upon here, the impact of English officials has also been influential on outcome in these European competitions to the degree that low ratings have limited the refereeing opportunities for Webb, Riley and company in the current season's Champions League and UEFA Cup competitions.
The prime issue with corruption in any theatre of life is the viral nature of such corruption. Once one individual takes the bait, the likelihood of others following suit is significantly higher as the manipulators understand the price and the process necessary to achieve their control of a sector. Furthermore, a network effect spreads over to related sectors resulting in a far greater impact than the initial corruption should warrant. Obviously, this structural model is related to Chaos theory.
The degree of corruption in European football has already reached a stage where the butterfly effect has created a continental web of corruption linked to the authorities, governments, bookmakers, regulators, referees and players. It may already be too late to save the game from this virus as the amount of money now being introduced into the process is colossal and, unfortunately, human nature suggests that everybody has their price.
Analysis of the thirteen referees who have been banned or suspended at various points in the 2006/07 season is firstly undertaken to check for correlation between crime and punishment. From our proprietary database, the following number of links between the targeted referees and the clubs that have been punished for their match manipulation may be collated:
Juventus - 6 linkages resulting in relegation; the loss of two Serie A titles; financial instability; mass exodus of players and staff.
Milan - 4 linkages resulting in a loss of 8 points.
Lazio - 3 linkages resulting in a loss of 3 points.
Reggina - 1 linkage resulting in the loss of 11 points.
Fiorentina - 1 linkage resulting in the loss of 15 points.
It hardly requires the application of rocket science to see that the punishment is highly partial. Aside from the heavy handed treatment of the Old Lady of Torino, the two right wing clubs (Milan and Lazio) have effectively got off virtually scot-free. Both of these teams have assured themselves of Champions League football next season while Fiorentina will miss out purely due to the disparity in punishment. Similarly, Reggina, despite achieving a points totalisation that would place them in the top half of Serie A, will be probably resident in Serie B for season 2007/08. Evidently, the power status of Berlusconi, Galliani and Lotito ensured preferential treatment.
In support of this assertion, we have looked at the linkages that exist between Italian referees still on the roster and the leading Italian teams. The results are disturbing for those who believe that that Serie A has moved forward on the issue of corruption.
Rosetti - links with Lazio, Milan and Roma.
Trefoloni - favours Milan, Inter and Roma.
Palanca - supportive of Milan and Juve.
Girardi - big on Roma.
De Marco - generous to Milan and Fiorentina.
Pantana - shows bias to Roma.
Between them, these officials have presided over 65 games in season 2006/07 (20% of the total). Other officials also exhibit bias but we have only highlighted the referees where such bias is statistically significant.
We have previously indicated that corruption of football in Italy is correlated with politics. Milan got away with murder while Berlusconi was in power and Roma have been similarly aided in the current season. Undertaking similar analysis that was provided for the Premiership (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html) with regard to refereeing bias in the current season for a selection of Serie A teams is indicative of these biases. An index figure of 100 represents bias totally in favour of a club and 0 represents bias totally against a club's interests. As Romano Prodi gained political power effectively at the end of last season in Italy, the figures for 2005/06 are added in brackets for comparison between the world according to Berlusconi and the one related to Prodi.
Milan 36 (74) differential -38
Inter 46 (50) differential -4
Fiorentina 62 (68) differential -6
Roma 77 (60) differential +17
Lazio 56 (61) differential -5
Reggina 47 (52) differential -5
The marked structural dissimilarities between the two seasons for the two clubs most closely linked to aspects of the political hierarchy are clearly evident. Roma + Prodi = +17; Milan + Prodi = -38.
Additionally, UEFA's refereeing roster has included six Italian referees in the last two years - Paparesta (who has just been re-banned); Messina (banned); De Santis (banned); Farina, Trefoloni and Rosetti. From our data above, it can be seen that we have minimal confidence in the impartiality of Rosetti and Trefoloni also - five of the six referees that UEFA has utilised are, in our analysis, prone to corrupt activities. In this manner, the invidious manner of Italian refereeing expands on to a European stage and the premier continental club and international competitions are similarly blighted. Although we choose the Italian game to focus upon here, the impact of English officials has also been influential on outcome in these European competitions to the degree that low ratings have limited the refereeing opportunities for Webb, Riley and company in the current season's Champions League and UEFA Cup competitions.
The prime issue with corruption in any theatre of life is the viral nature of such corruption. Once one individual takes the bait, the likelihood of others following suit is significantly higher as the manipulators understand the price and the process necessary to achieve their control of a sector. Furthermore, a network effect spreads over to related sectors resulting in a far greater impact than the initial corruption should warrant. Obviously, this structural model is related to Chaos theory.
The degree of corruption in European football has already reached a stage where the butterfly effect has created a continental web of corruption linked to the authorities, governments, bookmakers, regulators, referees and players. It may already be too late to save the game from this virus as the amount of money now being introduced into the process is colossal and, unfortunately, human nature suggests that everybody has their price.
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Late Season Manipulations And Market Impacts
The final phase of the season is critical for clubs financially for a whole spectrum of different reasons the impacts of which we focus on in this post. As football continues down the road of selling out to the dollar, the rewards and punishments represented by winning competitions, losing titles and suffering relegations are obviously increasingly significant - the financial dichotomies being much more marked in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to expand.
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES (PESs) - Many teams utilise PESs at various times within the season but such usage is particularly evident in the season's latter stages. Our Trading Team employ neural nets and other contemporary technologies to analyse substance abuse as, for obvious reasons, clubs tend to be sensitive about breaking the rules. Often the utilisation of PESs doesn't impact on the market price due to this isolationism by the competitors. Entertainingly, this seeking of an illegal competitive edge frequently results in no advantage being gained as all participants utilise the same PESs and masking substances in the same window.
AGREED DRAWS - Many territories, but Italy in particular, have arranged outcomes on end of season games when it is in the interests of both teams for such an outcome to occur. Sometimes prices on a draw in Serie A can be in the vicinity of 1/2 (1.50) as opposed to the average seasonal draw price 9/4 (3.25). Such events are not appreciated by bookmakers and many market makers refuse to price up the matches.
MOTIVATIONAL MONEY - In La Liga, for example, teams involved in the race for league honours will hand over suitcases of euros to the opponents of their competitors when, under normal circumstances, these opponents would be mentally already on the beach. The payment is a nice little earner for the mid-table team and has obvious benefits to the procurer. Somewhat surprisingly this practice is entirely an accepted part of the late season run-in in Spain. In recent years, we believe that a similar manipulative infrastructure has taken root in the Premiership but with added contortion that the suitcases emanate not only from competitor clubs but also from bookmakers.
PROHIBITIVE MARKET PRICING - Market makers will remove any potential value in trading on many late season certainties and sometimes such pricing is so extreme that there is value and profit in taking a contrary position particularly if an analyst has evidence that a suitcase or two might be involved in the match.
ABUSE OF HIERARCHICAL POWER IN A TERRITORY - Every country has it's power clubs. When these teams no longer have their competitive destiny in their own hands, they seek to influence external events in their favour not through the bribing of the relevant team(s) but through control of the match officials. Italy and Germany yield many such instances although it should be noted that the Bundesliga have cleaned up their game since the Hoyzer scandal. Where Italy ostensibly deals with manipulations but actually employs sleight of hand and the English pretend that corruption could never occur in their green unpleasant land, the Germans have targeted all market and match manipulations in their leagues - the probability that the mighty FC Bayern will not achieve Champions League qualification this season is an outcome of this cleansing.
STRATEGIC FOCUS ISSUES - All teams develop pre-season strategies relating to their aims in the campaign ahead. As the season approaches the final phase, these strategies become more critical. Looking at the Champions League Semi Finals as an instance, Milan and Liverpool have had the premier European competition as their prime objective all season. These teams are able to rest players in domestic games where their limited aims have already virtually been achieved. Their Semi Final opponents are in a different ballpark as they are involved in three separate competitions - the strategic focus is vitally important for Man Utd and Chelsea as there is no likelihood of either team winning all three tournaments and a lack of strategy may even result in failure on all fronts.
CLUB MOTIVATION - When a team no longer has any reason to perform as their season's goals have either been achieved or are no longer feasible, they may react in a variety of ways. Some totally switch off and treat themselves to an extended close season break while others remain professional and some teams even perform at a higher level once they are able to relax from the rigours of achieving their initial targets.
LINKED EVENTS - Analytically, one of the most tricky areas to solve are linked concurrent events. As an example, imagine that Chelsea and Man Utd go into the last round of matches level on points but with the Mancs goal difference being markedly preferable. Any view on the Chelsea v Everton match has to take into account what is happening at Old Trafford. If United move 3-0 up by half-time then Chelsea effectively have no reason to waste their energies and there will be a temptation to avoid any potential injuries for the following week's FA Cup Final. Would you want your mortgage on Chelsea in these circumstances? I think not.
In summary, the latter part of the season is where the professionals really reap their beneficial rewards at the expense of other market participants. Complex modelling across a range of markets is necessary in real-time and arbitrage opportunities abound. Creative lateral thinking is the order of the day and, most critically, every single competition has it's own unique structure and, consequently, needs to be modelled in an entirely radical and distinct format. Inside information in such windows is very very precious indeed...
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES (PESs) - Many teams utilise PESs at various times within the season but such usage is particularly evident in the season's latter stages. Our Trading Team employ neural nets and other contemporary technologies to analyse substance abuse as, for obvious reasons, clubs tend to be sensitive about breaking the rules. Often the utilisation of PESs doesn't impact on the market price due to this isolationism by the competitors. Entertainingly, this seeking of an illegal competitive edge frequently results in no advantage being gained as all participants utilise the same PESs and masking substances in the same window.
AGREED DRAWS - Many territories, but Italy in particular, have arranged outcomes on end of season games when it is in the interests of both teams for such an outcome to occur. Sometimes prices on a draw in Serie A can be in the vicinity of 1/2 (1.50) as opposed to the average seasonal draw price 9/4 (3.25). Such events are not appreciated by bookmakers and many market makers refuse to price up the matches.
MOTIVATIONAL MONEY - In La Liga, for example, teams involved in the race for league honours will hand over suitcases of euros to the opponents of their competitors when, under normal circumstances, these opponents would be mentally already on the beach. The payment is a nice little earner for the mid-table team and has obvious benefits to the procurer. Somewhat surprisingly this practice is entirely an accepted part of the late season run-in in Spain. In recent years, we believe that a similar manipulative infrastructure has taken root in the Premiership but with added contortion that the suitcases emanate not only from competitor clubs but also from bookmakers.
PROHIBITIVE MARKET PRICING - Market makers will remove any potential value in trading on many late season certainties and sometimes such pricing is so extreme that there is value and profit in taking a contrary position particularly if an analyst has evidence that a suitcase or two might be involved in the match.
ABUSE OF HIERARCHICAL POWER IN A TERRITORY - Every country has it's power clubs. When these teams no longer have their competitive destiny in their own hands, they seek to influence external events in their favour not through the bribing of the relevant team(s) but through control of the match officials. Italy and Germany yield many such instances although it should be noted that the Bundesliga have cleaned up their game since the Hoyzer scandal. Where Italy ostensibly deals with manipulations but actually employs sleight of hand and the English pretend that corruption could never occur in their green unpleasant land, the Germans have targeted all market and match manipulations in their leagues - the probability that the mighty FC Bayern will not achieve Champions League qualification this season is an outcome of this cleansing.
STRATEGIC FOCUS ISSUES - All teams develop pre-season strategies relating to their aims in the campaign ahead. As the season approaches the final phase, these strategies become more critical. Looking at the Champions League Semi Finals as an instance, Milan and Liverpool have had the premier European competition as their prime objective all season. These teams are able to rest players in domestic games where their limited aims have already virtually been achieved. Their Semi Final opponents are in a different ballpark as they are involved in three separate competitions - the strategic focus is vitally important for Man Utd and Chelsea as there is no likelihood of either team winning all three tournaments and a lack of strategy may even result in failure on all fronts.
CLUB MOTIVATION - When a team no longer has any reason to perform as their season's goals have either been achieved or are no longer feasible, they may react in a variety of ways. Some totally switch off and treat themselves to an extended close season break while others remain professional and some teams even perform at a higher level once they are able to relax from the rigours of achieving their initial targets.
LINKED EVENTS - Analytically, one of the most tricky areas to solve are linked concurrent events. As an example, imagine that Chelsea and Man Utd go into the last round of matches level on points but with the Mancs goal difference being markedly preferable. Any view on the Chelsea v Everton match has to take into account what is happening at Old Trafford. If United move 3-0 up by half-time then Chelsea effectively have no reason to waste their energies and there will be a temptation to avoid any potential injuries for the following week's FA Cup Final. Would you want your mortgage on Chelsea in these circumstances? I think not.
In summary, the latter part of the season is where the professionals really reap their beneficial rewards at the expense of other market participants. Complex modelling across a range of markets is necessary in real-time and arbitrage opportunities abound. Creative lateral thinking is the order of the day and, most critically, every single competition has it's own unique structure and, consequently, needs to be modelled in an entirely radical and distinct format. Inside information in such windows is very very precious indeed...
Monday, 23 April 2007
Who Do The Premiership Referees Really Favour?
"The circumstances are difficult for us with the new football rules that we have to face".
"It is not possible to have a penalty against Manchester United and it is not possible to have a penalty in favour of Chelsea".
Jose Mourinho is correct to highlight the standard of refereeing in the Premiership title race run-in although the manipulations are more opaquely structured than he believes. As we posted yesterday, the aim of the manipulation is not, in the immediate term, to favour Man Utd over Chelsea or vice versa but rather to ensure that the Premiership race lasts until the final weekend of the season. When league titles are decided early, betting turnover plummets as the layers have discovered in the last three Premierships and in this year's Serie A and Le Championnat competitions. Indeed, the Premiership outcome has not been determined on the final day of the season since 1998/99. Comparing the total global betting turnover on Chelsea and Man Utd's games from this last weekend with the equivalent weekend last season reveals $830million this year and $420million last year - almost twice the turnover. With replication over the final four games of the season, the bookies satchels will accommodate an extra $2billion in total. Additionally, a massive profit was achieved by the bookmakers this weekend through both the main protagonists being held to draws by their opponents (with help from the officials) - draws virtually always being a good result for the layers as leisure punters psychologically prefer to favour one team or the other rather than to sit on the fence.
The only key structure from the aspect of a market analyst is the hidden agenda of the people in charge of the corruption ie what points differential (if any) is preferable leading in to the last round of matches? Our Trading Team have developed numerous different scenarios by computer modelling this final phase of the season but we choose to keep our conclusions isolationist.
Our traders analyse the performance of officials throughout the season both from a perspective of bias with regard to individual clubs and corruption relating to the global betting markets. The complexity of this analysis provides a critical trading edge which we achieve through psychological profiling of referees and real-time assessment of their manipulations. Historically, the referees always favoured the top sides but, in recent years, different structural manipulations have been utilised. It is interesting to look at our proprietary club bias ratings for the last two seasons - the figures below represent an index whereby 100 is equivalent to total bias in favour of a team and 0 means total bias against a club's interests.
2005/06
1. Arsenal 82
2. Liverpool 79
3. West Ham Utd 78
4. Fulham/Charlton 63
6. Tottenham 60
7. Blackburn 58
8. Chelsea 52
9. Everton/Aston Villa/Boro 50
12. Man City/Man Utd/Portsmouth 43
15. Bolton 33
16. Wigan 31
17. Newcastle 30
18. West Brom 28
19. Sunderland 27
20. Birmingham 21
The most interesting features of these 2005/06 figures are i) there was a bias in favour of London teams with all six representatives of the capital appearing in the top eight places; ii) the three relegated teams occupy the bottom three places which is generally indicative of a private agenda; iii) the fact that Chelsea were favoured least out of the capital's teams relates to attempts by the relevant bodies to ensure a tight title race.
2006/07
1. Newcastle 74
2. Man Utd/Aston Villa 61
4. Man City/Everton 60
6. Tottenham 56
7. Charlton 55
8. Arsenal/Liverpool 53
10. Sheffield Utd 50
11. Chelsea 48
12. Blackburn/Boro/Watford 47
15. West Ham 46
16. Reading 45
17. Portsmouth/Fulham 43
19. Bolton 38
20. Wigan 18
Observing the 2006/07 data in a similar manner reveals i) Man Utd have been more favoured than Chelsea by referees; ii) Wigan are not wanted in the Premiership; iii) Arsenal's fall from top to eighth has been covered frequently on this blog and the impact is all the greater due to the particular games in which the PGMOB have targeted the Gunners; iv) West Ham's fall from 3rd to 14th and Newcastle's rise from 17th to top place have levels of intrigue; v) Wigan apart, the bias hierarchy has been flattened for the current season.
But before we leave Chelsea and Jose Mourinho, we believe that the special one should also focus on the manipulations of Frank Lampard (the fake Gerrard). Regular readers will be aware that we are not too keen on Mr Lampard's hidden agendas (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/to-be-quite-frank.html). Yesterday, Chelsea had to perform without Ballack, Carvalho and Robben on the pitch and with Lampard on the pitch but merely going through the motions (check out his Opta statistics). We believe that Lampard is far more concerned with Wednesday's head to head with Stevie G - progression in the Champions League and winning back his England position are all that matter to Mr Lampard (apart from lots of money and an even greater amount of pies, of course!).
"It is not possible to have a penalty against Manchester United and it is not possible to have a penalty in favour of Chelsea".
Jose Mourinho is correct to highlight the standard of refereeing in the Premiership title race run-in although the manipulations are more opaquely structured than he believes. As we posted yesterday, the aim of the manipulation is not, in the immediate term, to favour Man Utd over Chelsea or vice versa but rather to ensure that the Premiership race lasts until the final weekend of the season. When league titles are decided early, betting turnover plummets as the layers have discovered in the last three Premierships and in this year's Serie A and Le Championnat competitions. Indeed, the Premiership outcome has not been determined on the final day of the season since 1998/99. Comparing the total global betting turnover on Chelsea and Man Utd's games from this last weekend with the equivalent weekend last season reveals $830million this year and $420million last year - almost twice the turnover. With replication over the final four games of the season, the bookies satchels will accommodate an extra $2billion in total. Additionally, a massive profit was achieved by the bookmakers this weekend through both the main protagonists being held to draws by their opponents (with help from the officials) - draws virtually always being a good result for the layers as leisure punters psychologically prefer to favour one team or the other rather than to sit on the fence.
The only key structure from the aspect of a market analyst is the hidden agenda of the people in charge of the corruption ie what points differential (if any) is preferable leading in to the last round of matches? Our Trading Team have developed numerous different scenarios by computer modelling this final phase of the season but we choose to keep our conclusions isolationist.
Our traders analyse the performance of officials throughout the season both from a perspective of bias with regard to individual clubs and corruption relating to the global betting markets. The complexity of this analysis provides a critical trading edge which we achieve through psychological profiling of referees and real-time assessment of their manipulations. Historically, the referees always favoured the top sides but, in recent years, different structural manipulations have been utilised. It is interesting to look at our proprietary club bias ratings for the last two seasons - the figures below represent an index whereby 100 is equivalent to total bias in favour of a team and 0 means total bias against a club's interests.
2005/06
1. Arsenal 82
2. Liverpool 79
3. West Ham Utd 78
4. Fulham/Charlton 63
6. Tottenham 60
7. Blackburn 58
8. Chelsea 52
9. Everton/Aston Villa/Boro 50
12. Man City/Man Utd/Portsmouth 43
15. Bolton 33
16. Wigan 31
17. Newcastle 30
18. West Brom 28
19. Sunderland 27
20. Birmingham 21
The most interesting features of these 2005/06 figures are i) there was a bias in favour of London teams with all six representatives of the capital appearing in the top eight places; ii) the three relegated teams occupy the bottom three places which is generally indicative of a private agenda; iii) the fact that Chelsea were favoured least out of the capital's teams relates to attempts by the relevant bodies to ensure a tight title race.
2006/07
1. Newcastle 74
2. Man Utd/Aston Villa 61
4. Man City/Everton 60
6. Tottenham 56
7. Charlton 55
8. Arsenal/Liverpool 53
10. Sheffield Utd 50
11. Chelsea 48
12. Blackburn/Boro/Watford 47
15. West Ham 46
16. Reading 45
17. Portsmouth/Fulham 43
19. Bolton 38
20. Wigan 18
Observing the 2006/07 data in a similar manner reveals i) Man Utd have been more favoured than Chelsea by referees; ii) Wigan are not wanted in the Premiership; iii) Arsenal's fall from top to eighth has been covered frequently on this blog and the impact is all the greater due to the particular games in which the PGMOB have targeted the Gunners; iv) West Ham's fall from 3rd to 14th and Newcastle's rise from 17th to top place have levels of intrigue; v) Wigan apart, the bias hierarchy has been flattened for the current season.
But before we leave Chelsea and Jose Mourinho, we believe that the special one should also focus on the manipulations of Frank Lampard (the fake Gerrard). Regular readers will be aware that we are not too keen on Mr Lampard's hidden agendas (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/to-be-quite-frank.html). Yesterday, Chelsea had to perform without Ballack, Carvalho and Robben on the pitch and with Lampard on the pitch but merely going through the motions (check out his Opta statistics). We believe that Lampard is far more concerned with Wednesday's head to head with Stevie G - progression in the Champions League and winning back his England position are all that matter to Mr Lampard (apart from lots of money and an even greater amount of pies, of course!).
Sunday, 22 April 2007
First World Corruption On The Premiership Stage
The run-in to this season's Premiership programme is proving to be the most manipulated in the short history of England's prime tournament. The competition is effectively being run primarily for the benefit of the bookmakers as betting turnover is significantly increased by a televised close title race. There are several levels that this manipulation exists upon and we look at a few of the key corruptions in the finale below.
1) The input of the Professional Game Match Official Board (PGMOB) is becoming ludicrous and these faceless manipulators have significant control of Premiership outcomes along with the input of a number of insiders in management and on the playing field (for historical post on PGMOB abuses of power, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/pgmob-market-manipulator.html). Despite the controversial nature of many of the decisions during the game, the initial choice of referee is proving critical. Throughout the season, the selective and repeated changing of referees in the light of betting patterns and/or results earlier in the window of games have become a blight on the game. As we reported in the post above, the number of referee changes in the Premiership is 20 times greater than in the other main European leagues and particularly focuses on the high betting turnover televised games. Obviously referees are much more likely to fall ill prior to a television appearance! Let's just observe Wednesday's and Saturday's Premiership matches:
West Ham United v Chelsea (TV) - Riley replaced by Dean;
Blackburn Rovers v Watford - Dean replaced by Foy;
Manchester United v Middlesboro' (TV) - Foy replaced by Walton.
Eleven matches and three changes of referee. In each of these events, from a market analytical viewpoint, the alteration of official entirely altered the assessment of the game. This manipulation was particularly marked in the two televised Premiership title race games. This corruption is critical. It matters to the teams involved in the title race, it severely disrupts the global betting markets and, most importantly, it's a complete rip-off to people who are paying their own good money to be fooled by theatrical spectacular society nonsense.
2) All other major leagues in Europe insist on concurrent games to avoid any teams gaining advantage in a competition. The Premiership puts television, betting turnover, advertising and their own manipulative control ahead of considerations like fairness and justice and competitive validity. Obviously there is a marked benefit in playing later than one's competitor. Since March 3rd, Chelsea have played second in all but one weekend - the only blip being when they were provided with an outrageous advantage in playing Spurs 36 hours after Sevilla and Semana Santa. And it continues. Despite concurrent kick off times in two of the last three rounds of games, Chelsea will enjoy a further advantage on the weekend of the Manchester derby. In total, Chelsea will have played later in 6 out of 9 windows with two concurrent. We are not convinced that the purpose of this flagrant manipulation is to hand Chelsea the title but rather we believe that it relates to maintaining a close title race for the benefit of all capitalists who leech off the game. The PGMOB, Sky, the Premiership and certain insiders have a hidden agenda to ensure a certain structure for the final round of games. It is for this reason that there is a further delay in Chelsea's favour following the Man City v Man Utd game because this is a volatile match where pride trumps the potential for external corruption. It is worthy of note that the same manipulations are occurring at the relegation end of the Premiership.
3) Rio Ferdinand has, through a mixture of unprofessionalism and "injury", cost Manchester United five points since the disappearance of Vidic. His slow reaction allowing Portsmouth's first goal followed by his hilarious own goal to prick United's late game surge were superceded by his walking wounded absenteeism for Viduka's equaliser yesterday. We have posted previously that there is a possible corrupt structure in place here. Ferdinand's agent is Pini Zahavi. Zahavi has very close links with three Premiership teams - Chelsea, Portsmouth and Middlesboro. But with Chelsea in particular... Chelsea also enjoy a certain chumminess with Portsmouth due to both Russian ownership and the Redknapp-Lampard link. Once United had beaten Blackburn, there were two possible games that might undermine United's six point advantage - namely, Portsmouth and Boro. Analytically, the fitness exhibited by some Pompey and Boro players in these two matches was statistically significant ie they were "on" something. Zahavi and Abramovich and Gaydamek (owner of Portsmouth) have considerable business interests in Israel and have contacts who are closely linked to the betting markets in Moscow. And guess what, it was those self same Moscow markets that priced these two events most professionally in the marketplace. This is not an attempt at a legal proof of corruption (we'll hold back on that for publication at a later date or for court!) but we do not understand why Ferguson would choose to have Ferdinand in his side in the light of this structure. Would Mourinho allow a player represented by the Elite Sports Agency (set up by Ferguson's son) appear in his team at this key stage of the season? Absolutely not!! Of course, Ferdinand might be just a moderate/poor defender but his involvement in the farce that was England's agreed draw in Israel shows that the man is an operator (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/betting-coalition-of-willing.html).
Three points in conclusion.
Dietrological make money from this corruption through our market analysis - we are achieving over 90% success rate on Premiership games since the Chinese New Year window. We would rather make our living out of analysing truly competitive matches rather than the 2:30 at Ascot sort of events that are actually in existence.
And there has to be considerable concern at United over their defence. The Boro game was the first time the back five have been tested since Portsmouth and, but for the private agenda of Walton, the visitors would have snatched victory with a late penalty for O'Shea's foul.
And, finally, there is a masonic grouping of people who are involved in this manipulation and corruption - individuals within BSkyB, the PGMOB, Football DataCo, the Premier League, some large bookmaking organisations and the media are treating the game with contempt. And they are untouchable. No institution, mainstream media outlet, regulatory body or government department has any interest in disrupting a corrupt structure which is, after all, very rewarding to all concerned.
1) The input of the Professional Game Match Official Board (PGMOB) is becoming ludicrous and these faceless manipulators have significant control of Premiership outcomes along with the input of a number of insiders in management and on the playing field (for historical post on PGMOB abuses of power, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/pgmob-market-manipulator.html). Despite the controversial nature of many of the decisions during the game, the initial choice of referee is proving critical. Throughout the season, the selective and repeated changing of referees in the light of betting patterns and/or results earlier in the window of games have become a blight on the game. As we reported in the post above, the number of referee changes in the Premiership is 20 times greater than in the other main European leagues and particularly focuses on the high betting turnover televised games. Obviously referees are much more likely to fall ill prior to a television appearance! Let's just observe Wednesday's and Saturday's Premiership matches:
West Ham United v Chelsea (TV) - Riley replaced by Dean;
Blackburn Rovers v Watford - Dean replaced by Foy;
Manchester United v Middlesboro' (TV) - Foy replaced by Walton.
Eleven matches and three changes of referee. In each of these events, from a market analytical viewpoint, the alteration of official entirely altered the assessment of the game. This manipulation was particularly marked in the two televised Premiership title race games. This corruption is critical. It matters to the teams involved in the title race, it severely disrupts the global betting markets and, most importantly, it's a complete rip-off to people who are paying their own good money to be fooled by theatrical spectacular society nonsense.
2) All other major leagues in Europe insist on concurrent games to avoid any teams gaining advantage in a competition. The Premiership puts television, betting turnover, advertising and their own manipulative control ahead of considerations like fairness and justice and competitive validity. Obviously there is a marked benefit in playing later than one's competitor. Since March 3rd, Chelsea have played second in all but one weekend - the only blip being when they were provided with an outrageous advantage in playing Spurs 36 hours after Sevilla and Semana Santa. And it continues. Despite concurrent kick off times in two of the last three rounds of games, Chelsea will enjoy a further advantage on the weekend of the Manchester derby. In total, Chelsea will have played later in 6 out of 9 windows with two concurrent. We are not convinced that the purpose of this flagrant manipulation is to hand Chelsea the title but rather we believe that it relates to maintaining a close title race for the benefit of all capitalists who leech off the game. The PGMOB, Sky, the Premiership and certain insiders have a hidden agenda to ensure a certain structure for the final round of games. It is for this reason that there is a further delay in Chelsea's favour following the Man City v Man Utd game because this is a volatile match where pride trumps the potential for external corruption. It is worthy of note that the same manipulations are occurring at the relegation end of the Premiership.
3) Rio Ferdinand has, through a mixture of unprofessionalism and "injury", cost Manchester United five points since the disappearance of Vidic. His slow reaction allowing Portsmouth's first goal followed by his hilarious own goal to prick United's late game surge were superceded by his walking wounded absenteeism for Viduka's equaliser yesterday. We have posted previously that there is a possible corrupt structure in place here. Ferdinand's agent is Pini Zahavi. Zahavi has very close links with three Premiership teams - Chelsea, Portsmouth and Middlesboro. But with Chelsea in particular... Chelsea also enjoy a certain chumminess with Portsmouth due to both Russian ownership and the Redknapp-Lampard link. Once United had beaten Blackburn, there were two possible games that might undermine United's six point advantage - namely, Portsmouth and Boro. Analytically, the fitness exhibited by some Pompey and Boro players in these two matches was statistically significant ie they were "on" something. Zahavi and Abramovich and Gaydamek (owner of Portsmouth) have considerable business interests in Israel and have contacts who are closely linked to the betting markets in Moscow. And guess what, it was those self same Moscow markets that priced these two events most professionally in the marketplace. This is not an attempt at a legal proof of corruption (we'll hold back on that for publication at a later date or for court!) but we do not understand why Ferguson would choose to have Ferdinand in his side in the light of this structure. Would Mourinho allow a player represented by the Elite Sports Agency (set up by Ferguson's son) appear in his team at this key stage of the season? Absolutely not!! Of course, Ferdinand might be just a moderate/poor defender but his involvement in the farce that was England's agreed draw in Israel shows that the man is an operator (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/betting-coalition-of-willing.html).
Three points in conclusion.
Dietrological make money from this corruption through our market analysis - we are achieving over 90% success rate on Premiership games since the Chinese New Year window. We would rather make our living out of analysing truly competitive matches rather than the 2:30 at Ascot sort of events that are actually in existence.
And there has to be considerable concern at United over their defence. The Boro game was the first time the back five have been tested since Portsmouth and, but for the private agenda of Walton, the visitors would have snatched victory with a late penalty for O'Shea's foul.
And, finally, there is a masonic grouping of people who are involved in this manipulation and corruption - individuals within BSkyB, the PGMOB, Football DataCo, the Premier League, some large bookmaking organisations and the media are treating the game with contempt. And they are untouchable. No institution, mainstream media outlet, regulatory body or government department has any interest in disrupting a corrupt structure which is, after all, very rewarding to all concerned.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Thank Goodness Corruption Only Occurs Abroad
As we posted last week (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/subvert-divide-and-rule-bribe.html), calciocaos has spread deeper into the Italian game with Messina being added to the teams suspected of corruption and seven further referees now being banned. The seven officials are Paparesta, Bertini, Cassara, Pieri, Dattilo, Gabriele and Racalbuto. Over the current season, thirteen Italian referees have been banned or suspended at one time or another. The most entertaining reality flow over the season relates to Gianluca Paparesta. After being included in the original grouping of banned officials after moggiopoli first broke, Paparesta was suspended for a couple of months before the Italians and, indeed, UEFA welcomed him back with open arms only to have to ban the man again after 10 Serie A appearances. Paparesta has always shown a strong bias towards the right wing clubs in Serie A with Milan and Lazio, in particular, benefiting from the man from Bari. The Public Prosecutors from Napoli have markedly increased the scope of the investigation and the uncertainty with regard to further punishments and points deductions seems set to become a semi-permanent stage on which calcio is played out.
The officials that are being targeted are revealing too. Many other referees in Italy are closely linked to particular clubs, political parties, media organisations and bookmakers. The Italian authorities are facing down some aspects of the corruption but the resultant campaign has effectively been hijacked by certain power bases so that a cleansing process has become a route to gain competitive advantage.
The reaction in the British media has been disappointing too. When the current wave of corruption and manipulation in global football matches ignited a couple of years back, there were ample column inches covering the uproar in Germany, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Italy etc. However, as the reality of corruption in English football has neared the surface of the cumulative consciousness of British society, the mainstream media have decided to jump into bed with the criminals and comment is conspicuous by it's absence in a peculiarly English type of omerta. The Guardian (yet again) is particularly culpable and, with no mention whatsoever of this major upgrade in the corruption investigation in Italy, have focused exclusively on the turmoil at Arsenal without, of course, any mention of the issue of gambling income which is, effectively, the frontline between Kroenke/Dein and the current board. Entertainingly, one of their writers, David Conn (great research but no big picture overview type of journalism) in his Guardian blog assured us all that everything was just hunky dory at Arsenal just hours prior to Dein's resignation. Conn's comedy timing forced The Guardian to immediately pull his piece and replace it with a briefer post where the cheeky little imp claimed that his original post had predicted the uproar. Twaddle...
Leisure punters should take care in the Premiership markets today as the PGMOB has wheeled out the refereeing big guns for Saturday's games and, additionally, there has already been major amounts of insider trading on the Cricket World Cup match between the West Indies and England which represents the final chance for a little earner for certain members of the two teams.
Finally, the Dietrological Professional Football Information Provision Service has been purchased by one client until the close of the current season while all subscribers to the new Dietrological Leisure service will receive their first information today.
Enjoy.
The officials that are being targeted are revealing too. Many other referees in Italy are closely linked to particular clubs, political parties, media organisations and bookmakers. The Italian authorities are facing down some aspects of the corruption but the resultant campaign has effectively been hijacked by certain power bases so that a cleansing process has become a route to gain competitive advantage.
The reaction in the British media has been disappointing too. When the current wave of corruption and manipulation in global football matches ignited a couple of years back, there were ample column inches covering the uproar in Germany, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Italy etc. However, as the reality of corruption in English football has neared the surface of the cumulative consciousness of British society, the mainstream media have decided to jump into bed with the criminals and comment is conspicuous by it's absence in a peculiarly English type of omerta. The Guardian (yet again) is particularly culpable and, with no mention whatsoever of this major upgrade in the corruption investigation in Italy, have focused exclusively on the turmoil at Arsenal without, of course, any mention of the issue of gambling income which is, effectively, the frontline between Kroenke/Dein and the current board. Entertainingly, one of their writers, David Conn (great research but no big picture overview type of journalism) in his Guardian blog assured us all that everything was just hunky dory at Arsenal just hours prior to Dein's resignation. Conn's comedy timing forced The Guardian to immediately pull his piece and replace it with a briefer post where the cheeky little imp claimed that his original post had predicted the uproar. Twaddle...
Leisure punters should take care in the Premiership markets today as the PGMOB has wheeled out the refereeing big guns for Saturday's games and, additionally, there has already been major amounts of insider trading on the Cricket World Cup match between the West Indies and England which represents the final chance for a little earner for certain members of the two teams.
Finally, the Dietrological Professional Football Information Provision Service has been purchased by one client until the close of the current season while all subscribers to the new Dietrological Leisure service will receive their first information today.
Enjoy.
Friday, 20 April 2007
Trading On The French Presidential Election
Sunday sees the first round of voting in the 2007 French Presidential Election and it seems a suitable prompt to produce a post about trading political markets. Political markets are easy to trade on, they aggregate information, and they produce real-time probabilistic predictions on future events.
There has been a considerable expansion in the number of trading firms offering political/prediction markets in recent years and the consequent increase in the range of markets has made the sub-sector worthy of the analytical attention of all professional traders. Liquidity is still thin on the ground though in the non-mainstream territories which is represented by the generally prohibitive margins in such countries. We will use the race to the Élysées as an example to demonstrate some of the factors that traders need to be aware of with respect to political markets.
1. Opinion Polls - Opinion Polls (OPs) take on the form of an index market where the percentages for the candidates aim to replicate the true percentages out in the country. Polls are different than a true market in several ways. Firstly, they are not representative of money flow or inside information. Secondly, the percentages have a built in standard deviation that makes such polls of minimal value even when all other factors are taken into account. Thirdly, people may be prompted to answering a certain way by the deliberate or accidental manner of phrasing of the question. Fourthly and most importantly, the politics of the polling firm will impinge on output on a variety of levels.
2. Trends, Breakpoints and Uproar - By plotting OPs (with error bars) against time, an observer is able to detect any trends that the OPs are exhibiting. All other things considered from a market perspective, you would generally be looking to be supportive of a candidate on an upward trend. Breakpoints occur when a key piece of electoral development occurs eg a head-to-head televised debate or a particularly poor PR occurrence. Sometimes a breakpoint may be so severe that uproar results and a candidate is blown out of the water - remember Howard Dean's 2004 US presidential campaign.
3. Many voters are not willing to disclose their election preferences to pollsters. Either such voters have not made up their minds or they may be ashamed at the admission of their choice. In the 2002 election in France, Le Pen surprised all pollsters by exploiting such guilt-ridden shame to reach the second round of voting ahead of the Socialist candidate.
4. Elections that are divided into two rounds like the French are very different to model than one-off races. The modelling of the events is considerably more complex in a two round race both due to the structural nature of the event and the impact of voters whose original choice is eliminated in the first wave of voting. The very nature of two round markets encourages voters to undertake a first round protest vote before supporting their mortgage and their class in the second round.
5. The key people in all elections (from both a political and a market analytical viewpoint) are the swing voters and the masses of the befuddled. Up to 40% of voters may exist in this state of limbo in the period leading up to polling day. The control of the mainstream media is critical in the final days as this is the window when the majority of these unfortunates develop a political view about the world in which they live. Countries like England, USA and Italy are particularly susceptible to late spectacular society targeting of "the don't know's" due both to the degree of control of media in such countries and the level of voter apathy.
6. One of the most important factors to assess in any election is the great intangible of national feelgood factor. The mathematics behind such fuzzy concepts are complex and cover a wide spectrum of societal and political forces as well as taking into account mass psychologies. Indeed, we use such an approach in international football matches in addition to political markets as there are clear parallels at play here.
7. Regional politics also impacts upon national elections. Some areas have moved en masse to the right in recent years eg the former Eastern Bloc while others have swerved to the left eg South America. Such continental momentum must be considered.
8. Increasingly, in a world of spectacular events being perpetrated by various groups of driven individuals, first world elections possess a structural volatility relating to the impact of a potential major atrocity in the election run-up. The Madrid bombings were so mishandled by the Partido Popular that they effectively handed the election to Zapatero in 2004.
9. Analysis of the market prices offered by the brokers is another key source of information. Many traders and market makers have clear holistic overviews of their sectors and market memory enables them to gain an edge through superior pattern recognition skills. This feeds through into price. Additionally, many of the firms that price up political markets are also involved in international financial markets and, in such cases, their territorial appraisal is enhanced further.
10. Underhand and, even, corrupt practices must also be taken into account. What sort of creative gerrymandering has been abusively legalised? How is the fear factor in the territory? If valid, what is the early reaction of external electoral observers? Does the power reside in the vote or in some external body eg the US Supreme Court? Are the computerised voting machines open source?
11. The final key variable that we shall discuss here is turnout. Increasing depoliticisation and apathy are the norm in developed economies and modelling the ability of the individual parties to get their people out is very key.
We are absolutely unwilling to disclose our proprietary analysis of the French election this weekend but we will point you in a couple of intriguing directions. The markets currently project a Sarkozy victory at a 65-70% probability which is, no doubt, based on his OPs lead. Voters who allowed the National Front candidate to reach the second round last time are going to be much warier this time with their first vote flippancy - we expect that this will favour Ségolène Royal and undermine the middle ground candidate, François Bayrou and the candidates on the left. Additionally, we expect Le Pen to steal some votes from Sarkozy as they battle for the right wing vote. Our estimation prior to the weekend media onslaught is for the two market leaders, Sarkozy and Royal, to progress to the second round but it should be noted that a leak from the Renseignements Généraux (the French home intelligence service) suggests Le Pen will again reach the run-off. The very leaking of this report makes such an outcome less likely.
Dietrological Trading Team divide our market activities between several different types of financial market. Our current market project portfolio involves Football Trading Pre-Match (45%), Football Trading In-Running (15%), Cricket World Cup (5%), International Financial Markets (25%), Political Markets (5%), Miscellaneous Markets (5%). Political Markets are still at the periphery of the marketplace but we expect that this sub-sector will markedly expand in the coming years particularly as all markets gravitate towards a global trading platform.
There has been a considerable expansion in the number of trading firms offering political/prediction markets in recent years and the consequent increase in the range of markets has made the sub-sector worthy of the analytical attention of all professional traders. Liquidity is still thin on the ground though in the non-mainstream territories which is represented by the generally prohibitive margins in such countries. We will use the race to the Élysées as an example to demonstrate some of the factors that traders need to be aware of with respect to political markets.
1. Opinion Polls - Opinion Polls (OPs) take on the form of an index market where the percentages for the candidates aim to replicate the true percentages out in the country. Polls are different than a true market in several ways. Firstly, they are not representative of money flow or inside information. Secondly, the percentages have a built in standard deviation that makes such polls of minimal value even when all other factors are taken into account. Thirdly, people may be prompted to answering a certain way by the deliberate or accidental manner of phrasing of the question. Fourthly and most importantly, the politics of the polling firm will impinge on output on a variety of levels.
2. Trends, Breakpoints and Uproar - By plotting OPs (with error bars) against time, an observer is able to detect any trends that the OPs are exhibiting. All other things considered from a market perspective, you would generally be looking to be supportive of a candidate on an upward trend. Breakpoints occur when a key piece of electoral development occurs eg a head-to-head televised debate or a particularly poor PR occurrence. Sometimes a breakpoint may be so severe that uproar results and a candidate is blown out of the water - remember Howard Dean's 2004 US presidential campaign.
3. Many voters are not willing to disclose their election preferences to pollsters. Either such voters have not made up their minds or they may be ashamed at the admission of their choice. In the 2002 election in France, Le Pen surprised all pollsters by exploiting such guilt-ridden shame to reach the second round of voting ahead of the Socialist candidate.
4. Elections that are divided into two rounds like the French are very different to model than one-off races. The modelling of the events is considerably more complex in a two round race both due to the structural nature of the event and the impact of voters whose original choice is eliminated in the first wave of voting. The very nature of two round markets encourages voters to undertake a first round protest vote before supporting their mortgage and their class in the second round.
5. The key people in all elections (from both a political and a market analytical viewpoint) are the swing voters and the masses of the befuddled. Up to 40% of voters may exist in this state of limbo in the period leading up to polling day. The control of the mainstream media is critical in the final days as this is the window when the majority of these unfortunates develop a political view about the world in which they live. Countries like England, USA and Italy are particularly susceptible to late spectacular society targeting of "the don't know's" due both to the degree of control of media in such countries and the level of voter apathy.
6. One of the most important factors to assess in any election is the great intangible of national feelgood factor. The mathematics behind such fuzzy concepts are complex and cover a wide spectrum of societal and political forces as well as taking into account mass psychologies. Indeed, we use such an approach in international football matches in addition to political markets as there are clear parallels at play here.
7. Regional politics also impacts upon national elections. Some areas have moved en masse to the right in recent years eg the former Eastern Bloc while others have swerved to the left eg South America. Such continental momentum must be considered.
8. Increasingly, in a world of spectacular events being perpetrated by various groups of driven individuals, first world elections possess a structural volatility relating to the impact of a potential major atrocity in the election run-up. The Madrid bombings were so mishandled by the Partido Popular that they effectively handed the election to Zapatero in 2004.
9. Analysis of the market prices offered by the brokers is another key source of information. Many traders and market makers have clear holistic overviews of their sectors and market memory enables them to gain an edge through superior pattern recognition skills. This feeds through into price. Additionally, many of the firms that price up political markets are also involved in international financial markets and, in such cases, their territorial appraisal is enhanced further.
10. Underhand and, even, corrupt practices must also be taken into account. What sort of creative gerrymandering has been abusively legalised? How is the fear factor in the territory? If valid, what is the early reaction of external electoral observers? Does the power reside in the vote or in some external body eg the US Supreme Court? Are the computerised voting machines open source?
11. The final key variable that we shall discuss here is turnout. Increasing depoliticisation and apathy are the norm in developed economies and modelling the ability of the individual parties to get their people out is very key.
We are absolutely unwilling to disclose our proprietary analysis of the French election this weekend but we will point you in a couple of intriguing directions. The markets currently project a Sarkozy victory at a 65-70% probability which is, no doubt, based on his OPs lead. Voters who allowed the National Front candidate to reach the second round last time are going to be much warier this time with their first vote flippancy - we expect that this will favour Ségolène Royal and undermine the middle ground candidate, François Bayrou and the candidates on the left. Additionally, we expect Le Pen to steal some votes from Sarkozy as they battle for the right wing vote. Our estimation prior to the weekend media onslaught is for the two market leaders, Sarkozy and Royal, to progress to the second round but it should be noted that a leak from the Renseignements Généraux (the French home intelligence service) suggests Le Pen will again reach the run-off. The very leaking of this report makes such an outcome less likely.
Dietrological Trading Team divide our market activities between several different types of financial market. Our current market project portfolio involves Football Trading Pre-Match (45%), Football Trading In-Running (15%), Cricket World Cup (5%), International Financial Markets (25%), Political Markets (5%), Miscellaneous Markets (5%). Political Markets are still at the periphery of the marketplace but we expect that this sub-sector will markedly expand in the coming years particularly as all markets gravitate towards a global trading platform.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Jeszcze Polska Nie Zginęła (And Neither Is Ukraine)
There were three bids to host the Euro 2012 tournament - from Italy, Hungary/Croatia and Poland/Ukraine - and Platini's new UEFA regime have shown further intentions regarding the attempted redistribution of European football wealth by choosing Poland/Ukraine. Similarly to any major development in our global sport, the decision was made against a template of political reality.
In the early stages of his presidency, Platini has created his administrative team and has largely stuck by his election promises to democratise the game in Europe. There have been more referees from Eastern Europe in both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup and, to a large extent, he has sidelined some of the referees who choose to operate alongside bookmakers. So far so good. But Platini inherited a contest featuring a shoddy little three runner handicap from which to select it's marketing beacon for 2012.
Applying a very brief overview to the individual bids. The location-elect had always been Italy. Then came calciocaos, a devalued Serie A and the return of the ultras. This state of affairs was then compounded by the announcement from prosecutors in Napoli that calciocaos is more widely spread than originally perceived. By releasing this information less than a week before the vote, Napoli spiked an already damaged bid.
Croatia/Hungary would not have been a good choice on several levels. Croatian mafia have infiltrated many leagues around Europe with their unique blend of football betting market corruption (see numerous previous posts on Robert Hoyzer and the scandal in Germany, for example). Meanwhile the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, last September stated that he had been lying to his country for the last one and a half to two years. Although one would have thought that such a talent be a prerequisite for the post of prime ministership, his handling of the ensuing crisis was amateurish and organising a piss up in a brewery would severely tax the man. Corruption and hooliganism are par for the course in both countries.
Which leaves Poland and Ukraine.
As we have posted previously (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/branded-orange-coup.html), Ukraine is receiving beneficial treatment on a range of levels as the west continues with it's strategy of attempting to snatch Ukraine from under Putin's nose. The pseudo-revolution and takeover was backed by western bankers, the military-business elite and politicians. Frequently, spectacular society bestows upon "new democracies" (sic) the honour of sporting achievement in parallel to their political upheaval. This increases a countries feelgood factor and proves to the idiotic that shareholder capitalism is somehow equated with success. Since the glorious overthrow of Yanukovich, Ukraine has been treated to the economic mismanagement of Yushchenko and the devious realpolitik of Yulia Tymoshenko resulting in the people returning Yanukovich to power. Some revolution... Now the west are utilising unconstitutional tactics to dissolve Ukraine's parliament in an attempt to generate a more pliable government. Ukraine is, in effect, two countries. The west has been influenced by Polish embrace of neo-con capitalism while the east is still in the Soviet Union. UEFA's support for the Ukraine half of the 2012 bid is a position taken under the duress of political pressure.
And Ukrainian football is no better. Corruption is endemic and match fixing is rife. Foreign officials have to be used for the big Kyiv v Donetsk games as no domestic referees are seen as neutral. The Ukrainian Football Federation (UFF) is currently at the centre of a controversy relating to it's concealment of the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) by leading Ukrainian players. Additionally, prior to last summer's World Cup, Blokhin, the blockhead Ukrainian manager, uttered several racisms that, in a proper sport, would lead to a ban and exclusion. Obviously, FIFA took no action and, now, UEFA reward him with Euro 2012. Super!
As we posted last week (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/bandits-taking-over-town.html), Polish authorities opportunistically targeted two top league teams a week prior to the Euro 2012 vote and, pending appeals, relegated them for their indiscretions. But this is largely tokenistic spin. Until recently, the Polish FA was in open warfare with the Polish government. Less than two months ago, FIFA had threatened to ban Polish teams from all international competition after Sports Minister Tomasz Lipiec suspended the Polish FA's executive committee for "not doing enough to stop corruption in domestic football". At the time the Ukrainian FA President, Hryhorii Surkis, referring to Lipiec stated that "only an enemy of Euro 2012 could act in this way". This certainly augurs well for future collaboration between the two countries as their successful bid moves forward. Hooliganism is also a major concern in Poland plus, earlier this season, Wisła Kraków player Nikola Mijailovic was banned by UEFA for five games for racially abusing Benni McCarthy while Wisła fans showed a distinct contempt for the progress of evolution by their racist grunts in the same tie.
Rather aptly considering it is a dual bid, the main potential problems may be demonstrated by focusing on two sets of brothers. Ukrainian football is dominated by Hryhorii Surkis, the UFF President, and Ihor Surkis, the Kyiv Dynamo President. That two such powerful positions are sibling controlled is not a meritocratic indicator. Collusion was the charge of Mircea Lucescu, the Shakhtar Donetsk coach, regarding Hryhorii's choice of referees for Ihor's games. Lucescu stated at the time "the federation and Dynamo are the same body" while Boris Kolesnikov (head of the federation's Donetsk branch) demanded Hryhorii's resignation as "the word corruption is stamped on his forehead". So, it seems we can have confidence in the Ukrainian half of the bid.
Polish twins Lech (President) and Jarosław (Prime Minister) Kaczyński take lack of meritocracy to the even higher levels of the Bush/Bush or Clinton/Clinton type of democratic deficit. In their favour, they are zealously anti-corruption but it is this very zealous attribute which they share that undermines their political validity. Insularity and centre-right xenophobicness describe a party that retains power only by coalitions with anti-semitic groups. In their revenge missions against the Układ - a network of communist era spies - and their collaborators (no truth and reconciliation here), the twins have created a lustration law that even right wing economist, Jan Winiecki, says "puts its authors (the Kaczyński's) beyond the pale of western civilisation". Poland has slipped backwards since the twins came to power and it is inappropriate that such limited politicians and footballing authorities (from both countries) should be the recipients of UEFA largesse.
Following the result of the vote in Cardiff yesterday, Ferenc Gyurcsány said he believed that "economic factors" had led the UEFA officials to opt for Poland and Ukraine. Of course, he may have been lying but we totally agree with him. Although we would choose to add geopolitical and national political factors too. By choosing to place a major sporting competition in Russia's near abroad, the west is merely ratcheting up the symbolic rhetoric in the ongoing re-energisation of a Cold War that was supposed to have been perestroica'ed away in 1989. Incidentally, we are all entirely convinced that the momentum behind a Poland/Ukraine victory has absolutely nothing to do with the current kerfuffle over US plans to employ a missile shield in Poland and similar US intentions to include Ukraine in the US air defence system (see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070305&articleId=4994).
Platini inherited a flawed contest and we could have produced as damning a post about either of the other two applications. He is morally correct to move the power base to the east but the candidates available ensured that the hijacking of the process that had solidified under Johansson eventually came to pass. If the bidding process could have been reopened, we would have suggested România and Hungary so that the competition might be used to confront historical conflict and current bigotry by celebrating a new EU future through the beauty of football (similar to Japan and the Republic of Korea's joint hosting of the 2002 World Cup).
The major holistic impact of yesterday's decision is to bring the European Super League incrementally closer as the G14(18) do not wish to see any indication that Europe's footballing centre of gravity is distorting eastwards or that Michel Platini might be willing to stick to the letter of his manifesto.
In the early stages of his presidency, Platini has created his administrative team and has largely stuck by his election promises to democratise the game in Europe. There have been more referees from Eastern Europe in both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup and, to a large extent, he has sidelined some of the referees who choose to operate alongside bookmakers. So far so good. But Platini inherited a contest featuring a shoddy little three runner handicap from which to select it's marketing beacon for 2012.
Applying a very brief overview to the individual bids. The location-elect had always been Italy. Then came calciocaos, a devalued Serie A and the return of the ultras. This state of affairs was then compounded by the announcement from prosecutors in Napoli that calciocaos is more widely spread than originally perceived. By releasing this information less than a week before the vote, Napoli spiked an already damaged bid.
Croatia/Hungary would not have been a good choice on several levels. Croatian mafia have infiltrated many leagues around Europe with their unique blend of football betting market corruption (see numerous previous posts on Robert Hoyzer and the scandal in Germany, for example). Meanwhile the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, last September stated that he had been lying to his country for the last one and a half to two years. Although one would have thought that such a talent be a prerequisite for the post of prime ministership, his handling of the ensuing crisis was amateurish and organising a piss up in a brewery would severely tax the man. Corruption and hooliganism are par for the course in both countries.
Which leaves Poland and Ukraine.
As we have posted previously (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/branded-orange-coup.html), Ukraine is receiving beneficial treatment on a range of levels as the west continues with it's strategy of attempting to snatch Ukraine from under Putin's nose. The pseudo-revolution and takeover was backed by western bankers, the military-business elite and politicians. Frequently, spectacular society bestows upon "new democracies" (sic) the honour of sporting achievement in parallel to their political upheaval. This increases a countries feelgood factor and proves to the idiotic that shareholder capitalism is somehow equated with success. Since the glorious overthrow of Yanukovich, Ukraine has been treated to the economic mismanagement of Yushchenko and the devious realpolitik of Yulia Tymoshenko resulting in the people returning Yanukovich to power. Some revolution... Now the west are utilising unconstitutional tactics to dissolve Ukraine's parliament in an attempt to generate a more pliable government. Ukraine is, in effect, two countries. The west has been influenced by Polish embrace of neo-con capitalism while the east is still in the Soviet Union. UEFA's support for the Ukraine half of the 2012 bid is a position taken under the duress of political pressure.
And Ukrainian football is no better. Corruption is endemic and match fixing is rife. Foreign officials have to be used for the big Kyiv v Donetsk games as no domestic referees are seen as neutral. The Ukrainian Football Federation (UFF) is currently at the centre of a controversy relating to it's concealment of the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) by leading Ukrainian players. Additionally, prior to last summer's World Cup, Blokhin, the blockhead Ukrainian manager, uttered several racisms that, in a proper sport, would lead to a ban and exclusion. Obviously, FIFA took no action and, now, UEFA reward him with Euro 2012. Super!
As we posted last week (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/bandits-taking-over-town.html), Polish authorities opportunistically targeted two top league teams a week prior to the Euro 2012 vote and, pending appeals, relegated them for their indiscretions. But this is largely tokenistic spin. Until recently, the Polish FA was in open warfare with the Polish government. Less than two months ago, FIFA had threatened to ban Polish teams from all international competition after Sports Minister Tomasz Lipiec suspended the Polish FA's executive committee for "not doing enough to stop corruption in domestic football". At the time the Ukrainian FA President, Hryhorii Surkis, referring to Lipiec stated that "only an enemy of Euro 2012 could act in this way". This certainly augurs well for future collaboration between the two countries as their successful bid moves forward. Hooliganism is also a major concern in Poland plus, earlier this season, Wisła Kraków player Nikola Mijailovic was banned by UEFA for five games for racially abusing Benni McCarthy while Wisła fans showed a distinct contempt for the progress of evolution by their racist grunts in the same tie.
Rather aptly considering it is a dual bid, the main potential problems may be demonstrated by focusing on two sets of brothers. Ukrainian football is dominated by Hryhorii Surkis, the UFF President, and Ihor Surkis, the Kyiv Dynamo President. That two such powerful positions are sibling controlled is not a meritocratic indicator. Collusion was the charge of Mircea Lucescu, the Shakhtar Donetsk coach, regarding Hryhorii's choice of referees for Ihor's games. Lucescu stated at the time "the federation and Dynamo are the same body" while Boris Kolesnikov (head of the federation's Donetsk branch) demanded Hryhorii's resignation as "the word corruption is stamped on his forehead". So, it seems we can have confidence in the Ukrainian half of the bid.
Polish twins Lech (President) and Jarosław (Prime Minister) Kaczyński take lack of meritocracy to the even higher levels of the Bush/Bush or Clinton/Clinton type of democratic deficit. In their favour, they are zealously anti-corruption but it is this very zealous attribute which they share that undermines their political validity. Insularity and centre-right xenophobicness describe a party that retains power only by coalitions with anti-semitic groups. In their revenge missions against the Układ - a network of communist era spies - and their collaborators (no truth and reconciliation here), the twins have created a lustration law that even right wing economist, Jan Winiecki, says "puts its authors (the Kaczyński's) beyond the pale of western civilisation". Poland has slipped backwards since the twins came to power and it is inappropriate that such limited politicians and footballing authorities (from both countries) should be the recipients of UEFA largesse.
Following the result of the vote in Cardiff yesterday, Ferenc Gyurcsány said he believed that "economic factors" had led the UEFA officials to opt for Poland and Ukraine. Of course, he may have been lying but we totally agree with him. Although we would choose to add geopolitical and national political factors too. By choosing to place a major sporting competition in Russia's near abroad, the west is merely ratcheting up the symbolic rhetoric in the ongoing re-energisation of a Cold War that was supposed to have been perestroica'ed away in 1989. Incidentally, we are all entirely convinced that the momentum behind a Poland/Ukraine victory has absolutely nothing to do with the current kerfuffle over US plans to employ a missile shield in Poland and similar US intentions to include Ukraine in the US air defence system (see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070305&articleId=4994).
Platini inherited a flawed contest and we could have produced as damning a post about either of the other two applications. He is morally correct to move the power base to the east but the candidates available ensured that the hijacking of the process that had solidified under Johansson eventually came to pass. If the bidding process could have been reopened, we would have suggested România and Hungary so that the competition might be used to confront historical conflict and current bigotry by celebrating a new EU future through the beauty of football (similar to Japan and the Republic of Korea's joint hosting of the 2002 World Cup).
The major holistic impact of yesterday's decision is to bring the European Super League incrementally closer as the G14(18) do not wish to see any indication that Europe's footballing centre of gravity is distorting eastwards or that Michel Platini might be willing to stick to the letter of his manifesto.
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
A Tale Of Corruption, Chaos And Greed
It had appeared that the final ignominy of the 2006/07 season arrived for Arsène Wenger when some of the Emirates faithful started booing Arsenal early in the second half of last night's match against Manchester City. Not so... Today, the Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein has left the club with immediate effect.
Only three months ago, the Gooners reserves wiped out Liverpool 6-3 in a Busby Babes-esque performance but the constant institutional friction against their interests has turned around the fickle ones inside the ground. Such fans evidently possess more money than sense. The determined undermining of Arsenal on the pitch has been parallelled by the destabilisation caused by Stan Kroenke and his KSE Group in the boardroom.
The final irony is that last night's victory enabled Arsenal to virtually assure Champions League participation for next season - in the light of the machinations against them over the season, this represents the highest plateau of achievement available.
Historically, Arsenal have always been a power team in English football which is why this season's reversal has been so marked. By the time Wenger decided to call it a day in the Premiership title race, Arsenal had been unjustly targeted to the tune of 15 points over the season while biased refereeing and "random" FA Cup draws had sorted that particular competition out. The turning point came after Howard Webb's ineffective handling of the League Cup Final had prevented the occurrence of anything magical. The aftermath represented not only Arsène Wenger's third disciplinary of the season but also the turning point in the PGMOB machinations against Arsenal. Our assessment is that the necessary short term institutional targets had been achieved and so, recently, Arsenal's route to Europe has been paved with favourable officiating.
Our Trading Team have creatively modelled the corruption against Arsenal this season. In real-time, we monitor and assess all Premiership referees and the configurative parameters in our Unified Trading Model (UTM) relating to both the psychologies and the behaviours of officials are highly robust. Many of our conclusions relevant to the anti-Arsenal manipulation are too close to our proprietary core for public discussion but two areas that we are happy to cover here are the biases of the PGMOB officials and the impact of private equity money.
Hierarchically, Arsenal are in a state of flux. It is obvious that there are conflicting dynamics and hidden strategies relating to Arsenal's future ownership within the upper echelons of the club. Personal prioritisation versus organisational prioritisation is a complex playing field. The fault lines that already exist will be exploited by Stan Kroenke and the inevitable resultant momentum is the logical force that makes private equity so powerful. The market system is so structured as to lubricate this process. This internal upheaval within the club is coinciding with major infrastructural changes generally in English and European football. Strategies must be developed that accommodate this backcloth.
David Dein and Arsène Wenger were in the process of preparing Arsenal's Five Year Plan. Now that Dein has departed, there are still some key strategic choices that need to be made here. Arsenal have always exercised their power within the games infrastructure but they do not get involved in the global football betting markets. It is this, as we have shown in numerous other posts, where considerable revenue flows are being pencilled in by the private equity brigade at other leading clubs. Arsenal have two clear strategic choices. The first route is to sell out to the highest private equity bidder allowing Fiszman and Lady Bracewell-Smith to collect their millions while the club plummets into the gutter at the lowest common denominator level of business. Alternatively, Arsenal might choose not to sell out to the degree that Liverpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Portsmouth have. Arsenal might decide to confront the corruption against their interests by creatively involving themselves in the financial markets without having to undertake anything so grubby as betting. After all, there are many ways to influence a market. We hope that Arsenal choose the more creative and moral route with respect to the markets. As the club have discovered this season, chaos moves in mysterious ways.
At least two aspects will remain a constant under Wenger's tutelage. We would expect that Arsenal continue to develop the most entertaining and talented global youngsters and we would expect Arsenal to remain a team of style and flair.
Some previous posts on Arsenal at Football is Fixed are listed below:
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/breaking-news.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/six-three-to-arsenal.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/non-gooner-london-bias.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/dont-criticise-refs-and-other.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/weekend-premiership-round-up.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/02/riley-wiley-make-bookmakers-smiley.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/02/magic-of-fa-cup-revisited.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/pgmob-defeat-arsenal-again.html
Only three months ago, the Gooners reserves wiped out Liverpool 6-3 in a Busby Babes-esque performance but the constant institutional friction against their interests has turned around the fickle ones inside the ground. Such fans evidently possess more money than sense. The determined undermining of Arsenal on the pitch has been parallelled by the destabilisation caused by Stan Kroenke and his KSE Group in the boardroom.
The final irony is that last night's victory enabled Arsenal to virtually assure Champions League participation for next season - in the light of the machinations against them over the season, this represents the highest plateau of achievement available.
Historically, Arsenal have always been a power team in English football which is why this season's reversal has been so marked. By the time Wenger decided to call it a day in the Premiership title race, Arsenal had been unjustly targeted to the tune of 15 points over the season while biased refereeing and "random" FA Cup draws had sorted that particular competition out. The turning point came after Howard Webb's ineffective handling of the League Cup Final had prevented the occurrence of anything magical. The aftermath represented not only Arsène Wenger's third disciplinary of the season but also the turning point in the PGMOB machinations against Arsenal. Our assessment is that the necessary short term institutional targets had been achieved and so, recently, Arsenal's route to Europe has been paved with favourable officiating.
Our Trading Team have creatively modelled the corruption against Arsenal this season. In real-time, we monitor and assess all Premiership referees and the configurative parameters in our Unified Trading Model (UTM) relating to both the psychologies and the behaviours of officials are highly robust. Many of our conclusions relevant to the anti-Arsenal manipulation are too close to our proprietary core for public discussion but two areas that we are happy to cover here are the biases of the PGMOB officials and the impact of private equity money.
Hierarchically, Arsenal are in a state of flux. It is obvious that there are conflicting dynamics and hidden strategies relating to Arsenal's future ownership within the upper echelons of the club. Personal prioritisation versus organisational prioritisation is a complex playing field. The fault lines that already exist will be exploited by Stan Kroenke and the inevitable resultant momentum is the logical force that makes private equity so powerful. The market system is so structured as to lubricate this process. This internal upheaval within the club is coinciding with major infrastructural changes generally in English and European football. Strategies must be developed that accommodate this backcloth.
David Dein and Arsène Wenger were in the process of preparing Arsenal's Five Year Plan. Now that Dein has departed, there are still some key strategic choices that need to be made here. Arsenal have always exercised their power within the games infrastructure but they do not get involved in the global football betting markets. It is this, as we have shown in numerous other posts, where considerable revenue flows are being pencilled in by the private equity brigade at other leading clubs. Arsenal have two clear strategic choices. The first route is to sell out to the highest private equity bidder allowing Fiszman and Lady Bracewell-Smith to collect their millions while the club plummets into the gutter at the lowest common denominator level of business. Alternatively, Arsenal might choose not to sell out to the degree that Liverpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Portsmouth have. Arsenal might decide to confront the corruption against their interests by creatively involving themselves in the financial markets without having to undertake anything so grubby as betting. After all, there are many ways to influence a market. We hope that Arsenal choose the more creative and moral route with respect to the markets. As the club have discovered this season, chaos moves in mysterious ways.
At least two aspects will remain a constant under Wenger's tutelage. We would expect that Arsenal continue to develop the most entertaining and talented global youngsters and we would expect Arsenal to remain a team of style and flair.
Some previous posts on Arsenal at Football is Fixed are listed below:
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/breaking-news.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/six-three-to-arsenal.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/non-gooner-london-bias.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/dont-criticise-refs-and-other.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/weekend-premiership-round-up.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/02/riley-wiley-make-bookmakers-smiley.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/02/magic-of-fa-cup-revisited.html
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/pgmob-defeat-arsenal-again.html
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Rampant Regionalism Wrecks Real's Racing Reality
Spanish referee Javier Turienzo Alvarez has an interesting angle on sublety. Alvarez has received death threats and hostile phonecalls following his remarkable quarter of an hour at the weekend when he managed to send off two Real Madrid players (Ivan Helguera and Alvaro Mejia) and, for good measure, provided Racing de Santander with two penalties to boot. The 2-1 defeat may well decide the La Liga against the Castillians and Alvarez claims that his six year old daughter has been targeted because her father has "ruined things for Real". Well, he certainly achieved that...
Alvarez has always been an entertaining official and La Liga has always been an entertaining league.
The control of officials by clubs is not only a major influence on match outcomes in Spain but is also a generally accepted manipulation culturally. Sports newspapers like Marca and El Mundo Deportivo frequently address the choice of officials for future matches and the presidents of the clubs equally frequently act up when it is felt that a fair deal is not in the air. Control of officials is the single most dominant corruption in La Liga although the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) comes a close second. Gambling money plays it's part but the majority of the manipulation relates to political and regional power politics. In our estimation, the absolute degree of corruption is of similar magnitude in both Spain and Italy as is the usage of PESs and, indeed, the unpleasant degree of racism.
Regarding the specific incident at the weekend. Alvarez, as far as I am aware, has no links to bookmakers. His officiating is biased but that sentence could be applied to virtually any top flight official in Spain. Spanish referees are based in regional colegios or schools and carry their regionalism into their officiating. Alvarez, for example, has a particular grudge against the city of Sevilla. The Big 2 teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid, also exercise a significant degree of control over many officials. It is simply laughable for Real to be hissy fitting over any perceived refereeing injustices as they were consummate rule benders when the Partido (not so) Popular were in power. And not just with respect to refereeing decisions - remember the lucrative deal struck for the sale of the prime real estate that was Real's training ground.
The two real issues about the weekend are as follows.
Barcelona are in control currently - Madrid probably are required to be about six points better than the Catalunyans to achieve parity.
And the referees are vulnerable. We see a future where football referees take on the protected isolationism granted to horseracing jockeys in Britain. Huge profits and losses result from officiating both with regard to the global gambling markets and individual club success within the game. Top jockeys effectively have their entire existences controlled by their operators. They do a job and they are protected with nice big houses in establishment in-breeding territory like Newmarket (if the Stepford Wives or Wicker Man were to be set in England - Newmarket's your place!) The only point to add being that the size of their living abodes bears no relation to their legitimate riding career earnings!
Referees will also need to be esconced in football's equivalent of Baghdad's Green Zone - the experience of Bob Woolmer is prescient of future realities. If corruption must be the future of the game then, at the very least, there must be protection for family members, particularly children, who are innocent bystanders to the criminal infrastructure.
Now, where's that phonebook? Hertfordshire... Tring... Poll... Graham...
Alvarez has always been an entertaining official and La Liga has always been an entertaining league.
The control of officials by clubs is not only a major influence on match outcomes in Spain but is also a generally accepted manipulation culturally. Sports newspapers like Marca and El Mundo Deportivo frequently address the choice of officials for future matches and the presidents of the clubs equally frequently act up when it is felt that a fair deal is not in the air. Control of officials is the single most dominant corruption in La Liga although the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) comes a close second. Gambling money plays it's part but the majority of the manipulation relates to political and regional power politics. In our estimation, the absolute degree of corruption is of similar magnitude in both Spain and Italy as is the usage of PESs and, indeed, the unpleasant degree of racism.
Regarding the specific incident at the weekend. Alvarez, as far as I am aware, has no links to bookmakers. His officiating is biased but that sentence could be applied to virtually any top flight official in Spain. Spanish referees are based in regional colegios or schools and carry their regionalism into their officiating. Alvarez, for example, has a particular grudge against the city of Sevilla. The Big 2 teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid, also exercise a significant degree of control over many officials. It is simply laughable for Real to be hissy fitting over any perceived refereeing injustices as they were consummate rule benders when the Partido (not so) Popular were in power. And not just with respect to refereeing decisions - remember the lucrative deal struck for the sale of the prime real estate that was Real's training ground.
The two real issues about the weekend are as follows.
Barcelona are in control currently - Madrid probably are required to be about six points better than the Catalunyans to achieve parity.
And the referees are vulnerable. We see a future where football referees take on the protected isolationism granted to horseracing jockeys in Britain. Huge profits and losses result from officiating both with regard to the global gambling markets and individual club success within the game. Top jockeys effectively have their entire existences controlled by their operators. They do a job and they are protected with nice big houses in establishment in-breeding territory like Newmarket (if the Stepford Wives or Wicker Man were to be set in England - Newmarket's your place!) The only point to add being that the size of their living abodes bears no relation to their legitimate riding career earnings!
Referees will also need to be esconced in football's equivalent of Baghdad's Green Zone - the experience of Bob Woolmer is prescient of future realities. If corruption must be the future of the game then, at the very least, there must be protection for family members, particularly children, who are innocent bystanders to the criminal infrastructure.
Now, where's that phonebook? Hertfordshire... Tring... Poll... Graham...
An Analyst's Perspective On The Super League
Our recent post on the development of a European Super League for the continent's most powerful teams assessed the systemic infrastructural changes from a variety of standpoints (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/every-so-often-g1418-group-of-europes.html). The prime conclusions of our original post were that a blueprint and strategy already exist for the creation of a Super League and that there was an inevitability about the development. The only uncertainty from our position is timescale.
In this post, we assess what the changes will mean for professional traders and market analysts.
So, it's August 2010 and the first Kohlberg Kravis Roberts/ Rio Tinto Zinc Super League is about to kick off - we prefer "Europa" but sponsorship money is infinitely more important than any creativeness. The 20 strong 8 nation league represents the G14(18) plus Chelsea and Glasgow Rangers. There is a pool of twelve referees - two each from the Big 4 countries and one each for the lesser nations. The first structure that will become evident to all analysts and traders is that of our old friend the fully matured market. Whether the systemic infrastructure resembles a cartel, a monopoly or a duopoly, the vertically integrated power hierarchy will enforce ultimate and complete control. One of the key developmental aspects for all market observers will be the control of price. When markets develop to their mature phase, the control of price falls into ever fewer and fewer hands. In some markets eg British horseracing, the control is absolute and, for many events, there is no information in the price for the vast majority of market participants. If football market making is an effective duopoly between the Far East and Europe then there is competitive pricing; if either side is in control of the market making process then we are in a far more entertaining marketplace. This control is targeted with respect to two main market sectors - the pre match markets and the in running markets. Obviously, the impact on margin is another factor that matures with the market. Dietrological have our own proprietary modelling of future scenario analyses and we would not wish to discuss isolationist areas. However, the progression from fragmented cartelisation to a more mature format is a prime functional backdrop to all of our trading activities. Black box technology with creative input will yield profitable outputs as will market memory but the information in the price will become an increasingly complex area of analysis for traders who lack experience in operating in fully mature sectors. A major skill for trading the Super League will be how to utilise the fundamental parameters. There will be events when these fundamentals have absolutely no relevance and others where the solution lies within such fundamentals. Indeed, this is already the case within some current market structures.
Our Trading Team have discussed the implications of the Super League recently whenever we have been able to share a location. For highly skilled market analysts, there will be a spectrum of trading and consultative opportunities. The increased liquidity across the sector will inevitably feedback into performance-based rewards. As the market depth increases so will the trading security - no more doubt about collecting your winnings. Equally inevitably, this will lead to dealing with a better class of criminal - Haberdashers' Aske's or Eton as opposed to Strangeways or the East End. The range of available consultancy work will increase. Investment houses, Super League teams, market makers/brokers, media, trading operations, government and regulators will all be buying in professional analytical skills.
The deferred gratification of staying out of the loop as long as possible is an earner for a strategic analyst.
In this post, we assess what the changes will mean for professional traders and market analysts.
So, it's August 2010 and the first Kohlberg Kravis Roberts/ Rio Tinto Zinc Super League is about to kick off - we prefer "Europa" but sponsorship money is infinitely more important than any creativeness. The 20 strong 8 nation league represents the G14(18) plus Chelsea and Glasgow Rangers. There is a pool of twelve referees - two each from the Big 4 countries and one each for the lesser nations. The first structure that will become evident to all analysts and traders is that of our old friend the fully matured market. Whether the systemic infrastructure resembles a cartel, a monopoly or a duopoly, the vertically integrated power hierarchy will enforce ultimate and complete control. One of the key developmental aspects for all market observers will be the control of price. When markets develop to their mature phase, the control of price falls into ever fewer and fewer hands. In some markets eg British horseracing, the control is absolute and, for many events, there is no information in the price for the vast majority of market participants. If football market making is an effective duopoly between the Far East and Europe then there is competitive pricing; if either side is in control of the market making process then we are in a far more entertaining marketplace. This control is targeted with respect to two main market sectors - the pre match markets and the in running markets. Obviously, the impact on margin is another factor that matures with the market. Dietrological have our own proprietary modelling of future scenario analyses and we would not wish to discuss isolationist areas. However, the progression from fragmented cartelisation to a more mature format is a prime functional backdrop to all of our trading activities. Black box technology with creative input will yield profitable outputs as will market memory but the information in the price will become an increasingly complex area of analysis for traders who lack experience in operating in fully mature sectors. A major skill for trading the Super League will be how to utilise the fundamental parameters. There will be events when these fundamentals have absolutely no relevance and others where the solution lies within such fundamentals. Indeed, this is already the case within some current market structures.
Our Trading Team have discussed the implications of the Super League recently whenever we have been able to share a location. For highly skilled market analysts, there will be a spectrum of trading and consultative opportunities. The increased liquidity across the sector will inevitably feedback into performance-based rewards. As the market depth increases so will the trading security - no more doubt about collecting your winnings. Equally inevitably, this will lead to dealing with a better class of criminal - Haberdashers' Aske's or Eton as opposed to Strangeways or the East End. The range of available consultancy work will increase. Investment houses, Super League teams, market makers/brokers, media, trading operations, government and regulators will all be buying in professional analytical skills.
The deferred gratification of staying out of the loop as long as possible is an earner for a strategic analyst.
Monday, 16 April 2007
Sorted
Congratulations to the many readers who took advantage of our repeated promptings to make money from the "certainty" of a Man Utd versus Chelsea FA Cup Final. There was never any doubt with regard to the validity of this position due to the marketing extravaganza that will be the first FA Cup back at Wembley.
The weekend's Semi Finals existed very clearly on two separate levels - there was the market information and then there was the spectacular society output.
Firstly, the markets... Corrupted markets of any variety are always a good source of cloned information for any market analyst. Similarly to volatile windows, there are proper returns for first mover advantage. Very few bookmakers ever priced up the option of "Name The Finalists" in the FA Cup and, among those that did, they either eliminated the Man Utd/Chelsea option or offered prohibitively scalped prices. On Saturday, all hell broke loose and, by kick off in the Man Utd/Watford game, we could not find one single layer globally that would accommodate any money on our "certainty".
Think about this for a minute. We were being asked to believe that the media was providing us with two competitive football matches but the people with access to inside information were unwilling to provide a "To Qualify for Final" market. Look at any other knockout competition and the bookmakers are falling over themselves to price up such markets as layers generally prefer markets with more potential outcomes. This was effectively a tacit acceptance by the betting industry that the FA Cup Final was a done deal.
Everything else is just spectacular society... Both games were under control - the Man Utd game offered such a major differential within the fundamentals that the event was a total mis-match while Alan Wiley officiated yesterday's Chelsea game exactly to our template projections. There was an infrastructure on the Chelsea game although we are not willing to publicly discuss this controlled format as it falls within our proprietary guidelines. But, rest assured that the control was absolute, complex and financially rewarding for insiders. On Grand National weekend, the PGMOB were taking no chances with the three British tv games - Wiley, Poll and Webb are top tier operators and occupy leading places in our Bum Ref Index (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/bum-ref-index-march-update.html). Blackburn and Watford never had a chance...
Sky television added a provocative extra twist to the Chelsea match by employing Robbie Savage as a studio expert alongside Keys and Redknapp - it was Savage who first got the Man Utd v Chelsea "certainty" into mainstream media!
This primary and secondary level spectacular society nonsense was supplemented by some tertiary level media trash in the ongoing public portrayal of David James and his magical thinking. As previously posted, Calamity was growing a beard until he achieved some totally minor goalkeeping threshold. To change his luck and to avoid starting next season looking like a muslim cleric, the sprite shaved off his beard before failing to reach the record at the weekend. I know that I shouldn't care about this but I do as the whole episode is helping us to enhance our Psychological Profiling of James and his narcissistic (and other) personality types.
Why do these people insist on making our job easier?
The weekend's Semi Finals existed very clearly on two separate levels - there was the market information and then there was the spectacular society output.
Firstly, the markets... Corrupted markets of any variety are always a good source of cloned information for any market analyst. Similarly to volatile windows, there are proper returns for first mover advantage. Very few bookmakers ever priced up the option of "Name The Finalists" in the FA Cup and, among those that did, they either eliminated the Man Utd/Chelsea option or offered prohibitively scalped prices. On Saturday, all hell broke loose and, by kick off in the Man Utd/Watford game, we could not find one single layer globally that would accommodate any money on our "certainty".
Think about this for a minute. We were being asked to believe that the media was providing us with two competitive football matches but the people with access to inside information were unwilling to provide a "To Qualify for Final" market. Look at any other knockout competition and the bookmakers are falling over themselves to price up such markets as layers generally prefer markets with more potential outcomes. This was effectively a tacit acceptance by the betting industry that the FA Cup Final was a done deal.
Everything else is just spectacular society... Both games were under control - the Man Utd game offered such a major differential within the fundamentals that the event was a total mis-match while Alan Wiley officiated yesterday's Chelsea game exactly to our template projections. There was an infrastructure on the Chelsea game although we are not willing to publicly discuss this controlled format as it falls within our proprietary guidelines. But, rest assured that the control was absolute, complex and financially rewarding for insiders. On Grand National weekend, the PGMOB were taking no chances with the three British tv games - Wiley, Poll and Webb are top tier operators and occupy leading places in our Bum Ref Index (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/bum-ref-index-march-update.html). Blackburn and Watford never had a chance...
Sky television added a provocative extra twist to the Chelsea match by employing Robbie Savage as a studio expert alongside Keys and Redknapp - it was Savage who first got the Man Utd v Chelsea "certainty" into mainstream media!
This primary and secondary level spectacular society nonsense was supplemented by some tertiary level media trash in the ongoing public portrayal of David James and his magical thinking. As previously posted, Calamity was growing a beard until he achieved some totally minor goalkeeping threshold. To change his luck and to avoid starting next season looking like a muslim cleric, the sprite shaved off his beard before failing to reach the record at the weekend. I know that I shouldn't care about this but I do as the whole episode is helping us to enhance our Psychological Profiling of James and his narcissistic (and other) personality types.
Why do these people insist on making our job easier?
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Subvert, Divide And Rule, Bribe
Just when the general consensus of opinion was that things cannot get any worse in Italian football, the Neapolitan Public Prosecutors decided otherwise by considerably extending the scope of last summer's investigation into match-fixing in Serie A and B. The twenty four games that were originally under investigation have been increased to 39 as the Italians oscillate timelessly in between admonishment and amnesty (for some).
The story so far is that Juventus were demoted while Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina had points deductions. The main beneficiaries were Roma and Inter who were presented with a Serie A duopoly for the current season and Messina who avoided relegation thanks to the fall of the Old Lady. There is an instance of dietrologia here in that the very same Messina are now being added to the list of teams who are suspected of seeking to influence matches. "We have nothing to do with this scandal. And we have always operated with complete legality and transparency," Messina president Pietro Franza hilariously claimed (with tongue firmly in cheek) in yesterday's press release. Sicily is a mess. I can feel another round of point adjustments coming on here. Public prosecutor Filippo Beatrice aims to bring the miscreants to justice between now and June so the key decision is whether penalties will be applied with hindsight to the current season or whether season 2007/08 is to take the form of a handicap too. To date, the Serie A points adjustments seem to be readjusted periodically to ensure that the correct teams end up in the correct positions at the season's end.
Eight referees were originally suspended but only two served a ban De Santis (who is banned) and Paparesta who has returned to officiate 10 Serie A games this season while also still being involved in UEFA events). He must be feeling suitably disciplined then. It is interesting to look at the other initially banned officials. Below is a list of the most frequently utilised officials in this season's Serie A:
Saccani 15
Ayroldi, BERTINI, Farina, Rizzoli 14
Rosetti, ROCCHI, MESSINA 13
Bergonzi, Girardi, TAGLIAVENTO 12
The officials in capitals were those initially suspended. Rodomonti has hung up his whistle; Dondarini has officiated at ten matches as has Paparesta but the latter was out of action for two months. There is no evidence that the Italian football authorities have carried through with their initial drive with regard to referees as now it seems that twenty five referees, 18 of whom are still working in the Italian league, also remain under suspicion. In the early phases of the current season, numerous new officials were introduced onto the roster to limit corruption opportunities but most of these have now been discarded as the power regimes reassert themselves.
We have frequently praised aspects of Italian manners in dealing with illegalities but, by the time the various appeals have been heard, the punishments rarely fit the crime and, additionally, power politics warps any sense of justice. Milan were as guilty as Juventus with respect to the controlling of officials and indeed, during Berlusconi's era, Milan through Galliani were omnipotent. The dichotomous outcome for the Big 2 is that the least guilty, Juventus, effectively lose all their players, one year's income, television money, have two years of Champions League omission and a borse battering while the most guilty, Milan, ensure that their points deduction doesn't prevent Champions League qualification for next season and then focus on reaching the final of this year's competition without the distraction of a domestic title race.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of an Italian season that has only really had drama off the pitch is that, against a chaotic backdrop, Italy deservedly won the World Cup! This victory was, apparently, all the more applaudable in that Blatter and FIFA were allegedly livid at the Italian scandal breaking to coincide with their piece of global marketing. On this latter point, we think some of the public posturing was spectacular society nonsense but Italy's triumph was a major triumph nonetheless.
Subvert, divide and rule, bribe is the standard template used by imperial nations, multinational organisations and globalised businesses. This structure underpins the corruption that has taken hold in the Premiership over the last fifteen years about which there is no mainstream media comment. It also underpins the very public corruption exhibited in Serie A.
The English Premiership could do with a bit of dietrologia as the situation here is considerably worse. But don't hold your breath...
The story so far is that Juventus were demoted while Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina had points deductions. The main beneficiaries were Roma and Inter who were presented with a Serie A duopoly for the current season and Messina who avoided relegation thanks to the fall of the Old Lady. There is an instance of dietrologia here in that the very same Messina are now being added to the list of teams who are suspected of seeking to influence matches. "We have nothing to do with this scandal. And we have always operated with complete legality and transparency," Messina president Pietro Franza hilariously claimed (with tongue firmly in cheek) in yesterday's press release. Sicily is a mess. I can feel another round of point adjustments coming on here. Public prosecutor Filippo Beatrice aims to bring the miscreants to justice between now and June so the key decision is whether penalties will be applied with hindsight to the current season or whether season 2007/08 is to take the form of a handicap too. To date, the Serie A points adjustments seem to be readjusted periodically to ensure that the correct teams end up in the correct positions at the season's end.
Eight referees were originally suspended but only two served a ban De Santis (who is banned) and Paparesta who has returned to officiate 10 Serie A games this season while also still being involved in UEFA events). He must be feeling suitably disciplined then. It is interesting to look at the other initially banned officials. Below is a list of the most frequently utilised officials in this season's Serie A:
Saccani 15
Ayroldi, BERTINI, Farina, Rizzoli 14
Rosetti, ROCCHI, MESSINA 13
Bergonzi, Girardi, TAGLIAVENTO 12
The officials in capitals were those initially suspended. Rodomonti has hung up his whistle; Dondarini has officiated at ten matches as has Paparesta but the latter was out of action for two months. There is no evidence that the Italian football authorities have carried through with their initial drive with regard to referees as now it seems that twenty five referees, 18 of whom are still working in the Italian league, also remain under suspicion. In the early phases of the current season, numerous new officials were introduced onto the roster to limit corruption opportunities but most of these have now been discarded as the power regimes reassert themselves.
We have frequently praised aspects of Italian manners in dealing with illegalities but, by the time the various appeals have been heard, the punishments rarely fit the crime and, additionally, power politics warps any sense of justice. Milan were as guilty as Juventus with respect to the controlling of officials and indeed, during Berlusconi's era, Milan through Galliani were omnipotent. The dichotomous outcome for the Big 2 is that the least guilty, Juventus, effectively lose all their players, one year's income, television money, have two years of Champions League omission and a borse battering while the most guilty, Milan, ensure that their points deduction doesn't prevent Champions League qualification for next season and then focus on reaching the final of this year's competition without the distraction of a domestic title race.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of an Italian season that has only really had drama off the pitch is that, against a chaotic backdrop, Italy deservedly won the World Cup! This victory was, apparently, all the more applaudable in that Blatter and FIFA were allegedly livid at the Italian scandal breaking to coincide with their piece of global marketing. On this latter point, we think some of the public posturing was spectacular society nonsense but Italy's triumph was a major triumph nonetheless.
Subvert, divide and rule, bribe is the standard template used by imperial nations, multinational organisations and globalised businesses. This structure underpins the corruption that has taken hold in the Premiership over the last fifteen years about which there is no mainstream media comment. It also underpins the very public corruption exhibited in Serie A.
The English Premiership could do with a bit of dietrologia as the situation here is considerably worse. But don't hold your breath...
Friday, 13 April 2007
Bandits Taking Over The Town
Big Sam Allardyce has always had a fearsome reputation in the north west of England - I was once told how he was beating the ground repeatedly with a cane while managing Blackpool Reserves to a 6-0 pre season friendly victory over Newcastle Town. Like it mattered...? With the spooky Phil Gartside and, initially, with the talented Phil Brown, Allardyce has transformed Bolton Wanderers from a small town redneck team to a multinational highly professional outfit that utilise cutting edge science to enhance their club's prospects. With no serious money behind them, Bolton repeatedly finish in the top few in the Premiership without the Big 4 (8th, 6th, 8th and currently 5th over last four years despite sometimes switching off late season as European qualification is not always part of the strategic plan). Success requires Mr Allardyce to occasionally sail close to the wind - there is no way a small unmarketable north west club would be able to sustain such a high profile in the Premiership without tilting the playing field in their favour from time to time. Some of the manners in which Bolton achieve this advantage were revealed in the BBC Panorama programme on bung culture - an effervescent Big Sam initially threatened to sue all and sundry before wisely choosing the keeping your powder dry route. Allardyce has to be in the frame for a top tier appointment sooner rather than later. This weekend sees the vital Premiership match at Arsenal which may well determine the fourth Champions League spot. Arsenal are already on the beach and there are boardroom ructions at the Emirates; but do Bolton want it and will the PGMOB let them get it? $4000 is the price for semi-exclusive release of info tomorrow morning at 09:00GMT. Apply as usual.
Speaking of Allardyce, the man likes to maintain his public profile and yesterday's press release where he claims that the Premiership is the best league in the world is, on first glance, confirmed by the presence of three English teams in the Champions League Semi Finals. Looking closer and a more complex picture occurs. The Semi Finals pitch Berlusconi against the Glazers and Abramovitch versus Gillet and Hicks. All four teams are in the top ten in the Deloitte Touche Football Money League (formerly known as "the Rich List" but mysteriously renamed as money is a more neutral term than rich). Power wins out. Liverpool, Manchester United and AC Milan are all first tier G14(18) clubs and Chelsea and Milan are both part of the UEFA Strategy Board. The English league is not the best in the world, it is currently the league with the most powerful corrupting money behind it (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/comparative-corruption-in-major.html). It is also the league that leaves the biggest footprint on the global betting markets on an insider basis.
Deloitte Touche's annual report on the state of football's finances should be treated with considerable disdain. It is an example of the type of poor holistic sector overviews that are produced by outsiders applying a standard formulation rather than a sector specific analysis. At no point does the report touch (touche?) on gambling income nor take account of the numerous other non-accounted revenue streams. The latter would lead to incremental differences while the former would entirely reconstitute the Rich List making it's current form obsolete. Simply, it has no value.
The chances of a three-way Abramovich v. Glazer (Russia v USA) end to the season should be moved significantly closer following the outcomes of this weekend's FA Cup Semi Finals. We advised previously to get on a Chelsea/Man Utd Final at both 3/1 and 6/4 (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/fa-fixed-anachronistic-cup-200607.html). During our daily am internet news round-up, we noted The Guardian headlines - Dan Roebuck "Why Watford Could Beat Man Utd To Wembley" followed by a Keith Pullein special "Hope Is Not Lost For Underdogs" and Scott Murray's "Blackburn Rovers v Watford is the 'dream' final most people want". What a load of baloney. Trying to appeal to the occasional one-off National punters with glowing recommendations of belief in underdogs is a great journalistic disservice and, as regards a lack of subtlety...
The British bookmakers are on a short term loser and a medium term winner but their collective short-termism makes it difficult for them to see beyond the end of their noses. Tomorrow is Grand National Day where it is a British tradition to slaughter some graceful athletic creatures in the name of gambling. Betting turnover in this sceptred isle (sic) is humongous for Aintree Saturday as everybody is programmed to have a little flutter on the National. In a triumph of bookmaking scheduling, the FA Cup Finals were set for the same weekend. But the bookies initial hopes of a super bumper day have turned to a nightmare because of the very very high probability that Man Utd and Chelsea must win for a showpiece Wembley Final that will, in turn, repay the bookies for their immediate losses. Most bookmakers are not even pricing up the market for FA Cup Finalists. All press will be persuading punters to back the underdog (thank you The Guardian and, also, a thank you for Frank Lampard's views the other day - insightful journalism par excellence) or to get greedy and bet on HT/FT or Lampard to score and Chelsea to win 7-6 on penalties type of markets. The only sensible bet is the 1/2 available on a United versus Chelsea Final - if you must get involved, take it. Politically, this bet is entertaining. If the dream final is a reality then sensible punters will have won. If the dream final isn't a reality then the bookies will ultimately lose out. I like a twisted rationale that can find pleasure even in a potential loss!
And, while on the subject of corrution and manipulation, Poland is the latest country to show the English how to deal with corruption in football following the demotion of Arka Gdynia and Gornik Leczna for bribery and match-fixing. The decision obviously has no relevance to Poland and Ukraine's joint bid for Euro 2012 Finals which will be decided next week. Perhaps to enhance England's bid for the 2018 World Cup the Premier League should relegate Premiership teams involved in match-rigging although there would not be too many of the current crop of twenty remaining if they chose to do so!
Anybody want any tips on how to destroy steeplechase fences?
Speaking of Allardyce, the man likes to maintain his public profile and yesterday's press release where he claims that the Premiership is the best league in the world is, on first glance, confirmed by the presence of three English teams in the Champions League Semi Finals. Looking closer and a more complex picture occurs. The Semi Finals pitch Berlusconi against the Glazers and Abramovitch versus Gillet and Hicks. All four teams are in the top ten in the Deloitte Touche Football Money League (formerly known as "the Rich List" but mysteriously renamed as money is a more neutral term than rich). Power wins out. Liverpool, Manchester United and AC Milan are all first tier G14(18) clubs and Chelsea and Milan are both part of the UEFA Strategy Board. The English league is not the best in the world, it is currently the league with the most powerful corrupting money behind it (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/comparative-corruption-in-major.html). It is also the league that leaves the biggest footprint on the global betting markets on an insider basis.
Deloitte Touche's annual report on the state of football's finances should be treated with considerable disdain. It is an example of the type of poor holistic sector overviews that are produced by outsiders applying a standard formulation rather than a sector specific analysis. At no point does the report touch (touche?) on gambling income nor take account of the numerous other non-accounted revenue streams. The latter would lead to incremental differences while the former would entirely reconstitute the Rich List making it's current form obsolete. Simply, it has no value.
The chances of a three-way Abramovich v. Glazer (Russia v USA) end to the season should be moved significantly closer following the outcomes of this weekend's FA Cup Semi Finals. We advised previously to get on a Chelsea/Man Utd Final at both 3/1 and 6/4 (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/03/fa-fixed-anachronistic-cup-200607.html). During our daily am internet news round-up, we noted The Guardian headlines - Dan Roebuck "Why Watford Could Beat Man Utd To Wembley" followed by a Keith Pullein special "Hope Is Not Lost For Underdogs" and Scott Murray's "Blackburn Rovers v Watford is the 'dream' final most people want". What a load of baloney. Trying to appeal to the occasional one-off National punters with glowing recommendations of belief in underdogs is a great journalistic disservice and, as regards a lack of subtlety...
The British bookmakers are on a short term loser and a medium term winner but their collective short-termism makes it difficult for them to see beyond the end of their noses. Tomorrow is Grand National Day where it is a British tradition to slaughter some graceful athletic creatures in the name of gambling. Betting turnover in this sceptred isle (sic) is humongous for Aintree Saturday as everybody is programmed to have a little flutter on the National. In a triumph of bookmaking scheduling, the FA Cup Finals were set for the same weekend. But the bookies initial hopes of a super bumper day have turned to a nightmare because of the very very high probability that Man Utd and Chelsea must win for a showpiece Wembley Final that will, in turn, repay the bookies for their immediate losses. Most bookmakers are not even pricing up the market for FA Cup Finalists. All press will be persuading punters to back the underdog (thank you The Guardian and, also, a thank you for Frank Lampard's views the other day - insightful journalism par excellence) or to get greedy and bet on HT/FT or Lampard to score and Chelsea to win 7-6 on penalties type of markets. The only sensible bet is the 1/2 available on a United versus Chelsea Final - if you must get involved, take it. Politically, this bet is entertaining. If the dream final is a reality then sensible punters will have won. If the dream final isn't a reality then the bookies will ultimately lose out. I like a twisted rationale that can find pleasure even in a potential loss!
And, while on the subject of corrution and manipulation, Poland is the latest country to show the English how to deal with corruption in football following the demotion of Arka Gdynia and Gornik Leczna for bribery and match-fixing. The decision obviously has no relevance to Poland and Ukraine's joint bid for Euro 2012 Finals which will be decided next week. Perhaps to enhance England's bid for the 2018 World Cup the Premier League should relegate Premiership teams involved in match-rigging although there would not be too many of the current crop of twenty remaining if they chose to do so!
Anybody want any tips on how to destroy steeplechase fences?
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose
Mike Newell stood up and exposed some aspects of the corruption in English football - he was recently sacked as Luton manager and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. Of the individuals and clubs fingered by the resultant BBC Panorama programme, there has been no action over Allardyce, Redknapp, Middlesboro, Liverpool or Arneson and Kevin Bond was given a manager's post at Bournemouth (one of Redknapp's stable of teams). The only other casualty of the affair has been Newell's former chairman at Luton, Bill Tomlins, who has stood down following sacking Newell after admitting to having made irregular payments to agents himself. Orwellian or what...? As we have stated previously, the Quest investigation into bungs is a whitewash and, by only focusing on transfers in a two year period, a very selective whitewash at that.
Bob Woolmer (remember him?) stood up and decided to expose the corruption in cricket. He was consequently sacked as a member of the human race and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. The death is being quietly buried by the media. Of the individuals and teams investigated by Mark Shields of the Met, there has been no action against the illegal betting markets in South Asia and their bookmaking accomplices in London and Gibraltar, nor any action against members of the Pakistan team nor, indeed, anyone else. In fact, from Sky and the commentators at the deserted Caribbean grounds, there is no indication that the World Cup has been tarnished at all - there have been several major betting coups since the Pakistan/Ireland game with the Bangladesh versus South Africa merely being the most evident. And, by the way, who decided it was a good idea to charge West Indian fans a month's wages to watch a fixed cricket game?
A whistleblower stood up and exposed an English manager of placing £12m of bets on Premiership matches with Victor Chandler International (VCI) in one season (an average of over £30K on every match in the season). VCI sacked the individual and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. Nobody was ever investigated regarding the illegal betting due to the preemptive strike by Max Clifford and the High Court. This particular manager and his club are still heavily involved in the global football betting markets.
People in six hundred cities worldwide marched against the illegal war in Iraq prior to it's instigation. Half a million deaths later and these people will never cast a shadow over the world again. Despite some posturing, there has been no global institutional punishment over the invasion and occupation and we have Bush and Blair structuring their respective legacies, their psychopathic disorders preventing them from seeing the reality of their actions. Meanwhile, Cheney banks his Halliburton war booty.
Newell and the whistleblower are down the dole; Woolmer and a whole load of soldiers and citizens are pushing up daisies. The psychos don't worry cos they are burying deep their diplock gold.
If football is a substitute for war then the Theatre of Dreams has equivalence with the Theatre of War. Corruption, manipulated events, psychopathic behaviour, warped economics, inside information as a competitive advantage, abusive power hierarchies, hidden agendas, numerous catch 22's, masonic cells, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. War and football have their elites and generals and businesses and markets and working class men to do the fighting/playing. Rape and pillage become post-match domestic violence and hooliganism. The Economics of War have become the Economics of Football.
Football has always had issues related to sectarianism, racism, violence, regionalism, bigotry, nationalism, homophobia and hooliganism. Indeed, these are societal issues. Countries like England that have virtually entirely changed their fan base at a top flight level in the last fifteen years may now have less hooliganism in the Premiership but such attitudes haven't disappeared but merely migrated to the lower divisions and numerous town centres countrywide. Fifteen years ago, nobody knew what the flag of St George was but now Manchester's cemeteries are covered with competing red crosses and tricolours.
The shareholder capitalist tsunami has dropped it's template onto this already dysfunctional sport. Greed, power, corruption, massively liquid global betting markets, cartels, monopolies and, above all, profit have become the sole outputs. At times during the really dull games, I find myself daydreaming and my eyes gravitate towards the neon moving advertisements and I know that the game is up. Recent rule changes have prevented players from doing anything remotely spontaneous like putting on a mask after scoring (now specifically outlawed), displaying a t-shirt with a birthday message to your child is also now thankfully not allowed and neither is removing your shirt altogether (a goal, after all, merely being a close-up logo opportunity) nor celebrating the goal with your supporters. Presumably we can't have anything related to the real soul of football getting in the way of the marketing and advertising strategies of the businesses and private equity people who have taken over the game (wishing a teammate a quick recovery from a major injury = bad; Rooney 4/1 to score next goal with Fredbet = good).
The beautiful game does not need to be in this capitalist form. The beautiful game will die as a result of the strategies now in place. Skybet's "it matters more when there's money on it" has become an omnipresent and omniprescient statement regarding the state of the game and, whether inadvertently or deliberately, adequately describes the impact that money has had on football - devaluation. Now games only matter thanks to the money.
Thanks to Murdoch and an almost endless list that won't be missed etc etc...
Bob Woolmer (remember him?) stood up and decided to expose the corruption in cricket. He was consequently sacked as a member of the human race and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. The death is being quietly buried by the media. Of the individuals and teams investigated by Mark Shields of the Met, there has been no action against the illegal betting markets in South Asia and their bookmaking accomplices in London and Gibraltar, nor any action against members of the Pakistan team nor, indeed, anyone else. In fact, from Sky and the commentators at the deserted Caribbean grounds, there is no indication that the World Cup has been tarnished at all - there have been several major betting coups since the Pakistan/Ireland game with the Bangladesh versus South Africa merely being the most evident. And, by the way, who decided it was a good idea to charge West Indian fans a month's wages to watch a fixed cricket game?
A whistleblower stood up and exposed an English manager of placing £12m of bets on Premiership matches with Victor Chandler International (VCI) in one season (an average of over £30K on every match in the season). VCI sacked the individual and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. Nobody was ever investigated regarding the illegal betting due to the preemptive strike by Max Clifford and the High Court. This particular manager and his club are still heavily involved in the global football betting markets.
People in six hundred cities worldwide marched against the illegal war in Iraq prior to it's instigation. Half a million deaths later and these people will never cast a shadow over the world again. Despite some posturing, there has been no global institutional punishment over the invasion and occupation and we have Bush and Blair structuring their respective legacies, their psychopathic disorders preventing them from seeing the reality of their actions. Meanwhile, Cheney banks his Halliburton war booty.
Newell and the whistleblower are down the dole; Woolmer and a whole load of soldiers and citizens are pushing up daisies. The psychos don't worry cos they are burying deep their diplock gold.
If football is a substitute for war then the Theatre of Dreams has equivalence with the Theatre of War. Corruption, manipulated events, psychopathic behaviour, warped economics, inside information as a competitive advantage, abusive power hierarchies, hidden agendas, numerous catch 22's, masonic cells, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. War and football have their elites and generals and businesses and markets and working class men to do the fighting/playing. Rape and pillage become post-match domestic violence and hooliganism. The Economics of War have become the Economics of Football.
Football has always had issues related to sectarianism, racism, violence, regionalism, bigotry, nationalism, homophobia and hooliganism. Indeed, these are societal issues. Countries like England that have virtually entirely changed their fan base at a top flight level in the last fifteen years may now have less hooliganism in the Premiership but such attitudes haven't disappeared but merely migrated to the lower divisions and numerous town centres countrywide. Fifteen years ago, nobody knew what the flag of St George was but now Manchester's cemeteries are covered with competing red crosses and tricolours.
The shareholder capitalist tsunami has dropped it's template onto this already dysfunctional sport. Greed, power, corruption, massively liquid global betting markets, cartels, monopolies and, above all, profit have become the sole outputs. At times during the really dull games, I find myself daydreaming and my eyes gravitate towards the neon moving advertisements and I know that the game is up. Recent rule changes have prevented players from doing anything remotely spontaneous like putting on a mask after scoring (now specifically outlawed), displaying a t-shirt with a birthday message to your child is also now thankfully not allowed and neither is removing your shirt altogether (a goal, after all, merely being a close-up logo opportunity) nor celebrating the goal with your supporters. Presumably we can't have anything related to the real soul of football getting in the way of the marketing and advertising strategies of the businesses and private equity people who have taken over the game (wishing a teammate a quick recovery from a major injury = bad; Rooney 4/1 to score next goal with Fredbet = good).
The beautiful game does not need to be in this capitalist form. The beautiful game will die as a result of the strategies now in place. Skybet's "it matters more when there's money on it" has become an omnipresent and omniprescient statement regarding the state of the game and, whether inadvertently or deliberately, adequately describes the impact that money has had on football - devaluation. Now games only matter thanks to the money.
Thanks to Murdoch and an almost endless list that won't be missed etc etc...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)