Richard Scudamore continues backtracking, covering over his and the Premier League's trails, in an increasingly desperate attempt to emerge from the various scandals that slosh around his/their ankles with a modicom of professionalism still in place.
Having only supported the publication of the Quest inquiry after the arrest of the still unknown 61 year old in May for money laundering, Scudamore has lost more control of the whole bungs process with the City of London police raids on Glasgow Rangers, Newcastle United and Portsmouth. He cannot be awaiting any future developments with anything other than trepidation.
Furthermore, Scudamore is more than compromised by the West Ham United/MSI/Carlos Tevez saga. The double-jointed posturing of the Premier League has not only created a situation of pure farce in East London but has also established a confrontational negotiation battle when a more conciliatory structure could easily have been implemented. Having allowed West Ham United to remain in the Premiership without the points deduction that everybody on the planet appears to feel was a just punishment (Scudamore and West Ham excepted), the Premier League could only justify its position by declaring the third party agreements null and void. The short-termism of this strategy was swiftly realised when Tevez wished to move on to Man Utd. Did Scudamore just assume that his and the Premier League's repeated departures from the truth would disappear from the public's perception? The only route out of appearing ridiculously foolish is now a hidden agreement reached out of court between the various parties in this absolutely-not-three-party arrangement. Merely undertaking their role in these third party discussions totally undermines the self-policing of the Premier League and the original justification for allowing the Hammers to retain their Premiership place. And this is Scudamore's best option...
Rather than hob-nobbing with the gambling good in Hong Kong, Richard Scudamore would have been better employed at his desk addressing both the West Ham situation and the increasingly awkward Thaksin Shinawatra soap. We have itemised over numerous recent posts the reasonings why Thaksin is not a fit and proper person to own a Premiership football club (even if this club is Manchester City). The Premier League have repeatedly offered no obstacles to the conveyor belt of disturbing takeovers that have littered the English game over the last three years.
Today, Scudamore attempted to justify the allowance of Thaksin's takeover following concerns raised by both Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI). HRW wrote to the Premier League claiming that Shinawatra is "a human rights abuser of the worst kind" and that he should not have passed the league's 'fit and proper person' test. AI added that "if the Premier League wants to take any of that [human rights violations] into account when making their decisions, we're happy to make our documents available to them". As the HRW allegations and evidence of murder/torture are to be aired on BBC Five Live this evening, the Premier League was forced into a response. This response makes interesting reading: "It is important to realise that the Premier League takes its responsibilities surrounding the governance of its clubs very seriously. We have very clear rules on the ownership of our clubs, which include the Fit and Proper Persons Test (FAPPT), which go beyond any requirement by UK company law and are, to our knowledge, some of the sternest in place in any UK industry. The FAPPT means anyone convicted of a range of offences would not be permitted to become a director, or a shadow director, at a club".
A few points arising from this reply. Firstly, the point about shadow director is clearly being overlooked with respect to the position at Portsmouth where Alexandre Gaydamak controls the club as a shadow for his father, Arcadi, who is prevented from travelling to Europe due to a French arrest warrant for illegal arms dealing. By initialising the pretence that Alexandre is in control, the Premier League attempts to avoid the charges of either FAPPT or shadow issues being compromised. Secondly, the requirements in other industry sectors are of no significance. Premiership football is in a unique position which requires very specific legal and regulatory structures if the sport is to avoid, even at this late stage, the inexorable slide towards being merely a gambling sport. The fact that the Premiership is already directly linked with the illegal and liquid Far East betting markets enforces a very particular role for the guardians of the game.
The Premier League is repeatedly failing to look after the interests of anyone but the people with fat wallets. As Chief Executive of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore must take responsibility when the game is repeatedly falling into disrepute. And all this is before the inevitable betting scandal that must break the surface at some point soon...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Bribesville Revisited
The absence of a close season state of uproar in Serie A has been most conspicuous by its absence this summer so it was somewhat comforting to hear of the bans announced on Monday for four players who have been found out betting on match outcomes.
And these aren't just any old players but four of the senior statesmen of the Italian game. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has handed out medium term bans and fines to these players plus fines for the clubs involved in the match manipulations - Udinese, Vicenza and Mantova.
It only became illegal for Italian footballers to bet on matches in 2005 which is one of the reasons why Gianluigi Buffon's betting slips running to several million euros didn't lead to a ban in last year's calciocaos crisis. The difference between last years crisis and this is that the match officials are not involved in the manipulations this time around. Despite that, the mechanism remains the same - insiders profiting from rigged matches and it would be reasonable to assume that a punishment of points reductions for the three highlighted teams would be appropriate. Not so. When the scope of the inquiry into moggiopoli was extended to include further games and more referees towards the end of last season, there was a determined effort by all parties for the extension in the investigation to be undertaken in a quiet manner away from the press and the public. This extension was, effectively, a doubling of the remit of the investigation into match-fixing and yet media coverage was virtually non-existent. This anti-spin continues. The press release relating to these four players being banned was hidden away at the "in breve" (in brief) section of the FIGC homepage yesterday not quite as important as the two full articles regarding Italy's next friendly international. Additionally, as a news item, this latest scandal will not exist following today's announcement of the fixtures for 2007/08 season - always a big topic of discussion in Italy.
Anyway, the details of the banned players are archived below before the news item disappears.
David Di Michele is an Italian international who has just completed a move from Palermo to Torino although his debut will be delayed by three months following the disciplinary action by the FIGC. His bank balance will also be 20,000 euros lighter.
Vincenzo Sommese will be unemployable for five months and twenty days and he will possess 10000 euros less to be betting with. Thomas Manfredini is banned for three months and Massimo Margiotta for four, the latter also having to pay out a 10000 euro fine.
The authorities in Italy were brave to confront the cosy relationships between bookmakers, clubs, referees, players and the mafia but, as we have itemised previously, the investigation was hijacked by Milan from Day One. While Juventus were stripped of two titles, lost a whole squad, were relegated and lost extensive UEFA and merchandising income, Milan had their punishment repeatedly reduced until a Champions League position was assured and last year's Champions League final was won. It is a peculiar backdrop to calciocaos that Italy won the World Cup and Milan the Champions League in the 12 month period covering the uproar.
In 1992, Italian political and business society was turned upside down, apparently, by tangentopoli (bribesville) which confronted the accommodating structure of corruption throughout the upper reaches of Italian society. There are two points worthy of comment here. Firstly, it is generally accepted at all dietrologia gatherings that tangentopoli merely altered the faces while leaving the corrupt infrastructure intact - a sort of investigative neutron bomb. Secondly, football's self appraisal is proving similarly blinkered. Guido Rossi is a key figure here in that he took on an investigative role in both tangentopoli and moggiopoli. The man resigned just months into the moggiopoli inquiry stating: "football does not want rules, it just wants me to solve its problems". The most revealing overview, however, came from Francesco Barelli, Milan's former chief prosecutor, when he declared towards the end of the investigation that: "economic interests in football far outweigh sporting interests".
This is an attitude of mind that should be carried forward into all the new seasons that are about to commence across Europe.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
And these aren't just any old players but four of the senior statesmen of the Italian game. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has handed out medium term bans and fines to these players plus fines for the clubs involved in the match manipulations - Udinese, Vicenza and Mantova.
It only became illegal for Italian footballers to bet on matches in 2005 which is one of the reasons why Gianluigi Buffon's betting slips running to several million euros didn't lead to a ban in last year's calciocaos crisis. The difference between last years crisis and this is that the match officials are not involved in the manipulations this time around. Despite that, the mechanism remains the same - insiders profiting from rigged matches and it would be reasonable to assume that a punishment of points reductions for the three highlighted teams would be appropriate. Not so. When the scope of the inquiry into moggiopoli was extended to include further games and more referees towards the end of last season, there was a determined effort by all parties for the extension in the investigation to be undertaken in a quiet manner away from the press and the public. This extension was, effectively, a doubling of the remit of the investigation into match-fixing and yet media coverage was virtually non-existent. This anti-spin continues. The press release relating to these four players being banned was hidden away at the "in breve" (in brief) section of the FIGC homepage yesterday not quite as important as the two full articles regarding Italy's next friendly international. Additionally, as a news item, this latest scandal will not exist following today's announcement of the fixtures for 2007/08 season - always a big topic of discussion in Italy.
Anyway, the details of the banned players are archived below before the news item disappears.
David Di Michele is an Italian international who has just completed a move from Palermo to Torino although his debut will be delayed by three months following the disciplinary action by the FIGC. His bank balance will also be 20,000 euros lighter.
Vincenzo Sommese will be unemployable for five months and twenty days and he will possess 10000 euros less to be betting with. Thomas Manfredini is banned for three months and Massimo Margiotta for four, the latter also having to pay out a 10000 euro fine.
The authorities in Italy were brave to confront the cosy relationships between bookmakers, clubs, referees, players and the mafia but, as we have itemised previously, the investigation was hijacked by Milan from Day One. While Juventus were stripped of two titles, lost a whole squad, were relegated and lost extensive UEFA and merchandising income, Milan had their punishment repeatedly reduced until a Champions League position was assured and last year's Champions League final was won. It is a peculiar backdrop to calciocaos that Italy won the World Cup and Milan the Champions League in the 12 month period covering the uproar.
In 1992, Italian political and business society was turned upside down, apparently, by tangentopoli (bribesville) which confronted the accommodating structure of corruption throughout the upper reaches of Italian society. There are two points worthy of comment here. Firstly, it is generally accepted at all dietrologia gatherings that tangentopoli merely altered the faces while leaving the corrupt infrastructure intact - a sort of investigative neutron bomb. Secondly, football's self appraisal is proving similarly blinkered. Guido Rossi is a key figure here in that he took on an investigative role in both tangentopoli and moggiopoli. The man resigned just months into the moggiopoli inquiry stating: "football does not want rules, it just wants me to solve its problems". The most revealing overview, however, came from Francesco Barelli, Milan's former chief prosecutor, when he declared towards the end of the investigation that: "economic interests in football far outweigh sporting interests".
This is an attitude of mind that should be carried forward into all the new seasons that are about to commence across Europe.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 28 July 2007
What The Hell Do We Care
Poor science, often perpetrated by artists and economists, is a blight on our mathematical horizons. The widespread use of invalid statistics, poor sampling techniques, inappropriate black box causal modelling, an inability to determine significance of data and misuse of science is, unfortunately, the norm when one enters the area of popular and social science. Why the rampantly arts biased media should think that their collected thoughts on the Higgs boson should have any relevance to anybody, I don't know.
Anyway, it was consequently with considerable trepidation that I approached the film "What The Fuck Do We Know!?" when I was last in Kerkyra. This controversial independent movie focuses on and, indeed, attempts to link science and spirituality. It fails to make any such link but it does at least give some insight into the world of quantum physics for the person on the street. The film relies solely on input from the group of physicists who disagree with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics ie the film is dependent on those who believe that the many possibilities of the quantum world all continue to be real ie there are many parallel worlds.
My physics is not current enough to be anything other than agnostic in the classical versus parallel quantum argument although it does appear that global university posts are overly staffed with pro-Copenhageners and that a belief in string theory in all its forms is an absolute given on campus. The type of science in the military/educational complex is generally less out of the box as the hierarchy is seeking practical applications as opposed to philosophical insights. Consequently, very few inventive scientists are properly accommodated by the scientific system as their research is undertaken in more obtuse environments but with the significant benefit of total research freedom. There are many intuitive levels on which the parallel structures in the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) have a logical validity. The fractalisation of our existences seems to be a continuum producing ever greater cosmological and ever-smaller quantum levels as a probability. MWI's main conclusion is that the universe (or multiverse in this context) is composed of a quantum superposition of very many, possibly infinitely many, increasingly divergent, non-communicating parallel universes or quantum worlds.
The film was successful in this part of its aim - it provided the layperson with an introduction to MWI. Then it started getting silly... I have a bit of a problem with the concept of a 35,000 year old woman (Ramtha) speaking through spiritual teacher JZ Knight. I attempt to be constantly experimental in my approach to issues and problems but I'm just not having this. As David Kehr stated in the New York Times: "...[the] transition from quantum mechanics to cognitive therapy" is "plausible". He went on to state that: "the subsequent leap - from cognitive therapy into large, hazy spiritual beliefs - isn't as effectively executed". Physics Today was slightly more damning and stated that the movie uses quantum physics to promote pseudoscience while quantum "insights" lead to "the quantum channeling of Ramtha, and on to even greater nonsense". And this is the film's main strategy. Three of the directors are devotees of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment so we are looking at a bit of a belief agenda here. There is much common sense dressed up as science together with life hacking seen as lateral thinking - it no doubt does enhance one's day if one starts it with neural net planning with the incorporation of constant experimentation into all processes but its not neuroscience.
The only aspect of the film worthy of any degree of focus is the area concerned with quantum physics but the movie does not explore even the most simplistic of overviews of the competing theories of the quantum world. There is an ongoing intellectual corruption related to the takeover of the academic territory by the Copenhagen brigade but simply quoting practitioners of MWI is not a QED. String theory has dominated theory for twenty years but its promise is unfulfilled. Lee Smolin (author of "The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next") regards string theory as unscientific, mere conjecture and unworthy of being called a theory at all! Great science frequently is created away from the boundaries of the limited educational goals offered by the military/educational complex. We have stated previously that many physicists end up trading financial markets and we believe that these individuals would generally represent the more creative end of the spectrum when compared with their peers in academia. The limited intellectual range of academia undermines science. There is an inability to undertake truly lateral thought with the result that discoveries are equally limited in their scope. Science would undoubtedly benefit if there were more MWI people on the campuses as, indeed, would the military backers who are omnipresent in so much modern science. Absolutism in science is as stupid as absolutism with regard to Ramtha or any similar belief mechanism. No absolutism without proof.
Until that time arrives, all we have is a conversation. MWI functions as a logical concept. Its appeal is the rationality behind its infrastructural template.
Perhaps somebody could create a piece of art that properly encapsulates the stunning world of self similarity and fractals and chaos in a quantum environment but "What The Fuck Do We Know!?" is most certainly not that film.
Anyway, it was consequently with considerable trepidation that I approached the film "What The Fuck Do We Know!?" when I was last in Kerkyra. This controversial independent movie focuses on and, indeed, attempts to link science and spirituality. It fails to make any such link but it does at least give some insight into the world of quantum physics for the person on the street. The film relies solely on input from the group of physicists who disagree with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics ie the film is dependent on those who believe that the many possibilities of the quantum world all continue to be real ie there are many parallel worlds.
My physics is not current enough to be anything other than agnostic in the classical versus parallel quantum argument although it does appear that global university posts are overly staffed with pro-Copenhageners and that a belief in string theory in all its forms is an absolute given on campus. The type of science in the military/educational complex is generally less out of the box as the hierarchy is seeking practical applications as opposed to philosophical insights. Consequently, very few inventive scientists are properly accommodated by the scientific system as their research is undertaken in more obtuse environments but with the significant benefit of total research freedom. There are many intuitive levels on which the parallel structures in the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) have a logical validity. The fractalisation of our existences seems to be a continuum producing ever greater cosmological and ever-smaller quantum levels as a probability. MWI's main conclusion is that the universe (or multiverse in this context) is composed of a quantum superposition of very many, possibly infinitely many, increasingly divergent, non-communicating parallel universes or quantum worlds.
The film was successful in this part of its aim - it provided the layperson with an introduction to MWI. Then it started getting silly... I have a bit of a problem with the concept of a 35,000 year old woman (Ramtha) speaking through spiritual teacher JZ Knight. I attempt to be constantly experimental in my approach to issues and problems but I'm just not having this. As David Kehr stated in the New York Times: "...[the] transition from quantum mechanics to cognitive therapy" is "plausible". He went on to state that: "the subsequent leap - from cognitive therapy into large, hazy spiritual beliefs - isn't as effectively executed". Physics Today was slightly more damning and stated that the movie uses quantum physics to promote pseudoscience while quantum "insights" lead to "the quantum channeling of Ramtha, and on to even greater nonsense". And this is the film's main strategy. Three of the directors are devotees of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment so we are looking at a bit of a belief agenda here. There is much common sense dressed up as science together with life hacking seen as lateral thinking - it no doubt does enhance one's day if one starts it with neural net planning with the incorporation of constant experimentation into all processes but its not neuroscience.
The only aspect of the film worthy of any degree of focus is the area concerned with quantum physics but the movie does not explore even the most simplistic of overviews of the competing theories of the quantum world. There is an ongoing intellectual corruption related to the takeover of the academic territory by the Copenhagen brigade but simply quoting practitioners of MWI is not a QED. String theory has dominated theory for twenty years but its promise is unfulfilled. Lee Smolin (author of "The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next") regards string theory as unscientific, mere conjecture and unworthy of being called a theory at all! Great science frequently is created away from the boundaries of the limited educational goals offered by the military/educational complex. We have stated previously that many physicists end up trading financial markets and we believe that these individuals would generally represent the more creative end of the spectrum when compared with their peers in academia. The limited intellectual range of academia undermines science. There is an inability to undertake truly lateral thought with the result that discoveries are equally limited in their scope. Science would undoubtedly benefit if there were more MWI people on the campuses as, indeed, would the military backers who are omnipresent in so much modern science. Absolutism in science is as stupid as absolutism with regard to Ramtha or any similar belief mechanism. No absolutism without proof.
Until that time arrives, all we have is a conversation. MWI functions as a logical concept. Its appeal is the rationality behind its infrastructural template.
Perhaps somebody could create a piece of art that properly encapsulates the stunning world of self similarity and fractals and chaos in a quantum environment but "What The Fuck Do We Know!?" is most certainly not that film.
Friday, 27 July 2007
Keen To Ride Clean
With the Quest inquiry, the City of London police raids on three clubs, the death of Woolmer, the Premier League/West Ham fiasco, Poll's retiring refrains and Shinawatra, the bookmakers together with their client regulatory bodies must be delighted that the focus on corruption has moved out of their territory and over to Le Tour de France.
The use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) is common in most sports. There used to be a mistaken belief that only endurance and speed-specific sports would fall under the drug shadow but, as fitness is now key to all sports apart from darts, PESs usage is ubiquitous.
Different sports approach the problem in different ways. Cycling repeatedly falls under the spectacular society spotlight as there is a clear division within the sport between the abusers and the relatively honest which results in public portrayals of attitudes and affiliations. The football world prefers to pretend that no problem exists aside from the unfortunate rogue individual who might enjoy cocaine in his leisure time or accidentally took nandrolone in an asthma treatment, that is. We attempt below to contrast these two mainstream sports with particular reference to PESs.
Le Tour has had issues with Erythropoietin (EPO) for well over a decade - it is widely accepted in the sport that the victory of Bjarne Riis in 1996 was chemically enhanced and last year's race should have warned the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) that the issue was reaching a boiling point. Prior to the 2006 race, numerous riders - including the two favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso - were expelled from Le Tour due to their link with the Operación Puerto doping case. To make matters worse, the American winner Floyd Landis was found to have failed a drug test after stage 17; runner up Óscar Pereiro currently also claims the title but in January 2007, it was revealed that Pereiro has tested positive for salbutamol (for asthma, apparently).
For the 2007 race, there were pre-event ruptures relating to the abuse of PESs by German riders and, as le Tour has progressed, the peloton has splintered into two camps. The very open support among riders for the disqualification of Michael Rasmussen which followed a false start protest against doping on the previous day is a clear indication of the chasm between two sets of riders. It seems that the younger riders have a cleaner approach to the sport and are in open mutiny against the PESs usage by some of the older riders. Within the cycling world, it is general knowledge who the EPO brigade are - there were continual rumblings about Vinokourov while Rasmussen was suspect over his creative avoidance of pre-race testing and there were repeated media hints yesterday regarding the authenticity of current race leader, Alberto Contador (Tom Boonen pointedly stating that: "it is possible to win the Tour without taking drugs and Cadel Evans proves in my eyes that you can win it without doping." - Evans lies in second place behind Contador). All this followed on closely from the elimination of Moreni and the Cofidis team. The use of EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone development, avoiding out of race testing and linking with pharmaceutical companies to evolve masking substances to hide PESs abuse have been core competencies in the cycling world for too long. The actions of the majority of the peloton is driving the abusers into the public eye - indeed, the key dynamic with regard to Rasmussen was the widespread knowledge of his alleged PESs abuse among the other riders. The momentum most definitely did not come from UCI (indeed, it was UCI loopholes that allowed Rasmussen to race in the first place), the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) or Le Tour organisers although when these bodies work with the cyclists, the enhanced impact is evident.
So despite the unwanted publicity, there is a clear dynamic in cycling towards facing up to and attempting to solve the problem of PESs. There are rumours around the sport that there may be a split with the pharmaceuticals brigade establishing a separate drugged up event with a compliant testing regime and, presumably, rather revealing sponsors.
The use of PESs in football has been addressed on this blog historically and there is no intention to cover all the old ground again. We do wish, however, to highlight the difference in attitudes of the relevant authorities in the two sports. Although there is frequently a reluctance to face up to realities that undermine the brand, the sport of cycling is involved in publicly targeting the dopers. The campaign to clean up the sport has the perverse impact of a short term publicity nightmare which will hopefully be followed by a more meritocratic (and marketable) sport. The various international and national regulatory bodies in football choose a standard myopic approach to all areas of potential discordancy. Just as there is no problem with racism or illegal gambling, there is also absolutely no issue relating to PESs. Of course, this is a nonsense - the most revealing statement that one can make in proof of this assertion is that the market prices fully discount for the usage of PESs by football teams ie there is no edge in knowing that a team is on EPO (apart from, perhaps, the initial game under the influence) as the information is in the price. Market efficiencies suggest PESs usage is widespread in football.
Obviously, there had to be the standard idiot censorship suggestion on the BBC that perhaps coverage of le Tour should cease on the beeb in an act of self-righteous indignation at all this drug abuse among cyclists. If the BBC chooses such a draconian threshold for transmission, there is going to be an awful lot of school sports days on the telly.
Le Tour is several orders of magnitude more meritocratic than football; the race is iconic; the bookmakers do not dominate the markets and hence the outcomes; the authorities confront the drug abusers; referees are peripheral to the outcome. Give me any mountain stage in the Pyrénées in preference to any football match...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) is common in most sports. There used to be a mistaken belief that only endurance and speed-specific sports would fall under the drug shadow but, as fitness is now key to all sports apart from darts, PESs usage is ubiquitous.
Different sports approach the problem in different ways. Cycling repeatedly falls under the spectacular society spotlight as there is a clear division within the sport between the abusers and the relatively honest which results in public portrayals of attitudes and affiliations. The football world prefers to pretend that no problem exists aside from the unfortunate rogue individual who might enjoy cocaine in his leisure time or accidentally took nandrolone in an asthma treatment, that is. We attempt below to contrast these two mainstream sports with particular reference to PESs.
Le Tour has had issues with Erythropoietin (EPO) for well over a decade - it is widely accepted in the sport that the victory of Bjarne Riis in 1996 was chemically enhanced and last year's race should have warned the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) that the issue was reaching a boiling point. Prior to the 2006 race, numerous riders - including the two favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso - were expelled from Le Tour due to their link with the Operación Puerto doping case. To make matters worse, the American winner Floyd Landis was found to have failed a drug test after stage 17; runner up Óscar Pereiro currently also claims the title but in January 2007, it was revealed that Pereiro has tested positive for salbutamol (for asthma, apparently).
For the 2007 race, there were pre-event ruptures relating to the abuse of PESs by German riders and, as le Tour has progressed, the peloton has splintered into two camps. The very open support among riders for the disqualification of Michael Rasmussen which followed a false start protest against doping on the previous day is a clear indication of the chasm between two sets of riders. It seems that the younger riders have a cleaner approach to the sport and are in open mutiny against the PESs usage by some of the older riders. Within the cycling world, it is general knowledge who the EPO brigade are - there were continual rumblings about Vinokourov while Rasmussen was suspect over his creative avoidance of pre-race testing and there were repeated media hints yesterday regarding the authenticity of current race leader, Alberto Contador (Tom Boonen pointedly stating that: "it is possible to win the Tour without taking drugs and Cadel Evans proves in my eyes that you can win it without doping." - Evans lies in second place behind Contador). All this followed on closely from the elimination of Moreni and the Cofidis team. The use of EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone development, avoiding out of race testing and linking with pharmaceutical companies to evolve masking substances to hide PESs abuse have been core competencies in the cycling world for too long. The actions of the majority of the peloton is driving the abusers into the public eye - indeed, the key dynamic with regard to Rasmussen was the widespread knowledge of his alleged PESs abuse among the other riders. The momentum most definitely did not come from UCI (indeed, it was UCI loopholes that allowed Rasmussen to race in the first place), the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) or Le Tour organisers although when these bodies work with the cyclists, the enhanced impact is evident.
So despite the unwanted publicity, there is a clear dynamic in cycling towards facing up to and attempting to solve the problem of PESs. There are rumours around the sport that there may be a split with the pharmaceuticals brigade establishing a separate drugged up event with a compliant testing regime and, presumably, rather revealing sponsors.
The use of PESs in football has been addressed on this blog historically and there is no intention to cover all the old ground again. We do wish, however, to highlight the difference in attitudes of the relevant authorities in the two sports. Although there is frequently a reluctance to face up to realities that undermine the brand, the sport of cycling is involved in publicly targeting the dopers. The campaign to clean up the sport has the perverse impact of a short term publicity nightmare which will hopefully be followed by a more meritocratic (and marketable) sport. The various international and national regulatory bodies in football choose a standard myopic approach to all areas of potential discordancy. Just as there is no problem with racism or illegal gambling, there is also absolutely no issue relating to PESs. Of course, this is a nonsense - the most revealing statement that one can make in proof of this assertion is that the market prices fully discount for the usage of PESs by football teams ie there is no edge in knowing that a team is on EPO (apart from, perhaps, the initial game under the influence) as the information is in the price. Market efficiencies suggest PESs usage is widespread in football.
Obviously, there had to be the standard idiot censorship suggestion on the BBC that perhaps coverage of le Tour should cease on the beeb in an act of self-righteous indignation at all this drug abuse among cyclists. If the BBC chooses such a draconian threshold for transmission, there is going to be an awful lot of school sports days on the telly.
Le Tour is several orders of magnitude more meritocratic than football; the race is iconic; the bookmakers do not dominate the markets and hence the outcomes; the authorities confront the drug abusers; referees are peripheral to the outcome. Give me any mountain stage in the Pyrénées in preference to any football match...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 26 July 2007
Belarusian Bettors And Basketball Bookmakers
A tale of two totalitarian corruptions involving the mafia and sports people...
Tim Donaghy has left the NBA basketball world in a state of considerable turbulence following his prosecution for influencing professional games in the US. Donaghy is a referee who has been found guilty of rigging large numbers of basketball matches over a two year period although he had officiated for thirteen years prior to being forced to resign. The case revealed that he had been working very closely with bookmakers to achieve the outcomes desired by the betting industry and charges against him also include suspected betting on games in which he officiated and an association with organised crime. FBI officials are examining video footage of games refereed by Donaghy, looking for curious foul calls and other such behaviour.
As Britain follows America with a time lapse of about five years, we can look forward to the eventual exposure of this exact same corrupt structure in the Premiership in 2012. The thought of Scotland Yard examining Graham Poll games is a situation one could only enjoy...
NBA journalist Chris Sheridan reckons: "the league needs to... worry about restoring its integrity with the fans who have stuck around, because if those folks start abandoning the sport, the hardcore customer base begins to shrink. And the hardcore fans are the lifeblood of any professional sports league". Once the trust link has been severed, it is very difficult to rebrand - as an example, look at the skewed incentives of the heavily corrupt British horseracing industry where racecourse attendance is generally meagre. The NBA is desperately going for the inevitable one bad apple fairy tale but comparison with the Premiership indicates that these mafia corruptions are much more likely to be systemic in structure. As for Donaghy himself, he hasn't exactly got an optimistic outlook. He will be sentenced once he has finished collaborating with prosecutors. This cooperation may well involve giving evidence at the trial(s) of mobsters with which he is alleged to have been associated. Tough one... to help the police or the mafia.
Former Belarus international goalkeeper Valery Shantolosov is a crook. His story is not typical of the numerous other mini-corruptions that repeatedly surface in the lower tier UEFA nations and is consequently worthy of exploration. Shantolosov wasn't even in the team for the two games he is accused of throwing! Shantolosov has been charged with trying to fix two of his country's Euro 2004 qualifying matches against the Czech Republic and Moldova but our Trading Team were on to Valery a decade ago (although not before we had lost money on a couple of Belarus events under his control). The police in Minsk allege that Shantolosov was/is part of an illegal Russian betting ring and that, once his whereabouts are discovered, an arrest will made. Shantolosov is currently biding his time as a goalkeeping coach at Sibir Novosibirsk in the Russian Second Division. We would think it unlikely that any arrest is on the cards here. International matches involving Russia and a whole range of other countries either under the direct control of Moscow or linked via history are controlled by the Russian mafia. The corruption is so accepted in Moscow that fans openly discuss the machinations underpinning the corruption in the game. The betting markets are totally under Moscow's control and any trading strategy has to take this into account. Highly tuned cloned trading is the only non-insider route to profit on these events. Such matches have become so common that a specific piece of modular structure had to be developed for our Unified Trading Model (UTM) just to address such events. The corrupt situation is replicated in Russian domestic games where insider trading and betting scams may result in prices plummeting from around Even money (2.00) to prohibitive odds on (in the vicinity of 1.01) over a period of hours. No competitive event is able to demonstrate such market volatility.
Today Donaghy and Shantolosov.
Tomorrow?
Exposure of sporting corruption - coming to a country near you soon...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tim Donaghy has left the NBA basketball world in a state of considerable turbulence following his prosecution for influencing professional games in the US. Donaghy is a referee who has been found guilty of rigging large numbers of basketball matches over a two year period although he had officiated for thirteen years prior to being forced to resign. The case revealed that he had been working very closely with bookmakers to achieve the outcomes desired by the betting industry and charges against him also include suspected betting on games in which he officiated and an association with organised crime. FBI officials are examining video footage of games refereed by Donaghy, looking for curious foul calls and other such behaviour.
As Britain follows America with a time lapse of about five years, we can look forward to the eventual exposure of this exact same corrupt structure in the Premiership in 2012. The thought of Scotland Yard examining Graham Poll games is a situation one could only enjoy...
NBA journalist Chris Sheridan reckons: "the league needs to... worry about restoring its integrity with the fans who have stuck around, because if those folks start abandoning the sport, the hardcore customer base begins to shrink. And the hardcore fans are the lifeblood of any professional sports league". Once the trust link has been severed, it is very difficult to rebrand - as an example, look at the skewed incentives of the heavily corrupt British horseracing industry where racecourse attendance is generally meagre. The NBA is desperately going for the inevitable one bad apple fairy tale but comparison with the Premiership indicates that these mafia corruptions are much more likely to be systemic in structure. As for Donaghy himself, he hasn't exactly got an optimistic outlook. He will be sentenced once he has finished collaborating with prosecutors. This cooperation may well involve giving evidence at the trial(s) of mobsters with which he is alleged to have been associated. Tough one... to help the police or the mafia.
Former Belarus international goalkeeper Valery Shantolosov is a crook. His story is not typical of the numerous other mini-corruptions that repeatedly surface in the lower tier UEFA nations and is consequently worthy of exploration. Shantolosov wasn't even in the team for the two games he is accused of throwing! Shantolosov has been charged with trying to fix two of his country's Euro 2004 qualifying matches against the Czech Republic and Moldova but our Trading Team were on to Valery a decade ago (although not before we had lost money on a couple of Belarus events under his control). The police in Minsk allege that Shantolosov was/is part of an illegal Russian betting ring and that, once his whereabouts are discovered, an arrest will made. Shantolosov is currently biding his time as a goalkeeping coach at Sibir Novosibirsk in the Russian Second Division. We would think it unlikely that any arrest is on the cards here. International matches involving Russia and a whole range of other countries either under the direct control of Moscow or linked via history are controlled by the Russian mafia. The corruption is so accepted in Moscow that fans openly discuss the machinations underpinning the corruption in the game. The betting markets are totally under Moscow's control and any trading strategy has to take this into account. Highly tuned cloned trading is the only non-insider route to profit on these events. Such matches have become so common that a specific piece of modular structure had to be developed for our Unified Trading Model (UTM) just to address such events. The corrupt situation is replicated in Russian domestic games where insider trading and betting scams may result in prices plummeting from around Even money (2.00) to prohibitive odds on (in the vicinity of 1.01) over a period of hours. No competitive event is able to demonstrate such market volatility.
Today Donaghy and Shantolosov.
Tomorrow?
Exposure of sporting corruption - coming to a country near you soon...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
David And 'Arry's Pre-Season Earner
We warned you that the Barclays Asia Trophy was likely to be a hot competition when the participants were named several months back - Hicks, Gillett, Gaydamek and Al-Fayed at one event was always likely to engender a creative little affair. And, so it has proved to date.
This is the third of these pre-season bookmaker benefit tournaments. The fundamental structure requires a number of Premiership teams to take part in a four team pre-season event based in a key gambling location in the Far East - this year, to celebrate ten years without British rule, Hong Kong is hosting the event. A local team is admitted to the select grouping for marketing purposes.
Stripping these type of tournaments down to their basics reveals a very low level of competitive motivation. The heat, the humidity, the lack of match practice, the sheer irrelevance of the footballing part of the spectacular society equation combine to produce a sport that is a shadow of what it is able to be.
And, yet, these events must be taken with great seriousness in the non-footballing sectors that link leech-like onto the global game. The most obvious beneficiaries are the European bookmakers. Europe is in total control of the Barclays Asia Trophy at all strata from sponsorship, the selection of match officials, determination of match outcome to betting market control. NONE of the leading Asian firms (either legal or underground) are willing to go near the matches due to the absolute control of the European layers. This ultimate control of the outcomes yields a totally non-competitive and fixed environment. There is no meritocracy in winning the Barclays. Despite the lack of interest in this psychopathic event from the Asians, the European bookies, thanks to Sky coverage and gutter media promotion, attained turnover similar to typical weekend Premiership matches for two non-competitive kickarounds.
In a range of desperate attempts to gain some marketing validity for the event, much pressure has been exerted to attach value-added peripherals to the tournament. The bringing on board of Barclays gives kudos as does the choice of English referees whose selection, despite their widespread corruption, indicates that the Europeans have serious intent with regard to the tournament. Its a pity that this serious intent is financial and manipulated rather than any irritating integrity in sport angle. In a final desperate attempt to increase the gravity of the tournament, FIFA was persuaded to promote the event as part of their "kicking football out of football" campaign. So, eventually, a structure has been created whereby the games are meaningless friendlies that do not even count statistically towards the player's careers but a big marketing shout involving the bookies, Barclays, FIFA and the Premier League has bestowed upon the event a fake spectacular gloss.
The marketing of English football to the consumerist gullibles of the Far East is a necessary part of all Premiership teams profiles. Merchandising is major but forming links with Asian betting market operations is also an important sideline to the allegedly main event. Among the people known to be or rumoured to be in Hong Kong are Carson Yeung, Thaksin Shinawatra, Richard Scudamore, Harry Redknapp, Hicks and Gillett, Gaydamek, Steve McManaman, David James, the Sky tv team, representatives of the leading European bookies and some of the leading Asian bookmakers. It is thought unlikely that conversations will stick to the glory of winning the Barclays Asia Trophy.
The first two matches were hardly enthralling. The ground was only 10% full for the start of the riveting clash between Al-Fayed and Gaydamek and the lack of an atmosphere was palpable despite the Sky tv technical operators turning up the crowd volume to a maximum. The key marketing dynamic was to ensure the highly marketable Liverpool Reds got to Friday's final which they did courtesy of Mark Clattenburg's total control of events within 25 metres of the South China Athletic Association goal. The fact that Liverpool required Clattenburg's input for both Riise's free kick and the penalty is a little sad in itself.
Anyway, the final is to be between the Liverpool Reds and the Israeli Blues and somewhere there exists a particle of knowledge that represents the known outcome to this future event. Without being privy to this information, only a fool would be tempted into this betting marketplace pre-match. Keep your money in your pocket and watch...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
This is the third of these pre-season bookmaker benefit tournaments. The fundamental structure requires a number of Premiership teams to take part in a four team pre-season event based in a key gambling location in the Far East - this year, to celebrate ten years without British rule, Hong Kong is hosting the event. A local team is admitted to the select grouping for marketing purposes.
Stripping these type of tournaments down to their basics reveals a very low level of competitive motivation. The heat, the humidity, the lack of match practice, the sheer irrelevance of the footballing part of the spectacular society equation combine to produce a sport that is a shadow of what it is able to be.
And, yet, these events must be taken with great seriousness in the non-footballing sectors that link leech-like onto the global game. The most obvious beneficiaries are the European bookmakers. Europe is in total control of the Barclays Asia Trophy at all strata from sponsorship, the selection of match officials, determination of match outcome to betting market control. NONE of the leading Asian firms (either legal or underground) are willing to go near the matches due to the absolute control of the European layers. This ultimate control of the outcomes yields a totally non-competitive and fixed environment. There is no meritocracy in winning the Barclays. Despite the lack of interest in this psychopathic event from the Asians, the European bookies, thanks to Sky coverage and gutter media promotion, attained turnover similar to typical weekend Premiership matches for two non-competitive kickarounds.
In a range of desperate attempts to gain some marketing validity for the event, much pressure has been exerted to attach value-added peripherals to the tournament. The bringing on board of Barclays gives kudos as does the choice of English referees whose selection, despite their widespread corruption, indicates that the Europeans have serious intent with regard to the tournament. Its a pity that this serious intent is financial and manipulated rather than any irritating integrity in sport angle. In a final desperate attempt to increase the gravity of the tournament, FIFA was persuaded to promote the event as part of their "kicking football out of football" campaign. So, eventually, a structure has been created whereby the games are meaningless friendlies that do not even count statistically towards the player's careers but a big marketing shout involving the bookies, Barclays, FIFA and the Premier League has bestowed upon the event a fake spectacular gloss.
The marketing of English football to the consumerist gullibles of the Far East is a necessary part of all Premiership teams profiles. Merchandising is major but forming links with Asian betting market operations is also an important sideline to the allegedly main event. Among the people known to be or rumoured to be in Hong Kong are Carson Yeung, Thaksin Shinawatra, Richard Scudamore, Harry Redknapp, Hicks and Gillett, Gaydamek, Steve McManaman, David James, the Sky tv team, representatives of the leading European bookies and some of the leading Asian bookmakers. It is thought unlikely that conversations will stick to the glory of winning the Barclays Asia Trophy.
The first two matches were hardly enthralling. The ground was only 10% full for the start of the riveting clash between Al-Fayed and Gaydamek and the lack of an atmosphere was palpable despite the Sky tv technical operators turning up the crowd volume to a maximum. The key marketing dynamic was to ensure the highly marketable Liverpool Reds got to Friday's final which they did courtesy of Mark Clattenburg's total control of events within 25 metres of the South China Athletic Association goal. The fact that Liverpool required Clattenburg's input for both Riise's free kick and the penalty is a little sad in itself.
Anyway, the final is to be between the Liverpool Reds and the Israeli Blues and somewhere there exists a particle of knowledge that represents the known outcome to this future event. Without being privy to this information, only a fool would be tempted into this betting marketplace pre-match. Keep your money in your pocket and watch...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
A Man Out Of His Depth
As he is English and the previous regime at Newcastle were widely despised, there have been no tirades of abuse being hurled at Mike Ashley during his takeover of the Geordies. There have been no blog posts or mainstream media articles questioning how the man established his wealth and there has been a complete absence of the xenophobic and, occasionally, anti-semitic histrionics that have welcomed some of members of the new group of hyper club owners. Obviously a dodgy Englishman is preferable to a dodgy anyone else.
Ashley has achieved his primary aims of getting Hall and Shepherd to part with their private cash cow and taking the club private. The rush to privatise at all the takeover clubs has been indecent. Private ownership massively reduces the number of eyes who have access to key business data. A further benefit is that there is no risk of a hostile takeover or of ownership being diluted by bothersome shareholders. So, even though full declarations must still be made to the relevant regulatory authorities, the possibility of significantly doctoring such information on a proprietary level is the paramount factor here. Furthermore, privately controlled operations are far more likely to select even more corrupt methods like the utilisation of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) to squirrel away illicit earnings. There is an added advantage here that a private company does not have to work alongside accounting firms to develop OFCs strategies as the route to corruption does not require the continual monitoring of accounting and financial loopholes.
Since gaining private control just a week ago, it has all gone spectacularly pear shaped for the new owner. Firstly, St James Park was raided by the City of London police. Relating to the Quest bungs inquiry and, in particular, the role of Graeme Souness in the signing of Jean-Alain Boumsong (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/07/enter-fall-guys.html), this raid, although related to a prior regime, was not an encouraging backcloth to the occasion of Ashley's takeover. No doubt the issue will run and run although the fact that the police activities disappeared from the mainstream media within 24 hours is suggestive that we may struggle to find the full machinations of the ensuing investigations.
Injuries to Joey Barton and the continuing travails of Michael Owen have hardly managed to lift the gloom. Owen is a hot potato and a wise club would be wanting freedom asap but his continuing injury campaign reduces his input to merely that of a fixed overhead. Although this scenario is actually preferable to the little man being fit, Owen's financial presence still weighs on cashflow. Still, at least they have signed Mark Viduka... Allardyce has finally decided to go public about the lack of transfer funds and is now looking to sell Kieran Dyer to raise the cash for new players. Allardyce added: "the changeover has been the biggest problem we've had"; together with a more illuminating "it's Chris Mort [the new Ashley chairman] I deal with now in the main but he hasn't had that much experience in football terms".
Yesterday, it all reached a climax as Ashley had his first hissy fit day at the club. The shares of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley's business empire, lost a quarter of their value in five hours on Tuesday as a result of an "enormous" profit warning - the share price has now fallen to half the value they commanded when Ashley floated the company just five months ago. This plummeting price has been caused by the amateurish mismanagement by Ashley and his team.
In the five months since Sports Direct listed it has parted with its public relations advisers and chairman amid rancorous disagreements on communication strategy. Meetings with the City have been cancelled; calls have been left unanswered and unreturned. Even analysts belonging to the syndicate of banks who sold shares at the IPO have quickly lost enthusiasm only months after investors bought the stock, partly on their then-upbeat research. Following his presentation to City analysts, Ashley's performance was variously described as "farcical" and "a shambles". Mal Patel, analyst at Merrill Lynch, which brought Sports Direct to market in February, told clients “things to date have been much worse than our worst fears”.
Ashley's stomach churning self-deprecating humour when explaining his disastrous performance to the powerful City analysts obviously took it out of him as, just hours later, he was sacking Freddie Shepherd. Now, nobody can feel sorry at Shepherd's departure. He leaves with a fat wallet and he'll, no doubt, seek out some other project to abuse financially. The most revealing aspect of the sacking was Ashley's kneejerk responsiveness to a week of bad news - he was looking for a cat to kick and Shepherd was that fat cat.
Equally important to Newcastle fans should be the charges of mismanagement that have been thrown at Ashley following the Sports Direct debacle. Everybody close to the operation has lost faith in the man and even Ashley himself admitted: "we couldn't do any worse kind of thing - I think that would be my report card".
Poor management style, no strategy, financially inept, kneejerk decision-making, inappropriate merger and acquisition schedule, an inability to perceive the big picture are exactly the deficient attributes that should be most worrying to Toon fans.
In the wise words of Paul Gascoigne "I never predict anything and I never will" but, despite this proviso, we would like to suggest that there may well be chaotic times ahead.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Ashley has achieved his primary aims of getting Hall and Shepherd to part with their private cash cow and taking the club private. The rush to privatise at all the takeover clubs has been indecent. Private ownership massively reduces the number of eyes who have access to key business data. A further benefit is that there is no risk of a hostile takeover or of ownership being diluted by bothersome shareholders. So, even though full declarations must still be made to the relevant regulatory authorities, the possibility of significantly doctoring such information on a proprietary level is the paramount factor here. Furthermore, privately controlled operations are far more likely to select even more corrupt methods like the utilisation of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) to squirrel away illicit earnings. There is an added advantage here that a private company does not have to work alongside accounting firms to develop OFCs strategies as the route to corruption does not require the continual monitoring of accounting and financial loopholes.
Since gaining private control just a week ago, it has all gone spectacularly pear shaped for the new owner. Firstly, St James Park was raided by the City of London police. Relating to the Quest bungs inquiry and, in particular, the role of Graeme Souness in the signing of Jean-Alain Boumsong (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/07/enter-fall-guys.html), this raid, although related to a prior regime, was not an encouraging backcloth to the occasion of Ashley's takeover. No doubt the issue will run and run although the fact that the police activities disappeared from the mainstream media within 24 hours is suggestive that we may struggle to find the full machinations of the ensuing investigations.
Injuries to Joey Barton and the continuing travails of Michael Owen have hardly managed to lift the gloom. Owen is a hot potato and a wise club would be wanting freedom asap but his continuing injury campaign reduces his input to merely that of a fixed overhead. Although this scenario is actually preferable to the little man being fit, Owen's financial presence still weighs on cashflow. Still, at least they have signed Mark Viduka... Allardyce has finally decided to go public about the lack of transfer funds and is now looking to sell Kieran Dyer to raise the cash for new players. Allardyce added: "the changeover has been the biggest problem we've had"; together with a more illuminating "it's Chris Mort [the new Ashley chairman] I deal with now in the main but he hasn't had that much experience in football terms".
Yesterday, it all reached a climax as Ashley had his first hissy fit day at the club. The shares of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley's business empire, lost a quarter of their value in five hours on Tuesday as a result of an "enormous" profit warning - the share price has now fallen to half the value they commanded when Ashley floated the company just five months ago. This plummeting price has been caused by the amateurish mismanagement by Ashley and his team.
In the five months since Sports Direct listed it has parted with its public relations advisers and chairman amid rancorous disagreements on communication strategy. Meetings with the City have been cancelled; calls have been left unanswered and unreturned. Even analysts belonging to the syndicate of banks who sold shares at the IPO have quickly lost enthusiasm only months after investors bought the stock, partly on their then-upbeat research. Following his presentation to City analysts, Ashley's performance was variously described as "farcical" and "a shambles". Mal Patel, analyst at Merrill Lynch, which brought Sports Direct to market in February, told clients “things to date have been much worse than our worst fears”.
Ashley's stomach churning self-deprecating humour when explaining his disastrous performance to the powerful City analysts obviously took it out of him as, just hours later, he was sacking Freddie Shepherd. Now, nobody can feel sorry at Shepherd's departure. He leaves with a fat wallet and he'll, no doubt, seek out some other project to abuse financially. The most revealing aspect of the sacking was Ashley's kneejerk responsiveness to a week of bad news - he was looking for a cat to kick and Shepherd was that fat cat.
Equally important to Newcastle fans should be the charges of mismanagement that have been thrown at Ashley following the Sports Direct debacle. Everybody close to the operation has lost faith in the man and even Ashley himself admitted: "we couldn't do any worse kind of thing - I think that would be my report card".
Poor management style, no strategy, financially inept, kneejerk decision-making, inappropriate merger and acquisition schedule, an inability to perceive the big picture are exactly the deficient attributes that should be most worrying to Toon fans.
In the wise words of Paul Gascoigne "I never predict anything and I never will" but, despite this proviso, we would like to suggest that there may well be chaotic times ahead.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Informational Holistics
What is information? The word is utilised to denote a wide spectrum of sources, news and data related to all types of financial market but the differentiation of informational value is an absolutely key input to all successful trading strategies.
In the internet age, information has gone exponential. Alongside the mainstream sources that have always dominated the telescopic vision of the market analysts, the web has created a galaxy of new potentially useful loci of information. Furthermore, the traditional media is now operating in real time on the net allowing yet more potentially valuable inputs to be plugged into trading black boxes and trader's minds. Information may be divided into separate niches each of which may have a value if incorporated into one's trading strategy.
The control of this information is the critical factor here and the most fundamental level to begin to address information is the ownership of the information. In a previous post, we complained of Murdoch's takeover of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-illegal-structure-to-facilitate.html). In such untrustworthy hands as Rupert's, we would not wish to regard ANY information emanating from organs under News Corp's control to be necessarily what it seems. The evaluation of the valuable information from the disinformation is critical and is a basic tool for analysts but modelling is complex and is, consequently, not something that we would wish to focus on in this post. The key structural facet of a corrupt informational source is the duplicity of its nature - professional analysts are able to gain market advantage by correctly determining what is real and what is not. Murdoch does not do honesty and unless one can profile the informational source to a highly professional level, the output is merely observed as noise. And market noise is virtually useless. When any market sector, industry hierarchy, regulatory regime or global institution crosses the threshold of corruption, this is the infrastructure on the table. Holistic analysis, pattern recognition and market memory enable key traders to put the jigsaw of the edifice together at speed through the implementation of a series of analytical tests which reveal the market strategies of the corrupted organ.
The evaluation of other sources is obviously a simpler matter and the basis of the creation of valuable inputs is hierarchical. The constant searching for new primary level sources is an important function. Additionally, all sources must be continually monitored to detect any alteration in output. Falloff in performance of the data or the information being fully accommodated into the market price are two particular knickpoints that are worthy of focus.
Information is also quantum in nature. What we mean by this is that different sources will put mutually exclusive information into the marketplace. Organ A might print that Tevez is a done deal while Organ B might suggest not. With major spectacular society news creations, there is a multiple input nature to this analysis as all mainstream media and sources respond to a hidden agenda with regard to coverage. In the same manner that all market makers gravitate towards a similar market price so it is with information. If everybody is talking about Tevez, you talk about Tevez. We attempt to do the same with our blog although our hidden agenda is proprietary and generally runs contrary to the mainstream. Contrary opinion, like contrary trading, is a rich pool of profit for analysts. All top operators maintain a smallish group of sources that may be fully incorporated into any trading model whilst continually seeking new sources of value. Its an ongoing process throughout one's trading career.
As well as valuable information and disinformation, market operators also target inside information. As we have pointed out over several recent posts, such information is rampant both in football betting markets and in global financial markets (although, infinitessimally surprising is the fact that not one prosecution has been brought in Britain since insider trading on financial markets allegedly became illegal in 1980). There are two routes to inside information. There is information by association and cloned trading. The former would include being on the board of a company, major shareholder informational access, buying information etc while the latter is only for the likes of Goldman Sachs and a few top analysts.
A major issue in the age of internet trading is the "quality" of data. On a trading floor, the prices are posted for all to see and the battle ensues. The internet is a very different infrastructure. All brokers offering internet trading are effectively in the powerful position of being able to manipulate a price to a known trader as soon as such trader has logged onto the platform. It is evident that anonymous price monitoring is a critical input to any trading model which is why Dietrological source all data from a position of anonymity - we are able to access real time real data from the key sources. A simple example of this issue is when a broker is in the situation where both the broker and the trader think alike on a market. It is in the interests of the bottom line that the broker should scalp the trader's price once the broker becomes aware of this shared longer term market angle. There is, however, a key threshold for the price providers in this situation. The top traders do not take kindly to repeated scalping and may move their trading accounts. And with it disappears the broker's valuable market input ie the top trader's honest opinion on events - as such positions are being supported in the only way that informational inputs can be truly pure, by being backed by one's own money. Dietrological utilise many strategies with our brokers in order to disguise our longer term market opinions. Simple strategies like trading the positions singularly and in turn, randomly, mixing in hedging positions etc etc may be combined with a bigger picture overview trading strategies to hide one's portfolio from all brokers. Winnings are gained with a very limited leakage of information. To further dilute this leakage, Dietrological has only ONE core broker. By offering exclusivity, we are able to gain highly privileged perks. This game theorising of the optimum trading activation strategy is a critical market aspect of any successful trading operation or analyst. The longer it takes for the market to be aware of your valuable positions the better. By carefully placing positions incrementally and with disinformational parallel trading, the window of major return on investment (ROI) may be increased by several orders. The science of pitching the threshold on greed needs to be finely tuned.
One of the core talents required to successfully trade the markets is the real time incorporation of pattern recognition at speed to determine and model ever evolving structures. As the economic market place is a psychopathic environment that leaks valuable information, atmospheric analysis reveals realities.
In conclusion, every single person has an agenda. Whether these persons act singularly or in a team or group, their strategy is revealed through their informational output.
These are simply matters of personal and group psychology.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
In the internet age, information has gone exponential. Alongside the mainstream sources that have always dominated the telescopic vision of the market analysts, the web has created a galaxy of new potentially useful loci of information. Furthermore, the traditional media is now operating in real time on the net allowing yet more potentially valuable inputs to be plugged into trading black boxes and trader's minds. Information may be divided into separate niches each of which may have a value if incorporated into one's trading strategy.
The control of this information is the critical factor here and the most fundamental level to begin to address information is the ownership of the information. In a previous post, we complained of Murdoch's takeover of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-illegal-structure-to-facilitate.html). In such untrustworthy hands as Rupert's, we would not wish to regard ANY information emanating from organs under News Corp's control to be necessarily what it seems. The evaluation of the valuable information from the disinformation is critical and is a basic tool for analysts but modelling is complex and is, consequently, not something that we would wish to focus on in this post. The key structural facet of a corrupt informational source is the duplicity of its nature - professional analysts are able to gain market advantage by correctly determining what is real and what is not. Murdoch does not do honesty and unless one can profile the informational source to a highly professional level, the output is merely observed as noise. And market noise is virtually useless. When any market sector, industry hierarchy, regulatory regime or global institution crosses the threshold of corruption, this is the infrastructure on the table. Holistic analysis, pattern recognition and market memory enable key traders to put the jigsaw of the edifice together at speed through the implementation of a series of analytical tests which reveal the market strategies of the corrupted organ.
The evaluation of other sources is obviously a simpler matter and the basis of the creation of valuable inputs is hierarchical. The constant searching for new primary level sources is an important function. Additionally, all sources must be continually monitored to detect any alteration in output. Falloff in performance of the data or the information being fully accommodated into the market price are two particular knickpoints that are worthy of focus.
Information is also quantum in nature. What we mean by this is that different sources will put mutually exclusive information into the marketplace. Organ A might print that Tevez is a done deal while Organ B might suggest not. With major spectacular society news creations, there is a multiple input nature to this analysis as all mainstream media and sources respond to a hidden agenda with regard to coverage. In the same manner that all market makers gravitate towards a similar market price so it is with information. If everybody is talking about Tevez, you talk about Tevez. We attempt to do the same with our blog although our hidden agenda is proprietary and generally runs contrary to the mainstream. Contrary opinion, like contrary trading, is a rich pool of profit for analysts. All top operators maintain a smallish group of sources that may be fully incorporated into any trading model whilst continually seeking new sources of value. Its an ongoing process throughout one's trading career.
As well as valuable information and disinformation, market operators also target inside information. As we have pointed out over several recent posts, such information is rampant both in football betting markets and in global financial markets (although, infinitessimally surprising is the fact that not one prosecution has been brought in Britain since insider trading on financial markets allegedly became illegal in 1980). There are two routes to inside information. There is information by association and cloned trading. The former would include being on the board of a company, major shareholder informational access, buying information etc while the latter is only for the likes of Goldman Sachs and a few top analysts.
A major issue in the age of internet trading is the "quality" of data. On a trading floor, the prices are posted for all to see and the battle ensues. The internet is a very different infrastructure. All brokers offering internet trading are effectively in the powerful position of being able to manipulate a price to a known trader as soon as such trader has logged onto the platform. It is evident that anonymous price monitoring is a critical input to any trading model which is why Dietrological source all data from a position of anonymity - we are able to access real time real data from the key sources. A simple example of this issue is when a broker is in the situation where both the broker and the trader think alike on a market. It is in the interests of the bottom line that the broker should scalp the trader's price once the broker becomes aware of this shared longer term market angle. There is, however, a key threshold for the price providers in this situation. The top traders do not take kindly to repeated scalping and may move their trading accounts. And with it disappears the broker's valuable market input ie the top trader's honest opinion on events - as such positions are being supported in the only way that informational inputs can be truly pure, by being backed by one's own money. Dietrological utilise many strategies with our brokers in order to disguise our longer term market opinions. Simple strategies like trading the positions singularly and in turn, randomly, mixing in hedging positions etc etc may be combined with a bigger picture overview trading strategies to hide one's portfolio from all brokers. Winnings are gained with a very limited leakage of information. To further dilute this leakage, Dietrological has only ONE core broker. By offering exclusivity, we are able to gain highly privileged perks. This game theorising of the optimum trading activation strategy is a critical market aspect of any successful trading operation or analyst. The longer it takes for the market to be aware of your valuable positions the better. By carefully placing positions incrementally and with disinformational parallel trading, the window of major return on investment (ROI) may be increased by several orders. The science of pitching the threshold on greed needs to be finely tuned.
One of the core talents required to successfully trade the markets is the real time incorporation of pattern recognition at speed to determine and model ever evolving structures. As the economic market place is a psychopathic environment that leaks valuable information, atmospheric analysis reveals realities.
In conclusion, every single person has an agenda. Whether these persons act singularly or in a team or group, their strategy is revealed through their informational output.
These are simply matters of personal and group psychology.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 20 July 2007
Betting Baron Buys Birmingham
As the takeover of the Premiership by individuals, partnerships or consortia with either previous or strategic betting market plans continues apace, today we take a look at "mysterious" Carson Yeung who this week increased his stake in Birmingham City to just under 30%.
Okay lets look at a few of the known facts about Hong Kong-based businessman Yeung.
Firstly, he allegedly made his money trading penny stocks which is simply not a feasible route to billionaire status.
Secondly, until he bought a 16.67% stake in Grandtop International Holdings, he was never on the records of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Indeed, Mr Invisible only really burst on to the scene in 2004 when he co-founded Greek Mythology, a Macau based casino that was known at the time to have close links to the underground and illegal Far East betting markets.
Thirdly, Yeung has some interesting associates. It came as no surprise that Stevie McManaman (who has, incidentally, never been anywhere near the global betting markets at any point in his long and "illustrious" career) was approached for being in charge of the day to day matters as Yeung launches his bid to take the club private and away from regulator's eyes.
Fourthly, how does a hairdresser create assets of over a billion pounds? Are perms particularly expensive in Hong Kong?
Fifthly, Steve Bruce is urgently seeking a meeting with Yeung and the absence of his inclusion in the takeover process to date would suggest that his days at Brum are numbered.
Sixthly, this is the tenth takeover in the Premiership that has resulted in club ownership being based on implementing a global betting strategy with respect to the individual clubs games.
Seventhly, Yeung's previous foray into ownership of a footie club was disastrous. He took over Hong Kong Rangers but his control lasted merely three games as he insisted on interfering in team selection matters.
Eighthly, the man has form even when one just chooses to judge his business activities away from the black market. In 2004, Yeung ran into trouble with the Hong Kong authorities and was prosecuted by the local financial regulator for failing to disclose his holdings in a company but was only ordered to pay a small fine.
Ninthly, the other potential bidding protagonist for Birmingham is equally cuddly Lakshmi Mittal who specialises in outrageous hostile takeovers and is even richer than Yeung. This battle may have more mileage in it.
As more and more clubs have gone private to avoid having to disclose financial strategies, profit and loss accounts and taxation issues to the financial markets, the likelihood of offshore activities in the underground Asian markets has inexorably increased. Jingoism has reared its ugly head throughout this process with the most fuss being generated by, firstly, the wave of dodgy Americans and, then, the recent Asian bids. A similar reaction to the takeover of Newcastle by Mike Ashley was remarkable through its absence.
The lack of action by the Premiership and, to a lesser extent, the FA is a complete disgrace. These faceless individuals have the stewardship of our great game in their hands and they insist on selling the game out to the very worst of the market sector participants - global betting market traders and bookmakers from Britain, Gibraltar, Israel, America, Russia and the Far East.
Mainstream media comment? Forget it. History is only written by the victors and contemporary press is only written by the acquiescent and edited by the corrupt.
I'll leave the final word to the billionaire barber: "I don't have any politics and I only want to buy for interest because I love football". If one were to exchange the word "football" for "money", this whole sorry episode would be more logical.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Okay lets look at a few of the known facts about Hong Kong-based businessman Yeung.
Firstly, he allegedly made his money trading penny stocks which is simply not a feasible route to billionaire status.
Secondly, until he bought a 16.67% stake in Grandtop International Holdings, he was never on the records of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Indeed, Mr Invisible only really burst on to the scene in 2004 when he co-founded Greek Mythology, a Macau based casino that was known at the time to have close links to the underground and illegal Far East betting markets.
Thirdly, Yeung has some interesting associates. It came as no surprise that Stevie McManaman (who has, incidentally, never been anywhere near the global betting markets at any point in his long and "illustrious" career) was approached for being in charge of the day to day matters as Yeung launches his bid to take the club private and away from regulator's eyes.
Fourthly, how does a hairdresser create assets of over a billion pounds? Are perms particularly expensive in Hong Kong?
Fifthly, Steve Bruce is urgently seeking a meeting with Yeung and the absence of his inclusion in the takeover process to date would suggest that his days at Brum are numbered.
Sixthly, this is the tenth takeover in the Premiership that has resulted in club ownership being based on implementing a global betting strategy with respect to the individual clubs games.
Seventhly, Yeung's previous foray into ownership of a footie club was disastrous. He took over Hong Kong Rangers but his control lasted merely three games as he insisted on interfering in team selection matters.
Eighthly, the man has form even when one just chooses to judge his business activities away from the black market. In 2004, Yeung ran into trouble with the Hong Kong authorities and was prosecuted by the local financial regulator for failing to disclose his holdings in a company but was only ordered to pay a small fine.
Ninthly, the other potential bidding protagonist for Birmingham is equally cuddly Lakshmi Mittal who specialises in outrageous hostile takeovers and is even richer than Yeung. This battle may have more mileage in it.
As more and more clubs have gone private to avoid having to disclose financial strategies, profit and loss accounts and taxation issues to the financial markets, the likelihood of offshore activities in the underground Asian markets has inexorably increased. Jingoism has reared its ugly head throughout this process with the most fuss being generated by, firstly, the wave of dodgy Americans and, then, the recent Asian bids. A similar reaction to the takeover of Newcastle by Mike Ashley was remarkable through its absence.
The lack of action by the Premiership and, to a lesser extent, the FA is a complete disgrace. These faceless individuals have the stewardship of our great game in their hands and they insist on selling the game out to the very worst of the market sector participants - global betting market traders and bookmakers from Britain, Gibraltar, Israel, America, Russia and the Far East.
Mainstream media comment? Forget it. History is only written by the victors and contemporary press is only written by the acquiescent and edited by the corrupt.
I'll leave the final word to the billionaire barber: "I don't have any politics and I only want to buy for interest because I love football". If one were to exchange the word "football" for "money", this whole sorry episode would be more logical.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Enter The Fall Guys
Being in Glasgow on the day that Ibrox is raided by the City of London Police is, as a Celtic fan, a proper grin. The fact that Newcastle, Souness and Portsmouth are also being rightfully and properly investigated only adds to a general air of slightly malicious good humour. Undoubtedly, the raids are scratching the surface of the corruption endemic in the English and, to a lesser extent, the British game. And, yet, the particular clubs and individuals that are in the public eye as a result of these police raids, the Quest Inquiry and the Premier League's targeting of selective individuals are merely selected operators in relation to the core of this corruption.
The transfer of Jean-Alain Boumsong is an indication of the degree to which characters like Souness and Redknapp together with the bigger clubs feel that they are effectively above the law. To have conducted a transfer that was so obviously a stitch-up, Rangers and Souness must have made the assessment that they were untouchable. The player was available for £8.2million having joined Rangers just six months earlier on a free transfer. But even more revealingly, Newcastle were well aware of Boumsong prior to his departure from Auxerre because Bobby Robson (the manager at Newcastle prior to Souness) had travelled to France to watch him. Robson declined the opportunity to sign the centre-half, even on a free transfer, and his doubts about Boumsong's suitability for British football were confirmed when the club's England striker Alan Shearer was marked by Boumsong in a pre-season game against Rangers and came off to speak in dismissive terms about the Frenchman's lack of physicality. How much of this £8.2 million found its way into Souness' bank accounts? One cannot help but recollect the comments of Souness on Sky to the effect that the English game is "the most honest in the world".
Harry Redknapp similarly possesses a sense of belief in his indestructibility. His inappropriate closeness to bookmaking operations, the horseracing industry and Sky Television allows him to feel a protective shield against regulatory and public observations of his financial endeavours. We would suggest anybody with any doubt with regard to Redknapp's modus operandi to do the mathematics related to his business assets in comparison with his stated earnings as a mid-tier average football manager.
Pleasurable though it has been over this summer break to see the likes of Souness, Zahavi, Joorabchian, Redknapp and Poll slither around in cesspools of their own creation, these characters are either disposable or are a distance from the core of the corruption or they are well enough protected by their own security operations to be dismissive of the progressions in their realities.
Entirely conspicuous by their absence from any of these summer upheavals has been the bookmaking industry and the new breed of hyper owners who are targeting the global betting markets as their financial strategy for growth. It is a typical feature of anti-corruption campaigns for the lesser fish to be netted (and, often, let off, think Scoober Libby for example) while the true manipulators continue with their corruption away from the gaze of the regulators. Indeed, the system establishes concentric circles of fall guys that allows the most dangerous operators their anonymity in person and strategy. This structure is replicated across politics, business and the criminal underworld as well as the game of football. The manner in which the bookmaking companies were able to hijack the inquiry into the "death" of Bob Woolmer is a typical ruse.
Still, we should enjoy our small victories while we can. The next season in the Premiership is going to be several orders of magnitude worse than anything that has gone before. And the recent seasons have been bad enough.
It will be intriguing to see how much time Mr Redknapp spends on his mobile with his hand covering his mouth in the early games of the season - there were games last season (Arsenal at the Emirates, for instance) where the phone was permanently in use.
Perhaps the spread firms could start offering markets for Redknapp's mobile phone minutes in running!
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The transfer of Jean-Alain Boumsong is an indication of the degree to which characters like Souness and Redknapp together with the bigger clubs feel that they are effectively above the law. To have conducted a transfer that was so obviously a stitch-up, Rangers and Souness must have made the assessment that they were untouchable. The player was available for £8.2million having joined Rangers just six months earlier on a free transfer. But even more revealingly, Newcastle were well aware of Boumsong prior to his departure from Auxerre because Bobby Robson (the manager at Newcastle prior to Souness) had travelled to France to watch him. Robson declined the opportunity to sign the centre-half, even on a free transfer, and his doubts about Boumsong's suitability for British football were confirmed when the club's England striker Alan Shearer was marked by Boumsong in a pre-season game against Rangers and came off to speak in dismissive terms about the Frenchman's lack of physicality. How much of this £8.2 million found its way into Souness' bank accounts? One cannot help but recollect the comments of Souness on Sky to the effect that the English game is "the most honest in the world".
Harry Redknapp similarly possesses a sense of belief in his indestructibility. His inappropriate closeness to bookmaking operations, the horseracing industry and Sky Television allows him to feel a protective shield against regulatory and public observations of his financial endeavours. We would suggest anybody with any doubt with regard to Redknapp's modus operandi to do the mathematics related to his business assets in comparison with his stated earnings as a mid-tier average football manager.
Pleasurable though it has been over this summer break to see the likes of Souness, Zahavi, Joorabchian, Redknapp and Poll slither around in cesspools of their own creation, these characters are either disposable or are a distance from the core of the corruption or they are well enough protected by their own security operations to be dismissive of the progressions in their realities.
Entirely conspicuous by their absence from any of these summer upheavals has been the bookmaking industry and the new breed of hyper owners who are targeting the global betting markets as their financial strategy for growth. It is a typical feature of anti-corruption campaigns for the lesser fish to be netted (and, often, let off, think Scoober Libby for example) while the true manipulators continue with their corruption away from the gaze of the regulators. Indeed, the system establishes concentric circles of fall guys that allows the most dangerous operators their anonymity in person and strategy. This structure is replicated across politics, business and the criminal underworld as well as the game of football. The manner in which the bookmaking companies were able to hijack the inquiry into the "death" of Bob Woolmer is a typical ruse.
Still, we should enjoy our small victories while we can. The next season in the Premiership is going to be several orders of magnitude worse than anything that has gone before. And the recent seasons have been bad enough.
It will be intriguing to see how much time Mr Redknapp spends on his mobile with his hand covering his mouth in the early games of the season - there were games last season (Arsenal at the Emirates, for instance) where the phone was permanently in use.
Perhaps the spread firms could start offering markets for Redknapp's mobile phone minutes in running!
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 13 July 2007
From Now On You Are Not Yourself
The outcome to the Manchester United/ Carlos Tevez saga would seem to lie in the statement from Kia Joorabchian to the effect that: "On Tuesday Tevez will fly to Britain for a medical at Old Trafford as part of the process of his transfer to Manchester United. MSI is considering making an application to Fifa to request that they mediate in the dispute. It is our understanding that all parties involved in the transfer are now satisfied the administrative issues will be settled in the next few days." A done deal then...
This whole saga is increasingly entertaining and is a clear example of the risks of spinning the media. The Premier League in particular but all other protagonists too have been spinning media webs throughout the process and the lack of shared strategy has produced a self-cornering impact for the linked operators. The above statement implies that it is time for all relevant parties to come together in a shared damage limitation exercise - there is nothing to be gained from a continuation of the posturing. Joorabchian is also having legal issues in Brazil where he has been charged with money laundering together with Boris Berezovsky and Nojan Bedroud. Arrest warrants exist for all three individuals. Indeed, accusations of match fixing have now surfaced against Corinthians (the team that MSI control) - the state prosecutors have "many hours" of intercepted calls regarding this corruption. Joorabchian and Zahavi are definitely feeling the pressure here - we've already got our own culture of money laundering and match fixing and we don't need the likes of MSI muscling in...
Why is Britain allowing the likes of Berezovsky, Zahavi and Shinawatra a base and a freestyle business environment where they can pull the illicit levers of their grey and black market operations with total immunity? Why is it a reasonable state of affairs that these people are taking over our game? The current grey reality of conflicting realities shows equivalence with those braintwisting logic problems. In the case of the Premier League, West Ham United, MSI and Kia Joorabchian, there is no outcome that doesn't leave a residue of impropriety for at least one of the conspirators. Unless I am missing something here, there is an added Orwellian twist with the Premier League threatening to punish West Ham if they pass on a transfer fee for the move of Tevez to Manchester. So, in addition to the non-deduction of points which ended with the East Londoners unjustly retaining a Premiership place (this one decision alone will enhance cashflow in the coming season to the extent of several tens of millions of pounds), the Premier League are now insisting in effect that West Ham get given another dollop of cash. I MUST be missing something here.
So the reality would appear to be that there is a contract and an anti-contract which is another situation best thought of in a quantum paradigm. It is apparently possible for the Tevez contract to exist in two forms at exactly the same time in a Higg's boson sort of way. This, as far as I am able to determine, is probably their best option of a facesaver - totally warp all relevance to recognisable reality and leave an area of confusion that may left undefined as the issue slowly slips from public attention.
It will be revealing to see how Caborn's replacement, Gerry Sutcliffe, reacts to the first seismic disturbance of his reign.
So the high court say that Sheffield United cannot appeal in a continuation of the stitch-up. Tevez deal is all but sorted. West Ham are safe and rich. Joorabchian, Shinawatra, Gaydamek, Berezovsky, Hicks and Gillett etc are all sitting at the blackjack table awaiting the next deal in the future of the Premiership.
Finally, it is sometimes interesting and informative to see the range of punishments and the selections of targets to be fingered. The Quest report into bungs was, in many ways, a slap on the wrist for Pini Zahavi and Portsmouth. The MSI/ West Ham United scandal has once again targeted Zahavi via his links to MSI and is, effectively, a second warning. Perhaps he should take note...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
This whole saga is increasingly entertaining and is a clear example of the risks of spinning the media. The Premier League in particular but all other protagonists too have been spinning media webs throughout the process and the lack of shared strategy has produced a self-cornering impact for the linked operators. The above statement implies that it is time for all relevant parties to come together in a shared damage limitation exercise - there is nothing to be gained from a continuation of the posturing. Joorabchian is also having legal issues in Brazil where he has been charged with money laundering together with Boris Berezovsky and Nojan Bedroud. Arrest warrants exist for all three individuals. Indeed, accusations of match fixing have now surfaced against Corinthians (the team that MSI control) - the state prosecutors have "many hours" of intercepted calls regarding this corruption. Joorabchian and Zahavi are definitely feeling the pressure here - we've already got our own culture of money laundering and match fixing and we don't need the likes of MSI muscling in...
Why is Britain allowing the likes of Berezovsky, Zahavi and Shinawatra a base and a freestyle business environment where they can pull the illicit levers of their grey and black market operations with total immunity? Why is it a reasonable state of affairs that these people are taking over our game? The current grey reality of conflicting realities shows equivalence with those braintwisting logic problems. In the case of the Premier League, West Ham United, MSI and Kia Joorabchian, there is no outcome that doesn't leave a residue of impropriety for at least one of the conspirators. Unless I am missing something here, there is an added Orwellian twist with the Premier League threatening to punish West Ham if they pass on a transfer fee for the move of Tevez to Manchester. So, in addition to the non-deduction of points which ended with the East Londoners unjustly retaining a Premiership place (this one decision alone will enhance cashflow in the coming season to the extent of several tens of millions of pounds), the Premier League are now insisting in effect that West Ham get given another dollop of cash. I MUST be missing something here.
So the reality would appear to be that there is a contract and an anti-contract which is another situation best thought of in a quantum paradigm. It is apparently possible for the Tevez contract to exist in two forms at exactly the same time in a Higg's boson sort of way. This, as far as I am able to determine, is probably their best option of a facesaver - totally warp all relevance to recognisable reality and leave an area of confusion that may left undefined as the issue slowly slips from public attention.
It will be revealing to see how Caborn's replacement, Gerry Sutcliffe, reacts to the first seismic disturbance of his reign.
So the high court say that Sheffield United cannot appeal in a continuation of the stitch-up. Tevez deal is all but sorted. West Ham are safe and rich. Joorabchian, Shinawatra, Gaydamek, Berezovsky, Hicks and Gillett etc are all sitting at the blackjack table awaiting the next deal in the future of the Premiership.
Finally, it is sometimes interesting and informative to see the range of punishments and the selections of targets to be fingered. The Quest report into bungs was, in many ways, a slap on the wrist for Pini Zahavi and Portsmouth. The MSI/ West Ham United scandal has once again targeted Zahavi via his links to MSI and is, effectively, a second warning. Perhaps he should take note...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Sunday, 8 July 2007
Poverty Is Profit
In 2000 the First World countries conspired to create a spectacular society special - The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which were a host of targets in the struggle against Third World deprivation, disease and illiteracy. Of course, numerous previous promises had been made over a generation only to be scuppered by either a refusal to cough up the cash once the money was required or the setting of inappropriate conditions related to the internal politics of the donor nations - think USA's refusal to go anywhere near development needs that might impinge upon the reactionary sexual politics of the American right wing, for example.
For over a quarter of a century, the First World has spun out strategies to improve the plight of the impoverished Third World gaining extensive media coverage in the process. Such media coverage has been conspicuous by its absence when such promises prove to be empty rhetoric. The guilt complexes of the populations of the rich nations suitably assuaged, we can all get on with enjoying our standards of living, such standards being built on the backs of global poverty. The media even provides us with a blinkering option of looking away prior to any potentially disturbing Third World images which occasionally appear on mainstream news programmes.
This odious strategy was merely a continuation of the structure imposed on the poor of the First World where we have all become anaethetised to realities such as a permanent pool of unemployed and the climate of fear that the working class and, nowadays, even the lower middle classes experience in an uncertain workplace with an absence of suitable safety nets.
So what? So this... Shareholder capitalism is taking these abusive strategies to new levels of tyranny as we impose our psychopathic fascistic system on the most vulnerable people on the planet.
Shareholder capitalism desires control, absolute control, despotic control. Think money... The financial institutions gain control of people, businesses and countries by forcing each of them to borrow to survive - the same strategy applies to house purchase in the First World, business development at any global strata and debt-ridden countries in the Third World via the banks and the IMF. As soon as you owe these bastards money, you are under their influence and your freedom is pawned to the chains of financial misery. The rich world is currently awash with liquidity, the global elite do not know what to do with all their money. And yet, freedom is anathema to money heads. In the developed world, there is a choice to be made here, we can always choose to opt out of the rat race and avoid the strictures imposed by capitalism. No such option exists for the global poor.
Initially, the capitalists tried to hide behind creative economics - fallacies like Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), for example. To explain this particular little prank. By any measure, the gap between the global rich and the global poor is getting wider - there are chief executives (CEOs) who earn $1 million each night while they sleep whereas fifty percent of the Third World exist on less than $2 per day. As income inequality has continued to widen, a new form of measurement was necessary to disguise this plunder. Enter PPP. Rather than compare the plight of the Third World directly with the rich, PPP compares the plight of the Third World now with the Third World historically. And, sure enough, a can of coca cola is now ever so slightly more affordable in Chad than it was a decade ago. However, the massive extension in global income inequality in this decade has resulted in the permanent imprisoning of the population of Chad in their blighted country as the amount of cash required to make the leap into a more developed country has massively increased - shareholder capitalism is a great believer in the free movement of capital but absolutely not of people... To make matters even worse, the educated classes in Chad, the doctors, nurses, etc are able to leave and earn riches way beyond the levels available in their homeland. As a further example of the false mathematics of PPP, examine this fact. China will become richer than the USA measured at PPP this year. In reality, Goldman Sachs reckon it will be 2027 before this reality comes to pass.
Shareholder capitalism has now moved beyond the strategy of merely hiding behind nonsense mathematics and are confident enough to clearly state their real agenda.
In the last couple of years, the Doha round of trade talks have foundered because the US and the EU are refusing to open up their markets to the Third World unless these impoverished countries remove their trade barriers to an even greater extent. The net balance would be a further increase in the already hideous disparity of wealth. Fortunately, countries like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and India are saying no and, consequently, the trade round is stuck at a stage of stalemate. Not content with that particular ruse having been blocked, new strategies have moved to the fore. It is these that indicate the true level of psychopathy being hoisted onto the poorest people on the planet.
Researchers at the Centre for Global Development - a Washington based right wing libertarian think tank - argue that donors should only commit themselves to make payments to the globally disenfranchised when such a poor country is able to absolutely demonstrate "independently audited progress towards a goal" ie prove to us that you are willing to accept the ravages of a shareholder capitalist system and then we might, just might, provide you with some financial assistance. Or, of course, you can die in misery... The Economist editorial gushes supportively "...nor should a lack of foreign cash stop countries inching their way out of poverty by their own efforts - which is the only way any country has ever done it". Absolute tosh... these statements are as near to despicably evil as I am able to perceive (I generally do not go for absolutes like good and evil but this IS evil) - the choice is effectively slavery or slow death or both... It is an impossible goal to climb the global ladder of financial security when you are saddled with debts to the First World based on historical abuses of your country together with a trade system which means that to get your bananas into Tesco means first elbowing aside massive American owned global businesses like Dole and Chiquita. The Economist expands its arguments by stating that the provision of aid will not alter the situation due to the "pitiful state of poor countries health systems". Why are these health systems so pitiful? Lack of aid together with debts to the imperial abusers. Furthermore, the most psychopathic elements of the shareholder capitalism family worry that the provision of a top down aid structure will undermine the incentives for a Third World country to implement structural market reforms that will allow the First World globalised companies to fully exploit these potential market opportunities.
Basically, embrace our system or rot in your malarial AIDS ridden poverty...
Aside from the charities and NGOs, the only current First World generated structures that are providing any assistance to the poorest of the poor are those provided by private companies. Settle down, this is not an altruistic gesture. Mining giant Anglo American, for example, has implemented health programmes for its employees in South Africa not because they give a damn about their workers chances of contracting AIDs or malaria but because the ongoing deaths of workers severely impacts upon corporate profits. The conditions experienced by the miners of Lancashire and Yorkshire (outlined in Orwell's 'The Road To Wigan Pier') pale into relative insignificance when compared with the plight of miners in China and Africa health care or not...
And what happens if the Third World says "fuck your system and your patent protection" and proceeds to establish health provision unilaterally via the establishment of generic drug companies owned and run by Third World countries to eradicate health problems without having to beg to the rich world? The First World pharmaceutical companies simply undercut such firms so as not to lose market share. Nice eh?
It is faith of the upmost folly to trust that a system that shows no interest in the disenfranchised of the First World is going to be anything other than tyrannical in the Third World. While the rich world bases its donations on their determination of whether a poor country deserves such support, the inequalities, poverty and perilous state of huge swathes of the world's population will simply deteriorate further.
Quoting Ms Dynamite at one of those guilt removal musical events that give all of us rich people a nice warm glow - "We as a nation have robbed, killed, stolen and tortured the Third World and they have got a debt to us"...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
For over a quarter of a century, the First World has spun out strategies to improve the plight of the impoverished Third World gaining extensive media coverage in the process. Such media coverage has been conspicuous by its absence when such promises prove to be empty rhetoric. The guilt complexes of the populations of the rich nations suitably assuaged, we can all get on with enjoying our standards of living, such standards being built on the backs of global poverty. The media even provides us with a blinkering option of looking away prior to any potentially disturbing Third World images which occasionally appear on mainstream news programmes.
This odious strategy was merely a continuation of the structure imposed on the poor of the First World where we have all become anaethetised to realities such as a permanent pool of unemployed and the climate of fear that the working class and, nowadays, even the lower middle classes experience in an uncertain workplace with an absence of suitable safety nets.
So what? So this... Shareholder capitalism is taking these abusive strategies to new levels of tyranny as we impose our psychopathic fascistic system on the most vulnerable people on the planet.
Shareholder capitalism desires control, absolute control, despotic control. Think money... The financial institutions gain control of people, businesses and countries by forcing each of them to borrow to survive - the same strategy applies to house purchase in the First World, business development at any global strata and debt-ridden countries in the Third World via the banks and the IMF. As soon as you owe these bastards money, you are under their influence and your freedom is pawned to the chains of financial misery. The rich world is currently awash with liquidity, the global elite do not know what to do with all their money. And yet, freedom is anathema to money heads. In the developed world, there is a choice to be made here, we can always choose to opt out of the rat race and avoid the strictures imposed by capitalism. No such option exists for the global poor.
Initially, the capitalists tried to hide behind creative economics - fallacies like Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), for example. To explain this particular little prank. By any measure, the gap between the global rich and the global poor is getting wider - there are chief executives (CEOs) who earn $1 million each night while they sleep whereas fifty percent of the Third World exist on less than $2 per day. As income inequality has continued to widen, a new form of measurement was necessary to disguise this plunder. Enter PPP. Rather than compare the plight of the Third World directly with the rich, PPP compares the plight of the Third World now with the Third World historically. And, sure enough, a can of coca cola is now ever so slightly more affordable in Chad than it was a decade ago. However, the massive extension in global income inequality in this decade has resulted in the permanent imprisoning of the population of Chad in their blighted country as the amount of cash required to make the leap into a more developed country has massively increased - shareholder capitalism is a great believer in the free movement of capital but absolutely not of people... To make matters even worse, the educated classes in Chad, the doctors, nurses, etc are able to leave and earn riches way beyond the levels available in their homeland. As a further example of the false mathematics of PPP, examine this fact. China will become richer than the USA measured at PPP this year. In reality, Goldman Sachs reckon it will be 2027 before this reality comes to pass.
Shareholder capitalism has now moved beyond the strategy of merely hiding behind nonsense mathematics and are confident enough to clearly state their real agenda.
In the last couple of years, the Doha round of trade talks have foundered because the US and the EU are refusing to open up their markets to the Third World unless these impoverished countries remove their trade barriers to an even greater extent. The net balance would be a further increase in the already hideous disparity of wealth. Fortunately, countries like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and India are saying no and, consequently, the trade round is stuck at a stage of stalemate. Not content with that particular ruse having been blocked, new strategies have moved to the fore. It is these that indicate the true level of psychopathy being hoisted onto the poorest people on the planet.
Researchers at the Centre for Global Development - a Washington based right wing libertarian think tank - argue that donors should only commit themselves to make payments to the globally disenfranchised when such a poor country is able to absolutely demonstrate "independently audited progress towards a goal" ie prove to us that you are willing to accept the ravages of a shareholder capitalist system and then we might, just might, provide you with some financial assistance. Or, of course, you can die in misery... The Economist editorial gushes supportively "...nor should a lack of foreign cash stop countries inching their way out of poverty by their own efforts - which is the only way any country has ever done it". Absolute tosh... these statements are as near to despicably evil as I am able to perceive (I generally do not go for absolutes like good and evil but this IS evil) - the choice is effectively slavery or slow death or both... It is an impossible goal to climb the global ladder of financial security when you are saddled with debts to the First World based on historical abuses of your country together with a trade system which means that to get your bananas into Tesco means first elbowing aside massive American owned global businesses like Dole and Chiquita. The Economist expands its arguments by stating that the provision of aid will not alter the situation due to the "pitiful state of poor countries health systems". Why are these health systems so pitiful? Lack of aid together with debts to the imperial abusers. Furthermore, the most psychopathic elements of the shareholder capitalism family worry that the provision of a top down aid structure will undermine the incentives for a Third World country to implement structural market reforms that will allow the First World globalised companies to fully exploit these potential market opportunities.
Basically, embrace our system or rot in your malarial AIDS ridden poverty...
Aside from the charities and NGOs, the only current First World generated structures that are providing any assistance to the poorest of the poor are those provided by private companies. Settle down, this is not an altruistic gesture. Mining giant Anglo American, for example, has implemented health programmes for its employees in South Africa not because they give a damn about their workers chances of contracting AIDs or malaria but because the ongoing deaths of workers severely impacts upon corporate profits. The conditions experienced by the miners of Lancashire and Yorkshire (outlined in Orwell's 'The Road To Wigan Pier') pale into relative insignificance when compared with the plight of miners in China and Africa health care or not...
And what happens if the Third World says "fuck your system and your patent protection" and proceeds to establish health provision unilaterally via the establishment of generic drug companies owned and run by Third World countries to eradicate health problems without having to beg to the rich world? The First World pharmaceutical companies simply undercut such firms so as not to lose market share. Nice eh?
It is faith of the upmost folly to trust that a system that shows no interest in the disenfranchised of the First World is going to be anything other than tyrannical in the Third World. While the rich world bases its donations on their determination of whether a poor country deserves such support, the inequalities, poverty and perilous state of huge swathes of the world's population will simply deteriorate further.
Quoting Ms Dynamite at one of those guilt removal musical events that give all of us rich people a nice warm glow - "We as a nation have robbed, killed, stolen and tortured the Third World and they have got a debt to us"...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back
The idiocy of the average Manchester City fan seemingly knows no bounds - City supporters, unable to deal with words of four or more syllables, have taken to calling new owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, Frank (after Sinatra - geddit?). Evidently the level of humour which leads to the City of Manchester Stadium being one of the very few grounds where incredibly humourous chants (sic) linking Tottenham fans with the genocide in nazi gas chambers, remains strong to this day. No doubt they would have found witty synonyms for Mussolini or Franco (Sinatro??) if tyrants from a previous era had taken over their club.
The corruption of the Premier League, in allowing this outrageous takeover to proceed, is similarly unconstrained by boundaries.
In previous posts (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/building-your-club-on-third-world.html and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/taxing-thaksin.html), we outlined the prime reasons why this particular takeover should be regarded as a takeover too far. Despite the ethical deficiencies of ALL the new wave of owners of the Premiership clubs being apparent, Thaksin's background shows conspicuous evidence of being based on money generated illegally via the Far East betting markets. The other new owners are merely intending to target such markets for corrupt profit. Shinawatra refuses to disclose how he will be financing the club or to say how much will be available for Eriksson to rebuild the team (the released figures being repeatedly downsized as the bid neared completion). It depends on the betting markets, I guess. His declared aim to delist the club and take it private is a strategy that usually indicates one of two targets. Either the aim is to behave like a private equity takeover and saddle the club with huge debts with an accompanying targeting of overheads - ie wages (ie less decent players) - or the tactic is to hide the true incomings and outgoings from prying eyes with the highly efficient usage of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) to squirrel away cash for a later renewed effort to claim back the premiership of Thailand. We would plump for the latter.
There are three prime reasons in addition to the ones outlined in the earlier posts for City fans to be very concerned instead of myopically euphoric.
Firstly, the initial transfer links to Michael Owen and Yakubu (one of Zahavi's men) are indicative of the worst fears coming to pass regarding performances being positively correlated with inappropriate betting markets.
Secondly, City are naive if they think that Thaksin's misdemeanours are insubstantial. Just as a taster of what is to come, examine the following. Prosecutors in Thailand have filed the first in a series of corruption charges against Frank. The Thai government is threatening to extradite him from Britain over other allegations of crookery - even though Britain claims to refuse to deal diplomatically with military governments, this is not always adhered to, as Musharraf clearly demonstrates in Pakistan. Even this potential defensive obstacle might prove to be invalid however as the military are suggesting a return to civilian rule in September with the current leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin (don't even try pronouncing that you Citizens) linking with former foes AND allies of Thaksin to launch a new political party, Ruam Jai Thai (Thai Unity). Additionally, most of his fortune has been seized, his Thai Rak Thai party has been disbanded and the few cronies still loyal to him have been barred from politics for five years. The protests in support of Thaksin have been far less well attended than expected. The only factor in favour of Thaksin being allowed to retain residence in England is the duplicitous nature of the British institutions which allow the despotic an easy ride - think Berezovsky, for example.
Thirdly, what happens to a private company when its sole owner is politically and financially bankrupted? Perhaps City fans should glance over the Pennines at the plight of Leeds United and their slide towards oblivion rather than gazing with rose tinted spectacles at Old Trafford.
There is however, I suppose, one level where the input of the City fans has been more than perceptive - Frank Sinatra allegedly had very very close links to the mafia...
We would be looking to short sell Manchester City on the Premiership ante-post markets this season all other things being equal.
The other disturbing aspect of the deconstruction of the Premiership is the role of the Premier League. Scudamore, the Premier League CEO, was entirely dismissive of the government's concerns about Shinawatra raised by outgoing Labour minister Richard Caborn. Obviously, Caborn's position was severely undermined by the imminency of his change in job title and, yet, the disparaging power hierarchy whereby the Premier League overrides the concerns of a democratically elected (to an extent!) government should concern every football fan in the country. It is Shinawatra's good fortune that his takeover bid coincided with political fissure. Looking at the twenty clubs that make up the Premiership, sixteen of them either have links to bookmakers (via sponsorship or significantly more corrupt arrangements linked to the global betting markets) or they are controlled by psychopathic businessmen who have purchased the clubs merely to link them to these global betting markets. The mathematics of ownership simply do not add up without the input of these markets and the likes of Hicks and Gillett and Shinawatra do not go for irrational decisions where finance is concerned - the alleged love of the Liverpool Reds and the Manchester Blues is always trumped by their love of the Dollars Green.
The Premier League views itself as being above the law in other ways too - witness the relegation of Sheffield United (have they got something against Caborn?). The chairman of the panel investigating and confirming this demotion stated that he would have docked points from West Ham United: "we can see the force of their [Sheffield's} attack and we have much sympathy for [their] grievances arising from the decision and the manner in which it was taken. We would, for example, have given much more weight to the deliberate deceit by West Ham officials which concealed the existence of the third party arrangements". Guilty as charged then yet Magnussen's millions evidently have greater clout than anything as irritating as governance. What a distance football has travelled since the 1930's when the FA used to delay releasing the fixture list in real time in order to undermine the Football Pools companies and their efforts to introduce a gambling element into the sport.
In conclusion, I have sat here for fifteen minutes trying to think of reasons, any reason at all, to look forward to the new Premiership season which, after all, is merely a month or so away. The only reason that I have managed to discern is the considerable profits that my Trading Team will be able to bank from the continuing demise of the most corrupt football league in the world.
Can't wait...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The corruption of the Premier League, in allowing this outrageous takeover to proceed, is similarly unconstrained by boundaries.
In previous posts (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/building-your-club-on-third-world.html and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/taxing-thaksin.html), we outlined the prime reasons why this particular takeover should be regarded as a takeover too far. Despite the ethical deficiencies of ALL the new wave of owners of the Premiership clubs being apparent, Thaksin's background shows conspicuous evidence of being based on money generated illegally via the Far East betting markets. The other new owners are merely intending to target such markets for corrupt profit. Shinawatra refuses to disclose how he will be financing the club or to say how much will be available for Eriksson to rebuild the team (the released figures being repeatedly downsized as the bid neared completion). It depends on the betting markets, I guess. His declared aim to delist the club and take it private is a strategy that usually indicates one of two targets. Either the aim is to behave like a private equity takeover and saddle the club with huge debts with an accompanying targeting of overheads - ie wages (ie less decent players) - or the tactic is to hide the true incomings and outgoings from prying eyes with the highly efficient usage of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) to squirrel away cash for a later renewed effort to claim back the premiership of Thailand. We would plump for the latter.
There are three prime reasons in addition to the ones outlined in the earlier posts for City fans to be very concerned instead of myopically euphoric.
Firstly, the initial transfer links to Michael Owen and Yakubu (one of Zahavi's men) are indicative of the worst fears coming to pass regarding performances being positively correlated with inappropriate betting markets.
Secondly, City are naive if they think that Thaksin's misdemeanours are insubstantial. Just as a taster of what is to come, examine the following. Prosecutors in Thailand have filed the first in a series of corruption charges against Frank. The Thai government is threatening to extradite him from Britain over other allegations of crookery - even though Britain claims to refuse to deal diplomatically with military governments, this is not always adhered to, as Musharraf clearly demonstrates in Pakistan. Even this potential defensive obstacle might prove to be invalid however as the military are suggesting a return to civilian rule in September with the current leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin (don't even try pronouncing that you Citizens) linking with former foes AND allies of Thaksin to launch a new political party, Ruam Jai Thai (Thai Unity). Additionally, most of his fortune has been seized, his Thai Rak Thai party has been disbanded and the few cronies still loyal to him have been barred from politics for five years. The protests in support of Thaksin have been far less well attended than expected. The only factor in favour of Thaksin being allowed to retain residence in England is the duplicitous nature of the British institutions which allow the despotic an easy ride - think Berezovsky, for example.
Thirdly, what happens to a private company when its sole owner is politically and financially bankrupted? Perhaps City fans should glance over the Pennines at the plight of Leeds United and their slide towards oblivion rather than gazing with rose tinted spectacles at Old Trafford.
There is however, I suppose, one level where the input of the City fans has been more than perceptive - Frank Sinatra allegedly had very very close links to the mafia...
We would be looking to short sell Manchester City on the Premiership ante-post markets this season all other things being equal.
The other disturbing aspect of the deconstruction of the Premiership is the role of the Premier League. Scudamore, the Premier League CEO, was entirely dismissive of the government's concerns about Shinawatra raised by outgoing Labour minister Richard Caborn. Obviously, Caborn's position was severely undermined by the imminency of his change in job title and, yet, the disparaging power hierarchy whereby the Premier League overrides the concerns of a democratically elected (to an extent!) government should concern every football fan in the country. It is Shinawatra's good fortune that his takeover bid coincided with political fissure. Looking at the twenty clubs that make up the Premiership, sixteen of them either have links to bookmakers (via sponsorship or significantly more corrupt arrangements linked to the global betting markets) or they are controlled by psychopathic businessmen who have purchased the clubs merely to link them to these global betting markets. The mathematics of ownership simply do not add up without the input of these markets and the likes of Hicks and Gillett and Shinawatra do not go for irrational decisions where finance is concerned - the alleged love of the Liverpool Reds and the Manchester Blues is always trumped by their love of the Dollars Green.
The Premier League views itself as being above the law in other ways too - witness the relegation of Sheffield United (have they got something against Caborn?). The chairman of the panel investigating and confirming this demotion stated that he would have docked points from West Ham United: "we can see the force of their [Sheffield's} attack and we have much sympathy for [their] grievances arising from the decision and the manner in which it was taken. We would, for example, have given much more weight to the deliberate deceit by West Ham officials which concealed the existence of the third party arrangements". Guilty as charged then yet Magnussen's millions evidently have greater clout than anything as irritating as governance. What a distance football has travelled since the 1930's when the FA used to delay releasing the fixture list in real time in order to undermine the Football Pools companies and their efforts to introduce a gambling element into the sport.
In conclusion, I have sat here for fifteen minutes trying to think of reasons, any reason at all, to look forward to the new Premiership season which, after all, is merely a month or so away. The only reason that I have managed to discern is the considerable profits that my Trading Team will be able to bank from the continuing demise of the most corrupt football league in the world.
Can't wait...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 5 July 2007
There Is No Such Thing As Magic...Think About It!
Magical Thinking is a behavioural disorder or style that is very common among leisure gamblers. It should not, therefore, come as any surprise to know that Magical Thinking is targeted directly by those that would wish for you to gamble.
Every gambling sector incorporates this fallacious mode of "analysis" into their structure.
In Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Far East, the number 4 is regarded as extremely unlucky while the number 8 is full of harmonious resonances to the extent that, if you are trading the horseracing markets it is vital to take account of the market imbalances created by this illogical thought process ie there is generally only value to be found in opposing horse number 8 while backing horse number 4 is a good thing (obviously with all other factors taken into consideration).
Similar patterns of behaviour are found in other areas related to sport. Some footballers insist on being the last out of the tunnel for a match; some insist on touching the turf before making religious "spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch" signings; others wear particular pieces of clothing or, if allowed, jewelry or their partners underwear. The personal psychology in these instances is slightly different than in a gambling situation. Taking the first example of a player insisting that he be the final entrant onto the field of play, it is evident that, in reality, there is no logical value in this act - unless it allows time for a swift performance enhancing injection! Yet, in the mind of the individual player exhibiting the Magical Thinking, logic plays no part. In a similar manner that some of those weirdo religious cults can convince people of utter nonsense, the player may perceive that such behaviour improves his performance. If he were to take the time and effort to analyse his match performances when coming out of the tunnel last or in any other position within the team, he may well find that there is an improved performance through sticking to his Magical Thoughts. Evidently, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy and cause and effect are inextricably mixed up with attitudes of mind. The only redeeming element to this type of behaviour is that the individual player is in control of the process - nobody else is playing mind games with him.
Which brings me to the main purpose of this post - the mind games of the gambling organisations. I propose looking at just four examples that give some indication of the psychological devices being utilised to empty your wallets at as great a rate as possible. Please note that we are not talking about the modes of corruption that have a negative impact on the contents of your wallet (although, in most cases, the corruption is linked to an extent) but the psychological processes whereby a leisure gambler is fooled into behaviour that is markedly against his/her personal interests.
Gambling organisations thrive on their clients lack of rationality as we will now demonstrate.
* This month yields one of those nutty numerical nuances that the type of person that believes in astrology or numerology just can't resist. July the 7th is 07-07-07. Several religions believe the number 7 to be magical (hence there are a record number of weddings planned in Las Vegas) and the freemason's encyclopaedia, apparently, devotes two full pages to the significance of this Magical number. The casinos are cashing in big style. In Las Vegas, there are too many instances of irrational behaviour being targeted to itemise them all but my personal favourite is the "rumour" that has been perpetrated by the casinos that somebody will win really big on the hallowed date. The "rumour" is that a slot machine has been primed to pay out $1 million on a 7-7-7-7 winning line. Firstly, prove it and, secondly, if anybody can provide me with ANY rational and logical reason why the portentous date is in ANY way more fortuitous that either July 6th or 8th, I will give a free one month subscription to Dietrological Leisure!
* The National Lottery in Britain is similarly psychologically tainted. My tutor when I was writing my thesis ("The Impact Of Conspicuous Money On Outcome In British Horseracing Betting Markets") was Professor Neville Topham. He worked closely with Camelot in both the design of the individual lottery tickets and the mechanisms whereby rollovers may be guaranteed in certain windows (rollovers always have the impact of increasing betting turnover). Many of the numbers in the standard lottery game have Magical significance being perceived to be either lucky or not. Additionally, the distribution of the other numbers is not equal. For example, many people choose birthdays as their numbers which skews the distribution towards 1-12 and 1-30/31. Furthermore, the layout of the numbers is key - people apparently prefer the numbers on the corners, then the edge and then the central numbers. The final piece de resistance was the closing of the game one hour prior to the draw. Neville would not tell me how the draw was fiddled and he left that reality as a little bedtime project for me. Anyway, I reckon I solved it and the one hour gap is very critical for ensuring that a rollover occurs when Camelot wish for a rollover to occur. Think about it!
* The Licensed Betting Offices (LBOs) that litter the high streets of Britain and other countries incorporate psychological abuses on a whole spectrum of levels. Winners do not spend any time in LBOs and the knowledge of this one simple fact allows major manipulations to be undertaken at the expense of the leisure gambler. Indeed, in some ways, I could incorporate this disinformation into our Unified Trading Model (UTM) if I could be bothered. I can't... The layout, the television information, the special offers, the prompts are all geared to maximise returns.
* Online poker sites (with a very very few exceptions) have perfected the manipulation of irrational punters to the greatest degree in recent years. Indeed, Party Gaming even eked its way into the FTSE100 of Britain's largest companies on the back of its behaviourly corrupt platforms. I am told that the simple template is allow a newcomer to win so long as not too much. On return visits, allow low stakes winning to fluff up the old ego before demolishing the player as soon as he/she places proper amounts of money on the virtual table. And virtual is the key. How do you know anything about the house, the table, the other players or the pack of cards? - you might as well just send 888.com or the Racing Post poker site a blank signed cheque. One would like to think that the regulatory capture that enabled this scam to be developed and perpetrated under a Labour government was the prompt that led to that most duplicitous of people, Tessa Jowell, being ousted from her post at the Department of Culture Media and Sport.
We produced four posts earlier in the year outlining the range of psychological styles and disorders that one has to face up to if you are to get involved in any market or gambling situation. Many of the individual issues that we itemised in those posts are visible in the above applications.
To win, or at least to avoid losing to an extent that is beyond humourous, rational behaviour is critical. We all have to confront our behavioural deficiencies and, if possible (and, believe me, it is most definitely possible) turn these negatives into positives.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Every gambling sector incorporates this fallacious mode of "analysis" into their structure.
In Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Far East, the number 4 is regarded as extremely unlucky while the number 8 is full of harmonious resonances to the extent that, if you are trading the horseracing markets it is vital to take account of the market imbalances created by this illogical thought process ie there is generally only value to be found in opposing horse number 8 while backing horse number 4 is a good thing (obviously with all other factors taken into consideration).
Similar patterns of behaviour are found in other areas related to sport. Some footballers insist on being the last out of the tunnel for a match; some insist on touching the turf before making religious "spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch" signings; others wear particular pieces of clothing or, if allowed, jewelry or their partners underwear. The personal psychology in these instances is slightly different than in a gambling situation. Taking the first example of a player insisting that he be the final entrant onto the field of play, it is evident that, in reality, there is no logical value in this act - unless it allows time for a swift performance enhancing injection! Yet, in the mind of the individual player exhibiting the Magical Thinking, logic plays no part. In a similar manner that some of those weirdo religious cults can convince people of utter nonsense, the player may perceive that such behaviour improves his performance. If he were to take the time and effort to analyse his match performances when coming out of the tunnel last or in any other position within the team, he may well find that there is an improved performance through sticking to his Magical Thoughts. Evidently, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy and cause and effect are inextricably mixed up with attitudes of mind. The only redeeming element to this type of behaviour is that the individual player is in control of the process - nobody else is playing mind games with him.
Which brings me to the main purpose of this post - the mind games of the gambling organisations. I propose looking at just four examples that give some indication of the psychological devices being utilised to empty your wallets at as great a rate as possible. Please note that we are not talking about the modes of corruption that have a negative impact on the contents of your wallet (although, in most cases, the corruption is linked to an extent) but the psychological processes whereby a leisure gambler is fooled into behaviour that is markedly against his/her personal interests.
Gambling organisations thrive on their clients lack of rationality as we will now demonstrate.
* This month yields one of those nutty numerical nuances that the type of person that believes in astrology or numerology just can't resist. July the 7th is 07-07-07. Several religions believe the number 7 to be magical (hence there are a record number of weddings planned in Las Vegas) and the freemason's encyclopaedia, apparently, devotes two full pages to the significance of this Magical number. The casinos are cashing in big style. In Las Vegas, there are too many instances of irrational behaviour being targeted to itemise them all but my personal favourite is the "rumour" that has been perpetrated by the casinos that somebody will win really big on the hallowed date. The "rumour" is that a slot machine has been primed to pay out $1 million on a 7-7-7-7 winning line. Firstly, prove it and, secondly, if anybody can provide me with ANY rational and logical reason why the portentous date is in ANY way more fortuitous that either July 6th or 8th, I will give a free one month subscription to Dietrological Leisure!
* The National Lottery in Britain is similarly psychologically tainted. My tutor when I was writing my thesis ("The Impact Of Conspicuous Money On Outcome In British Horseracing Betting Markets") was Professor Neville Topham. He worked closely with Camelot in both the design of the individual lottery tickets and the mechanisms whereby rollovers may be guaranteed in certain windows (rollovers always have the impact of increasing betting turnover). Many of the numbers in the standard lottery game have Magical significance being perceived to be either lucky or not. Additionally, the distribution of the other numbers is not equal. For example, many people choose birthdays as their numbers which skews the distribution towards 1-12 and 1-30/31. Furthermore, the layout of the numbers is key - people apparently prefer the numbers on the corners, then the edge and then the central numbers. The final piece de resistance was the closing of the game one hour prior to the draw. Neville would not tell me how the draw was fiddled and he left that reality as a little bedtime project for me. Anyway, I reckon I solved it and the one hour gap is very critical for ensuring that a rollover occurs when Camelot wish for a rollover to occur. Think about it!
* The Licensed Betting Offices (LBOs) that litter the high streets of Britain and other countries incorporate psychological abuses on a whole spectrum of levels. Winners do not spend any time in LBOs and the knowledge of this one simple fact allows major manipulations to be undertaken at the expense of the leisure gambler. Indeed, in some ways, I could incorporate this disinformation into our Unified Trading Model (UTM) if I could be bothered. I can't... The layout, the television information, the special offers, the prompts are all geared to maximise returns.
* Online poker sites (with a very very few exceptions) have perfected the manipulation of irrational punters to the greatest degree in recent years. Indeed, Party Gaming even eked its way into the FTSE100 of Britain's largest companies on the back of its behaviourly corrupt platforms. I am told that the simple template is allow a newcomer to win so long as not too much. On return visits, allow low stakes winning to fluff up the old ego before demolishing the player as soon as he/she places proper amounts of money on the virtual table. And virtual is the key. How do you know anything about the house, the table, the other players or the pack of cards? - you might as well just send 888.com or the Racing Post poker site a blank signed cheque. One would like to think that the regulatory capture that enabled this scam to be developed and perpetrated under a Labour government was the prompt that led to that most duplicitous of people, Tessa Jowell, being ousted from her post at the Department of Culture Media and Sport.
We produced four posts earlier in the year outlining the range of psychological styles and disorders that one has to face up to if you are to get involved in any market or gambling situation. Many of the individual issues that we itemised in those posts are visible in the above applications.
To win, or at least to avoid losing to an extent that is beyond humourous, rational behaviour is critical. We all have to confront our behavioural deficiencies and, if possible (and, believe me, it is most definitely possible) turn these negatives into positives.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
"I Didn't Know You Were On The Square, Jack"
There is something inherently unpleasant about having to spend some time in the company of a freemason. The conversation may start promisingly and then, when he discloses his occupation, the first alarm bells start up. The compulsory sharing of names followed by the revealing handshake marks the completion of any productive element to the interaction and one is left with the mason displaying a sneering dismissiveness and with oneself mocking their trumped up self esteem which is solely based on their non-meritocratically generated position in society. The final handshake of the social intercourse is as revealing as the initial as suddenly such individuals no longer wish to expose their membership of non-democratic secret societies.
I always feel cheated following these interactions as I never seem to be able to put into words the lack of respect that I deeply feel for such individuals. In the late nineteenth century, the working classes of England despised the freemasons, the landed gentry and the owners of extreme capital based on the enslavement of the poor. And yet there were frequent occurrences of individual members from the bottom of the economic pyramid taking their revenge against the imperial elite. Orwell noted that such aristocracy were attacked in the street verbally should they wander into an inappropriate area of town and that mud and stones were targeted at their silly top hats to the accompaniment of class aware jocular taunts.
My lack of ability to confront face to face the masons and catenians that control many aspects of the English system is nowadays shared by most disenfranchised members of the country. As concepts like society and community and union membership have been dissolved or, at least, peripheralised to be replaced by a media-generated atmosphere of fear, it is much harder for the working class of modern day England to confront the autocrats on an animal-to-animal one-to-one basis. Indeed, even on the occasions where one might feel justified in such a stance, one’s moral and ethical framework precludes confrontation on the misplaced assumption that such resignation somehow might exhibit a form of inverted superiority. Such cowardice is not, however, complete – I have walked out of meetings with City of London solicitors having exposed and confronted their racist agendas; I have frequently mocked the state’s enforcers on demonstrations; I once even chose to spit at a hunter who had displayed his own breed of cowardice by whipping at my then girlfriend from behind the security of a large bracken bush on a particularly violent confrontation with the Cheshire Forest hunt many years ago. But these few instances are entirely outnumbered by the occasions where I have selected discretion over valour.
Freemasons and catenians dominate huge swathes of British society – police, law, military, construction, architecture, engineering, Chambers of Commerce, politics, education etc etc etc. The process of application for any senior position or consultancy in such areas is entirely non-meritocratic. This is not only an economic affront to the similarly skilled in a tendering or interviewing process but it additionally adds gross inefficiencies to the economic system. In any sector dominated by either of these organisations, one might be able to offer both greater skills, more experience and a more competitive project price but the mason/catenian will still get the nod. Indeed, it is only if the differential in ability and economic consequence is so colossal as to be blindingly evident that one might expect a level playing field to be created.
A few examples are given below although I have decided it wise to avoid mentioning names or businesses directly!
1) A catenian deputy headmaster at a lower league school applied for the headmaster’s post there. This educational establishment was non-catenian. He did not get the job. He subsequently applied for the post of head at one of the biggest 6th Form colleges in the country. He would have been discarded without interview but there was a catenian on the Board of Governors. Guess what? He has recently retired after more than a decade as headmaster and is said to be in line for one of those ridiculous gongs that the elite give to each other in recognition of obedience and acquiescence.
2) The father of one my ex’s was fast tracked to multi-millionaire status solely on receiving a masonic leg up by being presented with a contract to build one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe.
3) The idiot (and I mean idiot) son a New Labour lord was elevated onto one of my postgraduate courses despite possessing buffoonery in spades. The research was beyond him but his potential access to governmental secrets plus his masonic handshake ensured that he ended up in a plum post at an investment bank.
4) My paternal grandfather fell and injured his right hand. By one of those wonderful flukes that give life that extra little frisson, the resultant injury led, in a glorious window, to him reluctantly giving a masonic handshake whether he wished to or not. “I didn’t know you were on the square, Jack” declared a customer at my grandfather’s tailors prior to placing the biggest order (for uniforms for the Fairey Engineering Brass Band) that my grandfather ever received in his working life!
I could go on and on but I wish to go for a swim and a sunbathe this afternoon so I will attempt to get to the point.
By promoting individuals and contracting consultancies and projects based on secret society linkages, English society is markedly less productive than should be the case in an egalitarian system. For a start, major business decisions are being made by flawed intellects. Secondly, shareholders are financially abused as the inefficiencies and poor strategies impact upon both the company performance and related share price. Thirdly, when the hierarchy is finally forced to acknowledge that being the son of a lord has no integral value in itself, these individuals are parachuted to safety via a nice little pay off for services rendered while the proles at the bottom of the pile are rewarded by redundancies with no such supportive financial packages. Additionally, these inappropriates are involved in the making of the major infrastructural and societal decisions that impact upon the existences of everybody else in the system – the lack of productivity of English business is directly correlated with this incompetence at the top. And they charge us at ludicrous levels for such incompetence. Even the most harmless of these individuals are fiercely non-democratic.
Personally, I only suffer the societal effects of this lack of meritocracy in that I am self-sufficient in my core projects and I am suitably ahead of the competition in my consultancies to retrump their power abuse. But the vast majority of the English population suffers both directly AND indirectly from the masonic control of the system. This is standard power play.
What to do? While targeting a more democratic system on a strategic level, I believe that significant gains may be posted in the immediate term by learning a lesson from our working class ancestors. The next time I get a masonic handshake in public, I am going to proclaim the fact vociferously: “oh, you are a mason are you?” or “ah, your position in society is related to your membership of the freemasons” or, hopefully, something significantly more witty along these lines. I’m not sure of the reaction but, then again, I don’t care. If they choose to walk away perhaps I’ll be searching for a suitably mushy lump of mud to help them on their way…
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
I always feel cheated following these interactions as I never seem to be able to put into words the lack of respect that I deeply feel for such individuals. In the late nineteenth century, the working classes of England despised the freemasons, the landed gentry and the owners of extreme capital based on the enslavement of the poor. And yet there were frequent occurrences of individual members from the bottom of the economic pyramid taking their revenge against the imperial elite. Orwell noted that such aristocracy were attacked in the street verbally should they wander into an inappropriate area of town and that mud and stones were targeted at their silly top hats to the accompaniment of class aware jocular taunts.
My lack of ability to confront face to face the masons and catenians that control many aspects of the English system is nowadays shared by most disenfranchised members of the country. As concepts like society and community and union membership have been dissolved or, at least, peripheralised to be replaced by a media-generated atmosphere of fear, it is much harder for the working class of modern day England to confront the autocrats on an animal-to-animal one-to-one basis. Indeed, even on the occasions where one might feel justified in such a stance, one’s moral and ethical framework precludes confrontation on the misplaced assumption that such resignation somehow might exhibit a form of inverted superiority. Such cowardice is not, however, complete – I have walked out of meetings with City of London solicitors having exposed and confronted their racist agendas; I have frequently mocked the state’s enforcers on demonstrations; I once even chose to spit at a hunter who had displayed his own breed of cowardice by whipping at my then girlfriend from behind the security of a large bracken bush on a particularly violent confrontation with the Cheshire Forest hunt many years ago. But these few instances are entirely outnumbered by the occasions where I have selected discretion over valour.
Freemasons and catenians dominate huge swathes of British society – police, law, military, construction, architecture, engineering, Chambers of Commerce, politics, education etc etc etc. The process of application for any senior position or consultancy in such areas is entirely non-meritocratic. This is not only an economic affront to the similarly skilled in a tendering or interviewing process but it additionally adds gross inefficiencies to the economic system. In any sector dominated by either of these organisations, one might be able to offer both greater skills, more experience and a more competitive project price but the mason/catenian will still get the nod. Indeed, it is only if the differential in ability and economic consequence is so colossal as to be blindingly evident that one might expect a level playing field to be created.
A few examples are given below although I have decided it wise to avoid mentioning names or businesses directly!
1) A catenian deputy headmaster at a lower league school applied for the headmaster’s post there. This educational establishment was non-catenian. He did not get the job. He subsequently applied for the post of head at one of the biggest 6th Form colleges in the country. He would have been discarded without interview but there was a catenian on the Board of Governors. Guess what? He has recently retired after more than a decade as headmaster and is said to be in line for one of those ridiculous gongs that the elite give to each other in recognition of obedience and acquiescence.
2) The father of one my ex’s was fast tracked to multi-millionaire status solely on receiving a masonic leg up by being presented with a contract to build one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe.
3) The idiot (and I mean idiot) son a New Labour lord was elevated onto one of my postgraduate courses despite possessing buffoonery in spades. The research was beyond him but his potential access to governmental secrets plus his masonic handshake ensured that he ended up in a plum post at an investment bank.
4) My paternal grandfather fell and injured his right hand. By one of those wonderful flukes that give life that extra little frisson, the resultant injury led, in a glorious window, to him reluctantly giving a masonic handshake whether he wished to or not. “I didn’t know you were on the square, Jack” declared a customer at my grandfather’s tailors prior to placing the biggest order (for uniforms for the Fairey Engineering Brass Band) that my grandfather ever received in his working life!
I could go on and on but I wish to go for a swim and a sunbathe this afternoon so I will attempt to get to the point.
By promoting individuals and contracting consultancies and projects based on secret society linkages, English society is markedly less productive than should be the case in an egalitarian system. For a start, major business decisions are being made by flawed intellects. Secondly, shareholders are financially abused as the inefficiencies and poor strategies impact upon both the company performance and related share price. Thirdly, when the hierarchy is finally forced to acknowledge that being the son of a lord has no integral value in itself, these individuals are parachuted to safety via a nice little pay off for services rendered while the proles at the bottom of the pile are rewarded by redundancies with no such supportive financial packages. Additionally, these inappropriates are involved in the making of the major infrastructural and societal decisions that impact upon the existences of everybody else in the system – the lack of productivity of English business is directly correlated with this incompetence at the top. And they charge us at ludicrous levels for such incompetence. Even the most harmless of these individuals are fiercely non-democratic.
Personally, I only suffer the societal effects of this lack of meritocracy in that I am self-sufficient in my core projects and I am suitably ahead of the competition in my consultancies to retrump their power abuse. But the vast majority of the English population suffers both directly AND indirectly from the masonic control of the system. This is standard power play.
What to do? While targeting a more democratic system on a strategic level, I believe that significant gains may be posted in the immediate term by learning a lesson from our working class ancestors. The next time I get a masonic handshake in public, I am going to proclaim the fact vociferously: “oh, you are a mason are you?” or “ah, your position in society is related to your membership of the freemasons” or, hopefully, something significantly more witty along these lines. I’m not sure of the reaction but, then again, I don’t care. If they choose to walk away perhaps I’ll be searching for a suitably mushy lump of mud to help them on their way…
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
$250,000 Per Week... For That?!
So, nobody wants Frank Lampard. The statement from one of Barcelona’s board members was unequivocal “Lampard knows he has no chance of moving to any of the big European clubs…there is no other option. He has been offered to us, Milan, Inter and Real Madrid, basically all of the big clubs, but nobody is interested”.
So Frank’s brinkmanship has been found out and his agent, Steve Kutner, is busy backtracking and making conciliatory noises towards the Chelsea hierarchy: “Frank has always said he wants to stay at Chelsea for the rest of his career” together with a more dubious “he will be as committed as ever”. What? That committed!!
The situation shares many parallels with that of Michael Owen who was rejected by all the Big 4 English teams when he was being repatriated from Madrid.
The aim of this post is to address the incentives that exist for modern day top level footballers to choose options other than the maximisation of performance on behalf of themselves and their team. It evidently goes without saying that we, in no manner, wish to suggest that this is a strategy employed by either of the highly professional and motivated players named above.
Organisations that have an interest in developing a corrupt control on top flight football are always more interested in the best players as not only does underperformance of these individuals have a larger impact on a match but also there is a likelihood of a longer and hence more profitable window for the manipulators as these careers can exist at the top of the game for over a decade. As we have stated previously, goalkeepers are a prime target but the best forwards and midfielders are also appreciated particularly if they combine membership of one of the major teams and a solid place in the England set up.
An honest player at the top of his sport may expect considerable wages and merchandising deals throughout his career and, probably, a nice little earner of a ghost written autobiography from the security of his gated community after retirement. In a system that rewards niche sector overperformance, there is logic if not ethics behind this state of affairs.
For individuals who choose or who are forced to work alongside the shadier elements of the bookmaking industry, these basic incentives become markedly skewed as their career progresses. In the early career, the player’s reputation is gained by major performances in massive spectacular society matches that firstly develop and then enhance the status of this highly promising young professional. Enter the dragon in the form of the betting market manipulator and whether via coercion or personal strategy, the incentive spectrum is rejigged. Looking at each of the new components of such a players career is revealing:
• Wages – Over the course of a corrupt mid and late career, a player actually loses out on wages despite the parallel media campaigns supportive of his talents which attempts to offset the effects of deliberate underperformance. The biggest teams represented by the G14(18) undertake extensive analysis of a player’s performances and the culpable stand out as corrupt. Consequently, their late career is spent at second tier clubs that are out of the loop analytically. Such clubs are severely restricted with regard to wage demands and, after the slice pocketed by the agents, a player loses some potential millions.
• Merchandise – A similar structure exists in the area of merchandising as Nike, Adidas and their sort find it difficult to market a football boot bearing a player’s name if that player seems unable to hit a barn door at ten paces.
• Consultancy Fees from Bookmakers – These losses are balanced by the illegal payments received from the market makers that pay handsomely to achieve the match outcomes desired. It should be noted here also, however, that the fees will tail off as the player finishes his career at a lower strata than his abilities suggest.
• Proprietary Trading – Another column in the income account relates to the placing (surreptitiously of course) of bets against one’s team when one is externally manipulated.
Taking these various benefits and disadvantages into a profit and loss format always reveals an enhancement of a player’s career earnings and, if carefully optimised, bank balances may be multiplied by magnitudes through the choice of a criminally corrupt career. We will leave it up to you to plug in some back of the envelope figures regarding the number of straight and corrupt years, the wages differential, fees and the ability to be placing many millions of pounds on certainties in the underground Asian football markets.
We have deliberately withheld the non sucker punch.
Post retirement, corrupted players are a potential liability particularly if they were at the back of the queue when the brains were being given out. In a creative double whammy that consolidates future corruptions by having acquiescent media voices uttering disinformational nonsense and undermining any potential for informational leakage of past corruptions, the criminalised players turn up across the board in the mainstream football media. Hence their income streams are extended significantly beyond the end of their playing days as they help to facilitate the next generation of obedient insider dodginess.
So, what do players lose in this process as it is evidently not money? What are the risks inherent in this abusive system?
The biggest loss is kudos. A promising career never reaches the heights that might have been attained if a player had chosen professionalism instead of financial jiggery-pokery. In the eyes of the public, he is flawed. His teams fail to win the number of matches and, more importantly, the number of trophies than should be the case. But, in his own mind, the corrupted individual knows his true status and, to an extent, the media are able to pump up this myth.
The risks are, however, becoming markedly more prevalent. The observations of the highly professionalised analysts within the power hierarchies such as the G14(18) uncover the corrupt with minimal fuss. They may even choose to publicise their observations.
And, still further, there are groupings like Dietrological that detail individual and group corruptions at different layers within the sport. Although our analyses are determinedly filtered by the mainstream media, the information is made public and, in a major spectacle like English Premiership football, the analyses morph into rumours and spread like wildfire. The outcome soon manifests itself that the allegedly corrupt are forced onto the defensive with puffed up press releases from players and their agents relating to “commitment” and “desire” and “love of the club”. Of course, such statements merely act as a type of regeneration of status which merely precede more of the same manipulations.
There is one even greater holistic impact of Dietrological. Although we have no abilities to directly undermine the corrupt system in the immediate term, we are significantly impacting upon the window that such corruption may continue into the future with a direct negative effect on the crook’s future cashflows.
Incrementalism is as valid in whistleblowing as it is in any other area of business or politics.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
So Frank’s brinkmanship has been found out and his agent, Steve Kutner, is busy backtracking and making conciliatory noises towards the Chelsea hierarchy: “Frank has always said he wants to stay at Chelsea for the rest of his career” together with a more dubious “he will be as committed as ever”. What? That committed!!
The situation shares many parallels with that of Michael Owen who was rejected by all the Big 4 English teams when he was being repatriated from Madrid.
The aim of this post is to address the incentives that exist for modern day top level footballers to choose options other than the maximisation of performance on behalf of themselves and their team. It evidently goes without saying that we, in no manner, wish to suggest that this is a strategy employed by either of the highly professional and motivated players named above.
Organisations that have an interest in developing a corrupt control on top flight football are always more interested in the best players as not only does underperformance of these individuals have a larger impact on a match but also there is a likelihood of a longer and hence more profitable window for the manipulators as these careers can exist at the top of the game for over a decade. As we have stated previously, goalkeepers are a prime target but the best forwards and midfielders are also appreciated particularly if they combine membership of one of the major teams and a solid place in the England set up.
An honest player at the top of his sport may expect considerable wages and merchandising deals throughout his career and, probably, a nice little earner of a ghost written autobiography from the security of his gated community after retirement. In a system that rewards niche sector overperformance, there is logic if not ethics behind this state of affairs.
For individuals who choose or who are forced to work alongside the shadier elements of the bookmaking industry, these basic incentives become markedly skewed as their career progresses. In the early career, the player’s reputation is gained by major performances in massive spectacular society matches that firstly develop and then enhance the status of this highly promising young professional. Enter the dragon in the form of the betting market manipulator and whether via coercion or personal strategy, the incentive spectrum is rejigged. Looking at each of the new components of such a players career is revealing:
• Wages – Over the course of a corrupt mid and late career, a player actually loses out on wages despite the parallel media campaigns supportive of his talents which attempts to offset the effects of deliberate underperformance. The biggest teams represented by the G14(18) undertake extensive analysis of a player’s performances and the culpable stand out as corrupt. Consequently, their late career is spent at second tier clubs that are out of the loop analytically. Such clubs are severely restricted with regard to wage demands and, after the slice pocketed by the agents, a player loses some potential millions.
• Merchandise – A similar structure exists in the area of merchandising as Nike, Adidas and their sort find it difficult to market a football boot bearing a player’s name if that player seems unable to hit a barn door at ten paces.
• Consultancy Fees from Bookmakers – These losses are balanced by the illegal payments received from the market makers that pay handsomely to achieve the match outcomes desired. It should be noted here also, however, that the fees will tail off as the player finishes his career at a lower strata than his abilities suggest.
• Proprietary Trading – Another column in the income account relates to the placing (surreptitiously of course) of bets against one’s team when one is externally manipulated.
Taking these various benefits and disadvantages into a profit and loss format always reveals an enhancement of a player’s career earnings and, if carefully optimised, bank balances may be multiplied by magnitudes through the choice of a criminally corrupt career. We will leave it up to you to plug in some back of the envelope figures regarding the number of straight and corrupt years, the wages differential, fees and the ability to be placing many millions of pounds on certainties in the underground Asian football markets.
We have deliberately withheld the non sucker punch.
Post retirement, corrupted players are a potential liability particularly if they were at the back of the queue when the brains were being given out. In a creative double whammy that consolidates future corruptions by having acquiescent media voices uttering disinformational nonsense and undermining any potential for informational leakage of past corruptions, the criminalised players turn up across the board in the mainstream football media. Hence their income streams are extended significantly beyond the end of their playing days as they help to facilitate the next generation of obedient insider dodginess.
So, what do players lose in this process as it is evidently not money? What are the risks inherent in this abusive system?
The biggest loss is kudos. A promising career never reaches the heights that might have been attained if a player had chosen professionalism instead of financial jiggery-pokery. In the eyes of the public, he is flawed. His teams fail to win the number of matches and, more importantly, the number of trophies than should be the case. But, in his own mind, the corrupted individual knows his true status and, to an extent, the media are able to pump up this myth.
The risks are, however, becoming markedly more prevalent. The observations of the highly professionalised analysts within the power hierarchies such as the G14(18) uncover the corrupt with minimal fuss. They may even choose to publicise their observations.
And, still further, there are groupings like Dietrological that detail individual and group corruptions at different layers within the sport. Although our analyses are determinedly filtered by the mainstream media, the information is made public and, in a major spectacle like English Premiership football, the analyses morph into rumours and spread like wildfire. The outcome soon manifests itself that the allegedly corrupt are forced onto the defensive with puffed up press releases from players and their agents relating to “commitment” and “desire” and “love of the club”. Of course, such statements merely act as a type of regeneration of status which merely precede more of the same manipulations.
There is one even greater holistic impact of Dietrological. Although we have no abilities to directly undermine the corrupt system in the immediate term, we are significantly impacting upon the window that such corruption may continue into the future with a direct negative effect on the crook’s future cashflows.
Incrementalism is as valid in whistleblowing as it is in any other area of business or politics.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 2 July 2007
A New Illicit Structure To Facilitate Insider Trading
One of the least meritocratic aspects of financial markets is the bias provided to certain individuals who have access to private inside information. Insider trading is apparently illegal in International Financial Markets (IFMs) but, one would have to add, that is news to me or to anybody else who depends on such markets for their living. In sports and football markets, insider trading is undoubtedly the driving dynamic in the marketplace and the only valid tool in an analyst’s armoury is the knowledge that the people with privileged and/or corrupt information have to disclose their hand at some point – whether to us as an organisation or to the market in general.
Many insiders gain access to critical non-public information. The Chief Executives (CEOs) of multinationals together with other board members and officers of the upper hierarchy are generally aware of proprietary knowledge related to their company considerably ahead of any people outside the loop. Such knowledge is frequently shared with other closely integrated businesses and groups via the dubiously interlocked memberships that govern our great globalised system. Similarly, in the game of football where motivation is such a key fundamental parameter in a crowded fixture schedule, the managers, coaches, team members and staff are equally ahead of the market in their knowledge regarding near future events. In a properly regulated environment, this edge would be of minimal value as the authorities would create processes whereby insider dealing is effectively outlawed. However, we are in the territory of incentives here and it is interesting to look at the value of insider information to a range of market protagonists. Although there are identical parallels between IFMs and sports markets, they each have their own unique structure of systemic regulatory capture. In a future post, we will be focusing on the IFMs entirely (aside from one particular rant that we are saving for the end of this article) but, in the main, this post will be looking at football markets as it is the close season and this is supposed to be a football blog at root after all.
My Trading Team have links to numerous clubs around Europe. We are aware of, prior to many of the market makers, match specific and competition specific information relating to the markets. There is absolutely no obstacle on a legal level to this state of affairs. This data is currency. The Asian bookmakers and brokers with whom we trade are more than willing to be the next in line to receive this privileged information as, inevitably, such information is a very precious commodity indeed. The entire structure of a trading book may be destabilised by the presence of this market input and, although we gain a slice of the action, the highly liquid Far East markets ensure a significantly greater reward for the greed merchants. There are two key determinants to the value of a piece of inside information. Firstly, how close are we to the source and, secondly, how early in the market phase are we able to source the information? The rewards are directly determined as a function of these two mechanisms. If the information is already in the price and we are only able to source the data, say, fifteen minutes prior to kick off, the info is of minimal value on either a proprietary trading or on a hedging level. If we are first in line at market opening then we’re quids in…
Evidently, we gain from this structure. We are paid for our information and we receive very privileged trading arrangements with our brokers. Additionally, we maintain beneficial constructs with the sources of the information in a non-meritocratic game of mutual back-scratching. Despite these facts, we are all in agreement in the office that we would prefer that such mechanisms be made illegal with the development of proper legislation and protection for the market operators who are a distance away from the core of our corrupt system. We win whatever but, with the current structure, a load of talentless crooks are ensured a huge financial gain merely through their proximity to the core. In a more valid system, we would still win whatever but the crooked would be peripheralised and the game that we pay our money to watch would be markedly straighter than is presently the case.
The value of inside information depreciates in the same manner as a stone dropped into a pond produces concentric circles of ever decreasing amplitude. All market makers and exchanges are very interested in gaining the acquaintances of people who are at the centre of this wave of data. In this manner, once a trading organisation has achieved the necessary degree of informational infiltration, the process is self-sustaining.
There is regulation related to IFMs but, despite the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley law following Enron etc together with a few historical attempts at creating ethical red tape following previous corporate criminality, such efforts are largely self-regulatory which is obviously open to abuse. The key regulatory bodies, investment banks, hedge funds, analysts, boutiques and financial media are all very happy with the current system which is established to provide for insider loopholes. By careful placing of positions by non-core participants (often relations, accountants, lawyers or associated businesses) both individuals and companies are able to by-pass the pitiful attempts at preventing inside information reaching the financial markets. A prime current example is provided below.
As we have already stated, knowledge is power in the marketplace. Two of the biggest disseminators of knowledge are The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. Their market position is a monopolist’s dream which is presumably why psychopath par excellence, Mr Rupert Murdoch, is in the throes of buying Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Reuters and Dow Jones provide news feeds relating to breaking market information from governmental, business and regulatory sources. Clients may join up and receive these feeds in real time and are consequently able to incorporate breaking information into their market positionings at speed. Yet, faster is better. These two firms are now providing an enhanced service for hedge funds and their like whereby such clients will receive this information marginally ahead of the other recipients. This is an abuse of the inside information legislation in all but name. The privileged clients gain market edge through first mover advantage. And, in addition, it simply does not matter whether the information is valid and real or disinformational and illusory.
Let me explain as simply as possible in the time available. Hedge funds make their profits via the taking of buying and selling positions. Hedge funds also make their profits by utilising arbitrage trading (often automatically generated using algorithmic black box trading models).
Taking each of these in turn although, in essence, the situation is replicated between the two instances. If Reuters release news/information that is a strong buy or sell signal, the hedge funds get the price before the market which inevitably yields greater returns. This is, effectively, a micro version of the illegal practice of the back-dating of share options except that we are dealing in minutes and seconds rather than months and weeks. If the news/information that Reuters release is bobbins ie it is fallacious, the markets will still react to the information as if it were real until new information appears that renders the initial news to be bobbins. The privileged clients will consequently gain more than the average market participant so long as they are also ahead of the market on receiving the latter piece of information. As they are paying Reuters or Dow Jones handsomely, this will be the case. These are both risk free profits from inside information.
With respect to arbitrage trading, the same mechanism provides a beneficial edge to the clients as they seek to automatically trade concurrent buy and sell positions across the planet on markets that are inefficient. For the uninitiated, this is similar to buying a car in one territory for, say, $20000 and instantly selling it another territory for $21000. If the prices are real and actual and the trading is instantaneous, the hedge funds are guaranteed easy money.
If one is in control of the release of this information to the marketplace, one is in an incredibly powerful position. It matters not whether the data/news released is consequential or not as one is able to profit from the behavioural market dynamics in both the prime market and related markets. The claim is that this process improves market efficiency. It doesn't. Markets are efficient if the price represents the real value whereas this new micro-structure will drive markets to inefficient positions that the likes of Murdoch will be able to exploit for personal advancement as they will KNOW when the information released is reliable or disinformational. This is merely a sophisticated form of price scalping.
Furthermore, there are two analytical inputs to any market. Alpha is related to proprietary analysis and inputs based on intelligence, holistic overviews and creative modelling. We depend on alternative alpha (a particularly valuable input) for our position in the market. Beta, on the other hand, is related to market efficiency and nowadays is largely driven by algorithmic computerised trading. Beta doesn't bring new information to the market but merely dots the i's and crosses the t's, so to speak. Murdoch's little ruse is a corrupt version of beta and brings absolutely nothing to the marketplace except proprietary corruption.
The very thought of anybody being in control of this process is open to abuse but when that anybody is ol’ Rupes then one can guarantee financial shenanigans.
We would like to make a strategic prediction that there will be a future scandal involving market manipulation using this very mechanism.
Good on yer, mate (sic)...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Many insiders gain access to critical non-public information. The Chief Executives (CEOs) of multinationals together with other board members and officers of the upper hierarchy are generally aware of proprietary knowledge related to their company considerably ahead of any people outside the loop. Such knowledge is frequently shared with other closely integrated businesses and groups via the dubiously interlocked memberships that govern our great globalised system. Similarly, in the game of football where motivation is such a key fundamental parameter in a crowded fixture schedule, the managers, coaches, team members and staff are equally ahead of the market in their knowledge regarding near future events. In a properly regulated environment, this edge would be of minimal value as the authorities would create processes whereby insider dealing is effectively outlawed. However, we are in the territory of incentives here and it is interesting to look at the value of insider information to a range of market protagonists. Although there are identical parallels between IFMs and sports markets, they each have their own unique structure of systemic regulatory capture. In a future post, we will be focusing on the IFMs entirely (aside from one particular rant that we are saving for the end of this article) but, in the main, this post will be looking at football markets as it is the close season and this is supposed to be a football blog at root after all.
My Trading Team have links to numerous clubs around Europe. We are aware of, prior to many of the market makers, match specific and competition specific information relating to the markets. There is absolutely no obstacle on a legal level to this state of affairs. This data is currency. The Asian bookmakers and brokers with whom we trade are more than willing to be the next in line to receive this privileged information as, inevitably, such information is a very precious commodity indeed. The entire structure of a trading book may be destabilised by the presence of this market input and, although we gain a slice of the action, the highly liquid Far East markets ensure a significantly greater reward for the greed merchants. There are two key determinants to the value of a piece of inside information. Firstly, how close are we to the source and, secondly, how early in the market phase are we able to source the information? The rewards are directly determined as a function of these two mechanisms. If the information is already in the price and we are only able to source the data, say, fifteen minutes prior to kick off, the info is of minimal value on either a proprietary trading or on a hedging level. If we are first in line at market opening then we’re quids in…
Evidently, we gain from this structure. We are paid for our information and we receive very privileged trading arrangements with our brokers. Additionally, we maintain beneficial constructs with the sources of the information in a non-meritocratic game of mutual back-scratching. Despite these facts, we are all in agreement in the office that we would prefer that such mechanisms be made illegal with the development of proper legislation and protection for the market operators who are a distance away from the core of our corrupt system. We win whatever but, with the current structure, a load of talentless crooks are ensured a huge financial gain merely through their proximity to the core. In a more valid system, we would still win whatever but the crooked would be peripheralised and the game that we pay our money to watch would be markedly straighter than is presently the case.
The value of inside information depreciates in the same manner as a stone dropped into a pond produces concentric circles of ever decreasing amplitude. All market makers and exchanges are very interested in gaining the acquaintances of people who are at the centre of this wave of data. In this manner, once a trading organisation has achieved the necessary degree of informational infiltration, the process is self-sustaining.
There is regulation related to IFMs but, despite the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley law following Enron etc together with a few historical attempts at creating ethical red tape following previous corporate criminality, such efforts are largely self-regulatory which is obviously open to abuse. The key regulatory bodies, investment banks, hedge funds, analysts, boutiques and financial media are all very happy with the current system which is established to provide for insider loopholes. By careful placing of positions by non-core participants (often relations, accountants, lawyers or associated businesses) both individuals and companies are able to by-pass the pitiful attempts at preventing inside information reaching the financial markets. A prime current example is provided below.
As we have already stated, knowledge is power in the marketplace. Two of the biggest disseminators of knowledge are The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. Their market position is a monopolist’s dream which is presumably why psychopath par excellence, Mr Rupert Murdoch, is in the throes of buying Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Reuters and Dow Jones provide news feeds relating to breaking market information from governmental, business and regulatory sources. Clients may join up and receive these feeds in real time and are consequently able to incorporate breaking information into their market positionings at speed. Yet, faster is better. These two firms are now providing an enhanced service for hedge funds and their like whereby such clients will receive this information marginally ahead of the other recipients. This is an abuse of the inside information legislation in all but name. The privileged clients gain market edge through first mover advantage. And, in addition, it simply does not matter whether the information is valid and real or disinformational and illusory.
Let me explain as simply as possible in the time available. Hedge funds make their profits via the taking of buying and selling positions. Hedge funds also make their profits by utilising arbitrage trading (often automatically generated using algorithmic black box trading models).
Taking each of these in turn although, in essence, the situation is replicated between the two instances. If Reuters release news/information that is a strong buy or sell signal, the hedge funds get the price before the market which inevitably yields greater returns. This is, effectively, a micro version of the illegal practice of the back-dating of share options except that we are dealing in minutes and seconds rather than months and weeks. If the news/information that Reuters release is bobbins ie it is fallacious, the markets will still react to the information as if it were real until new information appears that renders the initial news to be bobbins. The privileged clients will consequently gain more than the average market participant so long as they are also ahead of the market on receiving the latter piece of information. As they are paying Reuters or Dow Jones handsomely, this will be the case. These are both risk free profits from inside information.
With respect to arbitrage trading, the same mechanism provides a beneficial edge to the clients as they seek to automatically trade concurrent buy and sell positions across the planet on markets that are inefficient. For the uninitiated, this is similar to buying a car in one territory for, say, $20000 and instantly selling it another territory for $21000. If the prices are real and actual and the trading is instantaneous, the hedge funds are guaranteed easy money.
If one is in control of the release of this information to the marketplace, one is in an incredibly powerful position. It matters not whether the data/news released is consequential or not as one is able to profit from the behavioural market dynamics in both the prime market and related markets. The claim is that this process improves market efficiency. It doesn't. Markets are efficient if the price represents the real value whereas this new micro-structure will drive markets to inefficient positions that the likes of Murdoch will be able to exploit for personal advancement as they will KNOW when the information released is reliable or disinformational. This is merely a sophisticated form of price scalping.
Furthermore, there are two analytical inputs to any market. Alpha is related to proprietary analysis and inputs based on intelligence, holistic overviews and creative modelling. We depend on alternative alpha (a particularly valuable input) for our position in the market. Beta, on the other hand, is related to market efficiency and nowadays is largely driven by algorithmic computerised trading. Beta doesn't bring new information to the market but merely dots the i's and crosses the t's, so to speak. Murdoch's little ruse is a corrupt version of beta and brings absolutely nothing to the marketplace except proprietary corruption.
The very thought of anybody being in control of this process is open to abuse but when that anybody is ol’ Rupes then one can guarantee financial shenanigans.
We would like to make a strategic prediction that there will be a future scandal involving market manipulation using this very mechanism.
Good on yer, mate (sic)...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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