Twenty one. That was the number of influential match outcome altering decisions perpetrated by the Professional Game Match Official Board (PGMOB) referees in the weekend's Premiership football matches.
Football market analysts have come to expect an extra degree of manipulation in the big betting windows but Saturday and Sunday's games were particularly hard hit by the input of Keith Hackett's match controllers. Only the Newcastle versus Villa game avoided controversy.
The most focus has undoubtedly been on Rob Styles and his Poll-esque pantomime performance in Sky Super Sunday's Liverpool against Chelsea game. Throughout the first half Styles heavily favoured Liverpool booking Essien for his first challenge while letting Alonso off repeated indiscretions etc etc. At the conclusion of the half, he pulled back a highly promising Chelsea attack to allow treatment for an allegedly stricken Fernando Torres prior to blowing the whistle before any meaningful restart. Any traders who made the judgement that Styles would continue in this vein in the second period were to be disappointed as the man lost the plot completely. The Chelsea penalty was laughable and the non-sending off of Essien despite a second yellow card brought back memories of Poll and Croatia and Australia. The first of the big encounters was consequently ruined and devalued and, towards the end of the game, the two teams were merely going through the motions of competitiveness as it is difficult to play when the rules of the game become a lottery. It is interesting to note that, at £60 million ($120 million), the global betting turnover on this encounter was merely one-third of the turnover on the equivalent match last season which is indicative of a reluctance by professional punters to get involved in a highly manipulated marketplace.
Football Is Fixed analyses the PGMOB referees very closely both as part of our proprietary trading and for the Bum Ref Index which assesses the negative impact the referees have on match outcome. Last season's best performing official was Mark Clattenburg and his selection for the Manchester derby produced a proper piece of giant-killing with only a slightly dubious penalty decision against United's interests to note. Shinawatra's inappropriate closeness to Richard Scudamore (the Premier League CEO) will yield advantages throughout the season and Ronaldo's absence was just the first of many manipulations that should be expected in favour of the Sky Blues. The bookmakers were hammered globally in a massive turnover event (over £300 million for the second time this season on a Man Utd game) as Shinawatra gained kudos from the City fans, profit from his underground betting activities and political status in the voting in Thailand's referendum on a new constitution in which he lost by 58% to 40% - a closer result than had been expected.
The weirdest game of the weekend was at Wigan where Mike Riley gave the home team two penalties having denied them four more in the first half as Sunderland did their utmost to lose the match. Keane's team are very closely linked to Irish bookmaking interests and all three of their matches to date have been serious betting events. There was a huge global gamble on the Mackems for their victory over Spurs and the self-destruction at the weekend was also probably influenced by the Asian markets. All traders should closely monitor the betting patterns on future Sunderland events as aligning with insiders is a solid route to profit.
The Fulham versus Boro game was memorable for the major gamble on the home team which was undermined by a creative piece of refereeing change just seven minutes into the game when Lee Mason departed with a hammed-up pseudo-limp allowing Andy D'Urso (who is not even a PGMOB elite official) to incorrectly disallow Fulham's late equaliser which was fully two feet over the goalline.
Elsewhere, there were two handballs in the penalty area at Reading, neither of which was seen by the incompetent Steve Bennett and two penalties for West Ham at Birmingham although one wasn't given. It is interesting to note that the only team who enjoyed an advantage of a free midweek over their opponents were the Hammers - Birmingham's opening two games against Chelsea and Sunderland putting them at a distinct disadvantage as manipulations, both obvious and not-so-obvious, continue to flow for the dodgy East Londoners. Why Steve Tanner disallowed Kanu's header is a mystery while Alan Wiley failed to prevent the gamble on Blackburn/Draw being landed, despite the dismissal of Blackburn's captain Nelson, thanks to Lehmann's comedy keeping.
Throughout last week, the mainstream media were ranting about the impending sacking of Martin Jol. Apparently, Jol had been summoned by Daniel Levy (the Spurs supremo) to explain the team's poor start and, on Friday, Sky News were informing us that "a leading bookmaker" (unnamed, of course) had closed their market on Jol being the first managerial sacking of the new season. Our contacts at the club inform us that the alleged meeting never took place and it is also interesting to note that, on Saturday morning, the managerial sack markets had Sammy Lee at 9/4, Jol at 11/4 and Hutchings at 11/2 which is hardly evidence of a certainty - if Jol had been on his way out, a market price of 1/6 should have been expected. Of course, the reasons behind this media manipulation were to reduce the bookmakers exposure to the inevitable Tottenham victory on Saturday where three goals in the opening quarter of an hour led to the late insider gamble being landed.
Out of the twenty seven games to date in the new Premiership season, Dietrological Gold/Silver clients have been given sixteen advices (every single one of which has been a winning position) while Dietrological Bronze clients have been provided with a 10 out of 12 return (plus three Champions League Qualifier winners). Before English football reached the current levels of massive corruption, achieving a 100% return on 16 events was nigh impossible as early phase markets produce merely a probability of profit. The advantage to our Trading Team of the degree of manipulation now being foisted onto the English game is inversely correlated with the authenticity of the sport as a competitive game.
The more corrupt the market, the more certain an analyst's profits. On one level, our selfishness leads us to be properly grateful to the Premier League and the PGMOB for their corrupt machinations yet, on another level, the corruption produces a sadness around the trading room as we see our once great game become the equivalent of greyhound racing.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
