From time to time, the English mainstream media throw excessive hissy fits about entirely fabricated footballing realities. These spectacular society nonsenses, although pithy in the big scheme of things, always have a purpose and that purpose usually relates to some insider(s) increasing the positive nature of their cashflow(s).
A prime example of this waste of column inches is the focus on Martin Jol and Tottenham.
We posted previously that there was rampant disinformation around the managerial situation at Spurs (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/08/bastards-in-black.html) and the "news" story has got entirely out of hand in the last few days.
Lets get some things as straight as is feasible.
* Martin Jol was not summoned by Spurs supremo Daniel Levy last week to explain the team's poor start to the season.
* There were no major bets last Friday on Martin Jol being the first manager in the Premiership to get the sack this season. Indeed, the markets do not even make Jol the favourite to win the race for Jobseekers Allowance - that privilege goes to Sammy Lee at Bolton.
* Juande Ramos (the Sevilla manager) did meet with the Tottenham club secretary John Alexander and vice-chairman Paul Kemsley at the Alfonso XIII hotel in Seville last Friday. But this meeting was prior to the alleged major bets on the sacking and, at the meeting, Ramos firmly stated that he intended to honour his contract at the Andalucian club. Tottenham now claim that this meeting never took place.
* Ramos also initially denied that the encounter existed but the Spanish sports media are not so compliant and controlled as the English propaganda machine and he was forced to come clean about the "dizzying" offer that he received from the north Londoners. Entertainingly, Sky's Spanish reporter, Sid Lowe, managed to get virtually every aspect of the spin incorrect in his reports on Sky and in The Guardian.
* It has been made clear to Martin Jol (at a meeting this week) that a top four place or, at the very least, finishing above rivals Arsenal are the targets that need to be achieved for the Dutchman to remain in charge.
The amount of media attention to this partially real occurrence is out of all proportion to its significance. There are clear parallels with the non-story at the end of last season when it was rumoured that there had been major bets on Southampton getting promoted because Microsoft founder Paul Allen was taking over the club (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/hrh-queen-elizabeth-ii-to-invest-in.html). That particular spectacular was merely a betting scam perpetrated by a certain south coast manager with an inappropriate interest in the markets.
The current Tottenham/Martin Jol wheeze has been dependent on three informational loci. Firstly, Sky Television has driven the story to the forefront of our attentions with an incessant stream of rumour and counter-rumour that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Sky's big live game next Sunday features Manchester United and Tottenham. Betting turnover is being magnified by all the media focus and Skybet benefit accordingly. Secondly, the mainstream media in England have run the story to the exclusion of other more pertinent concerns within the game. Compare the number of column inches related to Martin Jol with the complete disappearance of the proper reality relating to the City of London police raids on Portsmouth, Glasgow Rangers and Newcastle, for example, which lasted less than 24 hours in the media spotlight. Thirdly, there are a group of betting market operators who are very close to this story. The main impact on the market for the first Premiership managerial casualty has been the lengthening of the prices of other managers being the first to be sacked. In the current Coral market, for example, Martin Jol is 2/1 (3.00) for the boot. If his sacking was a certainty, he would very short odds-on whereas, in reality, he should be long odds against. Sammy Lee and Gareth Southgate should both be significantly shorter than the 15/8 and 8/1 on offer and represent value accordingly.
The running of this excuse of a story has had the impact of severely undermining Jol's position and the team morale. The degree of uncertainty in the shifting sands of White Hart Lane is hardly conducive to a focused and motivated organisation. By allowing the media to play with their realities, Spurs have allowed themselves to be severely compromised. And yet, this is not the big story at Tottenham this season.
In July, Tottenham Hotspur made the highly dubious decision to allow Mansion bookmakers to become their shirt sponsors pocketing a cool £34 million ($70 million) in the process. Manchester United had already refused to accept a sponsorship deal with the Gibraltar-based company instead accepting a lesser offer from insurance giants AIG due to issues related to guilt by association through relations with a major gaming company. The steady procession of Premiership clubs that allow bookmakers and online casinos totally invalid links with their teams continues apace. These bookies inevitably gain access to privileged inside information and, more disturbingly, are, in some instances, able to impact upon match outcome through ownership of or coercion of individuals within the club. As market analysts, there has to be a major concern about the input of the likes of Bet24 at Blackburn or Boylesports at Sunderland to name but two examples but these concerns pale into insignificance when compared with the impact of Mansion at Tottenham.
Mansion did not pay £34 million just to have their logo plastered on every spare inch of space within the Tottenham ground. They paid for market influence. Mansion are a very interesting operation. Founded by Putera Sampoerna, Mansion utilised the massive profits generated by his family's business interests in tobacco and ginseng to enter the betting markets. While it should come as no surprise that yet another Premiership club has been financially benefiting from the profits of addiction, billionaire Sampoerna had a much bigger picture strategy in place. Mansion were the first Asian betting firm to gain a foothold in the European market. The highly liquid Asian markets are responsible for VIRTUALLY ALL the global betting turnover on European football matches but, until Mansions manoeuvre, the Europeans and Asians had maintained a mutually exclusive strategy territorially. Through gaining a slice of the European action, Mansion was able to significantly increase its informational horizons. This knowledge has been utilised to establish a far more powerful betting operation - Mansion88. Set up in the Philippines, Mansion88 is now one of the key global betting firms pricing up the global markets ahead of the competition. Why is it so key to be the fundamental market price source? Because, if you do not maintain a highly abusive form of control of the betting markets, pricing the markets ahead of the remainder of the sector may produce entirely inappropriate and financially damaging exposures on matches where the outcome is in the control of another bookmaker. An interesting side effect of Mansion88 and some other key Asian betting operations in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore wrenching control from the European firms has been the peripheralisation of some of the major European companies. Ladbrokes, for example, priced up this next weekend's Premiership matches fully 5 days after the Asian markets had opened while, as we posted earlier in the week, some of the secondary level European firms (like Premierbet) have become insolvent or are teetering on the edge of insolvency. Even allegedly moralistic Betfair are feeling the pinch. The London based betting exchange should really have no excuse for an excessive increase in their commission on trades as they are merely matching betting positions from their clients. Of course, this is not actually the case and Betfair's traders are actively involved in their proprietary markets matching positions where they believe they possess an informational advantage. This worked fine when Betfair believed themselves to be at the cutting edge of the markets but works considerably less well when the informational advantage rests with the Asians. Hence, Betfair secrete away (on some minor webpage that nobody ever looks at) the news that they are increasing commission on asian handicap positions from 1% to 5%! Betfair's marketing justification for this outrageous hike in commission is that the 1% rate was a "promotional offer" despite the fact that this "offer" had existed since the company's founding in 1999...
Mansion88 have been major operators in the global betting markets this season both via the action of primary pricing but also by actively trading the markets in real time. Tottenham's opening match of the season at Sunderland witnessed one of the largest gambles on record and there was also very significant late money on Spurs beating Derby last weekend. The news flow related to Martin Jol's impending departure produced real value in backing Spurs and the major positions were landed within fifteen minutes of the game starting as Spurs raced into a 3-0 lead.
In this manner, spectacular society creates realities that are entirely fallacious and promotes such realities to the exclusion of all other news and/or information while, under the surface and away from prying eyes, the major global bookmakers continue to corrupt the game to oblivion.
Now, why don't we ever hear about that on Sky Television nor, indeed, in any other mainstream media?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
