Probably the most disturbing aspect regarding the corruption of sporting sectors worldwide is the omnipresence of the shadow of criminality. It seemingly makes not an iota of difference whether one looks at horseracing, football, cricket or the Olympics, the distorting influence of malignant money upon both the administrative hierarchies and the event outcomes is increasingly the normal template.
Some recent media effervescences highlight this reality.
Pornography was the route that Birmingham City owner, David Sullivan, chose to create his wealth. Nice. Sullivan is currently attempting to sell his share of the midlands club to Carson Yeung, a Far East gambling sector magnate who made his own particular fortune via the establishment of a casino in Macau and through illicit underground trading on the global football markets (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/07/betting-baron-buys-birmingham.html). Yeung is dragging his feet and Sullivan is getting nervous. The even-more-objectionable Thaksin Shinawatra has developed a stranglehold over the Premier League and the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) through provision of a linkage to these self-same illegal markets and through the marketing coup of enabling one of his client companies to be sponsoring PGMOB referees and officials. When a cartel is in the process of being manufactured, there is no room for competition and Yeung is outside the power loop, at least for the moment. Hence the delay in completing the buyout of Brum to the consternation of Sullivan. Quoted this week, Sullivan gave the ex-barber until the end of 2007 to sign on the dotted line otherwise an alternative buyer will be sought. Fair enough. But the most interesting part of Sullivan's moaning was in regard to the financial strategies of the new Premiership hyper-owners. Utilising his inside knowledge of the financial structure at West Ham United (where he has a minority stake), Sullivan points out pertinently that the figures simply do not add up. And they don't. Unless, of course, you add gambling income to the accounts. Then the figures most certainly do add up and then some. It is a ludicrous piece of sector specific spin to claim that the types of individual buying up the Premiership clubs are doing so because they desire a trophy club, something to boast about in the clubhouse. These men are financial operators who care not about history and culture and community and sport but about wealth. The bottom line is where their focus lies. And, in the week that saw the first £1 billion global betting market, for anyone to claim otherwise is a deceit of some stature.
Take a bow Richard Scudamore, the highly compromised and cartel-integrated chief executive officer of the Premier League. Having been keeping a somewhat lower profile in the aftermath of the various and numerous scandals that have undermined any remaining efficacy and trust in himself or his organisation, Scudamore had to respond to Michel Platini's open letter to European heads of government regarding the major concerns felt within UEFA over the input of "malignant money" into the sport. Scud's missile had twin warheads. Firstly, he backed Gordon Brown's assertion that government should not interfere in the corruption underpinning English football and, tongue wedged in cheek, claimed that there is no instance of such malignancy in the profit and loss columns of the takeover brigade. Really. This one does not warrant a response... Scudamore's major concern doesn't relate to corruption caused by the impact of the betting markets, the lack of any fit and proper persons testing, the creative fluidity of the Premier League's rule book, nor the presence of dodgy money and even dodgier owners. No no no, Mr Scudamore's prime concern is that the media rights bestowed, at a cost, upon the likes of Sky and Setanta are being undermined by underground Asian firms offering peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming free of charge. Gymnastic contortions are necessary to warp reality into the perspective of the boss man of the English game. When the bodies that are coordinating the corruption of football lose monies to a gang of Asian criminals, this equals a dreadful indictment on their cash flows. When the same bodies gain monies through their own proprietary manipulations alongside Asian criminals, this equals a valid business strategy. Malignancy is okay so long as it is our malignancy.
But, it isn't only football. The recent Twenty20 baseball tournament in South Africa was smothered with corruption. The betting market volumes on the India versus Pakistan final were of soccer-esque proportions globally and some Pakistani players, evidently having buried any association with guilt over the demise of Bob Woolmer, were actively involved in the manipulation.
Or check out the banning of Kieran Fallon from horseracing in Britain. Now, Kieran has always been a bit of an entity with his high risk bedroom capers with the wives of the British establishment and an equally creative attitude towards the betting markets. Having fallen out with virtually every toff in the land, the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA) have confirmed his ban despite his recent appeal. The selective vision of the HRA is Scudamorean in its lack of objectivity as Mr Fallon is merely the tip of country-sized iceberg of corruption. The authorities, owners, trainers and jockeys who manipulate the "sport" of horseracing in Britain should look closer to home for numerous examples of criminality amongst their own flock. Checking out the public and private betting patterns together with activities in the betting ring and on the rails clearly indicates that race outcomes are impacted upon negatively by betting market liabilities. 90% of the leading British trainers are associated with this widespread scam so the targeting of Fallon is evidently some type of imperial throwback. Historically, I've even had extensive conversations with Rodney Brack (formerly chief executive of the Horserace Betting Levy Board) about the structures of this manipulation. Of course, that was before he realised that I was from the other side! Must be something about the post of chief executive, I reckon...
One sporting extravaganza that has largely avoided the polluting impact of gambling money is the Olympics. The reason is blatantly obvious. Bookmakers corrupt events by offering inducements and incentives to insiders whether such insiders are jockeys, footballers, batsmen or referees. It is fortunate for sport that the kudos of winning some sporting events undermines any externalised corruption - a gold medal being one such scenario. Consequently, the bookmakers hardly bother to price up the Olympics markets as a level playing field comes somewhere near the bottom of their list of requirements. If only the authorities in control of the Olympics were equally squeaky clean...
The disgraceful charade of the lack of accountability that is the London 2012 Olympics is indicative of organisational corruption. Prior to the games being awarded to the south east of England (there will be a nett loss of £4 billion to the regions), Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn from the Department of Culture Media and Sport were promising that the total cost of the games would be £2.4 billion. Before the IOC voted, Jowell knew that this was a vast underestimate but she creatively withheld the reality from both parliament and the House of Lords for fully sixteen months while also burying away Professor Adam Blake's report on the financial consequences of the bid. Jowell claimed that every corner of Britain would feel the 2012 effect and, in truth, she is correct. London is only paying a fraction of the cost. Additionally, Caborn repeatedly told MPs that the projections were robust despite warnings from P.Y. Gerbeau which indicated that a figure of around £7.5 billion would have been more honest if compared to the Paris bid. Of course, with the prize won, the duplicitous Jowell can now spin her way to the truth that the current cost estimate is £9.3 billion. When asked on a recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme why this was the case, the bid chairman, Lord Coe, was prevented from providing an answer by an overly insistent PR minder. And this is the core of the matter...
Public money is being used to back the financial mismanagement of this bid. And yet, LOCOG the authority in control of the process, is private. Non-disclosure of financial realities by a private firm using public money would normally only be allowed in the upper masonic sectors of industry and most certainly not in the arena of amateur sport. Coe's brigade repeatedly flout the Freedom of Information Act and Lottery money is being diverted from numerous good causes such as sport in the communities, culture, heritage etc to pay for the financial shortfall deliberately perpetrated by members of the LOCOG board. And, what an interesting board it is. Chaired by silver spoon merchant, Seb Coe, LOCOG's chief executive is a former chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, Paul Deighton. Also on the board are such luminaries as HRH Princess Anne, Spurs director Sir Keith Mills and athlete Jonathan Edwards CBE. The gongs are mentioned as, out of a board of sixteen people, there are 2 lords, 2 sirs, 4 CBE's, 3 MBE's, an OBE and a princess which is an exceedingly egalitarian effort. Mike Leigh, who was involved in the bid process, has spun himself off as a freelance consultant with access to privileged information denied to taxpayers while Coe stands to personally gain around £5 million from the stitch-up.
Inevitably, there are even less pleasant liaisons if you dig a little deeper. Coe should be careful who he selects as his business partners as tax-exile Peter Abbey has a little bit too much history to have involvement in an allegedly flagship event. The inappropriate linkages spread further and LOCOG has strategic alliances with a rum bunch of characters including John Prescott's Las Vegas chum, Philip Anschultz (of super-casino infamy). Anschultz has levered his AEG company into the events spotlight and his Millennium Dome will be used for the Olympic basket weaving competition or some such trivia. Mr Anschultz is too compromised by his major global gambling interests to be situated anywhere near the public money being suborned for these games.
I understand that is foolish to hark back to the periods of the four minute mile, Jesse Owens and even those bearded East German women gymnasts, just as it is to fondly remember Stanley Matthews or Donald Bradman and to think that any of this has any relevance to the commercial obliteration of sport that surrounds us today. But the Olympic Games represent one of the last beacons of hope for meritocratic non-corrupt sport. Despite the Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) and the nationalism, you could enjoy sport as it should be. Lord Coe, despite not really being as good as Steve Ovett, should remember this legacy. For it is the hands of people like him, Jowell and Anschultz that this legacy is being sold out to a grouping of inside commercial interests emanating from the shadier areas of western business, mafia, masons, private security interests and government.
It would be folly to expect the style of the Barcelona games with these cowboys (and girls) in control. Ever inflating costs and a high risk of terrorism would be my guess... Oh, and a load more gongs for the elite. Bless.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
The End Of Intuition?
So, intuition is dead, is it?
According to Professor Ian Ayres in his new book "Super Crunchers", it is.
Fortunately, he is wrong.
Prof Ayres is a zealot of neural network, algorithmic and other black box technologies and he chooses in this book to extrapolate the limited value of these tools, because that is what they are, to develop a spurious vision of a future where all of our existences are dominated by computers crunching our data.
This erroneous leap of credibility simply does not stand up and one should always undertake a guarded mode of inquiry when interacting with people claiming an holistic truth. The prime issues with so many of these predictive analyses is that they exhibit an inability to incorporate the full macro- and micro-realities, they are unable to deal with "Black Swan events" (rare and massively destabilising), by being dependent on past data they are very poor at reacting to the random walk of all our futures, complex layered markets incorporating both economic and psychological mechanisms are beyond the limits of the software and the windows of opportunity for usage are constantly variable in all globalised interactions.
Black box technologies (Bbt) are very useful for a certain limited range of complex data analyses. Dunnhunby, for example, enhance the Tesco shareprice by spotting patterns in the shopping behaviours of Tesco's clubcard owners to target such individuals in order to increase the amount of cash from their wallet that ends up in proof of the motif "every little helps". This evidently works on an analytical level. Similarly, distribution firms use Bbt to optimise the routes travelled by both items and transportation to maximise returns. BBt is great for these simple data analytical tasks and pattern recognition at speed will always outperform the humble human brain in such instances. Even in areas that are slightly more layered in structure like marketing, the rating of products and games like go and chess, the software is able to compete with the very best of people power. Where Bbt reaches the limit of validity is when we arrive at complex multi-disciplinary and layered systems like financial markets.
Financial markets are an ever-evolving environment. The primary beauty of our Unified Trading Model (UTM) is that it reacts in real time to new market realities on all strata - macroeconomic, microeconomic, behavioural, infrastructural, holistic. The UTM with related big picture overview allows the potent combination of skilled practitioners and a robust highly-tuned trading model to find value in the marketplace in all windows. Different trading periods require different mixtures of input. During windows of market calm, a lack of unusual volatility and fairly predictable structural interactions, the UTM will access Bbt sub-modelling to a moderate degree - at peak times, up to 30% of our trading is neural net-based. But the market is a beast from the deep and periods of calm exist in order to be disrupted by breakpoints at all levels of input. In these market windows, the value of Bbt is minimal/nil. Market analysis is physics at speed in a relentlessly changing financial universe. Historical data, analyses, strategies and software have no role in the management of change in the marketplace. In football betting markets, these turbulent periods occur once every season on average and, during the upheaval, our Traders utilise intuition, creative pattern recognition and our holistic overview both of the sector and the markets to solve the new infrastructure at speed. Immersing oneself in the largely unique data on our servers is on a different level of efficiency of solution if compared with Bbt.
There are other problems with Bbt. In any complex scenario, there are very few individuals who are able to train up the Bbt software to the necessary levels of performance. The inputs are key and the laterally conceived selection of such inputs is one hell of a competitive advantage. Bbt, in the hands of your average economist, is liable to spot rogue patterns with illogical cause and effect linkages, and the ephemeral nature of their trading validity is a major issue in mature markets.
Two very separate areas that reveal the shortcomings of Bbt are medicine and international financial markets (IFMs). Advanced technologies are a great tool for the medical profession when utilised for their simplistic value as data-crunchers. Time is at a premium in the health arena and doctors are unable to personally collate and integrate the results from their research. Bbt provides the medics with a solid pool of data analysis regarding individual aspects of the patient. What the software is patently unable to achieve is an holistic prognosis taking into account all the medical conditions which exist in parallel. In these circumstances, it is the doctor's intuition and experience that offers the best chance of success.
The situation is similar in IFMs as clearly indicated by the current credit squeeze. As the economically comprised economies pump liquidity into the markets from their central banks to delay, but deepen, the eventual recession, the role of Bbt in establishing and extrapolating the chaos is ignored. Investment banks and hedge funds are overflowing with mathematical whizzkids developing fallacious Bbt models. These proprietary softwares were used to undertake risk analysis, trade and hedge during the recent bull market. In the short term, this application was successful but, in the bigger picture, their value collapses. Prior to the credit squeeze, the global financial sector had absolutely no idea where the real risk was residing. Everybody was busy packaging and repackaging their exposures to risk based on the "advice" offered by Bbt. This hotch-potch structure guaranteed the crisis. Furthermore, as they attempt to analyse, model and trade their way through the current market turbulence, the analysts at many of these firms are effectively trading blindfold in the dark. They do not possess a valid big picture framework and their models are bobbins.
The only individuals of analytical importance, whether we are looking at the football betting markets or the IFMs, are those with extensive market memory and a shrewd intuition. The market memory is critical as experience of historical realities and data-sets allows an advanced starting point for any contemporary analyses. Intuition is the biggie though. Top traders get gut feelings. This pattern recognition is hardly conscious but exists in the sub-conscious and enables an immediate response to the machinations of the distorted and corrupt financial arenas. Intuition is particularly valuable in specific time windows on both a macro- and microeconomic scale. These islands of intuition form a bedrock of our significant trading advantage and, consequently, we have no wish to discuss anything so isolationist in detail. But, intuition is the premier algorithm. It is multi-layered and multi-disciplinary and always bases logic at the foundation of any causal links. Holistic Human versus Quantitative Mechanistic is always a home win.
A further parallel to this myopic mode of thinking may be seen with the new paradigm grouping of economists. In their blinkered reality, the last twenty five years represents a sustainable improvement to the rate of growth of the world economy, apparently, and the combined influences of IT-based productivity gains and the imposition of neo-liberal shareholder capitalist policies will stretch out for ever more... Of course, this is ridiculous in the same manner as the death of intuition is nonsense. As the British and American governments desperately scramble the bankers to postpone the oncoming recession until after the forthcoming elections, such simplistic hubris will be shown to be baseless. Sure, IT has improved productivity as has every previous innovative breakpoint. It is also true that the economic enslavement of vast swathes of the world population has enabled companies to record outrageous profits coupled with rampant tax evasion (over half the leading 300 businesses in Britain paid no tax in 2006 - compare and contrast the correlation with their share prices). These short term advantages are more than factored into the market prices. What ISN'T discounted by the current prices are i) the massive impact of the necessary global reaction to climate change, and ii) the cyclical nature of slavery - the chattering classes always reach a threshold where they have individually taken their fill of the fruits of the erosion of human rights and guilt kicks in. Let the new paradigm people buy up their shares and we'll short sell their future realities, thank you very much...
In conclusion, black and white visions might sell books but they do not reflect reality. The lack of an holistic oversight leads to economists and market makers developing fallacious correlations and constructs which enable the fleet-footed to cream off profit with cutting edge trading models.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
According to Professor Ian Ayres in his new book "Super Crunchers", it is.
Fortunately, he is wrong.
Prof Ayres is a zealot of neural network, algorithmic and other black box technologies and he chooses in this book to extrapolate the limited value of these tools, because that is what they are, to develop a spurious vision of a future where all of our existences are dominated by computers crunching our data.
This erroneous leap of credibility simply does not stand up and one should always undertake a guarded mode of inquiry when interacting with people claiming an holistic truth. The prime issues with so many of these predictive analyses is that they exhibit an inability to incorporate the full macro- and micro-realities, they are unable to deal with "Black Swan events" (rare and massively destabilising), by being dependent on past data they are very poor at reacting to the random walk of all our futures, complex layered markets incorporating both economic and psychological mechanisms are beyond the limits of the software and the windows of opportunity for usage are constantly variable in all globalised interactions.
Black box technologies (Bbt) are very useful for a certain limited range of complex data analyses. Dunnhunby, for example, enhance the Tesco shareprice by spotting patterns in the shopping behaviours of Tesco's clubcard owners to target such individuals in order to increase the amount of cash from their wallet that ends up in proof of the motif "every little helps". This evidently works on an analytical level. Similarly, distribution firms use Bbt to optimise the routes travelled by both items and transportation to maximise returns. BBt is great for these simple data analytical tasks and pattern recognition at speed will always outperform the humble human brain in such instances. Even in areas that are slightly more layered in structure like marketing, the rating of products and games like go and chess, the software is able to compete with the very best of people power. Where Bbt reaches the limit of validity is when we arrive at complex multi-disciplinary and layered systems like financial markets.
Financial markets are an ever-evolving environment. The primary beauty of our Unified Trading Model (UTM) is that it reacts in real time to new market realities on all strata - macroeconomic, microeconomic, behavioural, infrastructural, holistic. The UTM with related big picture overview allows the potent combination of skilled practitioners and a robust highly-tuned trading model to find value in the marketplace in all windows. Different trading periods require different mixtures of input. During windows of market calm, a lack of unusual volatility and fairly predictable structural interactions, the UTM will access Bbt sub-modelling to a moderate degree - at peak times, up to 30% of our trading is neural net-based. But the market is a beast from the deep and periods of calm exist in order to be disrupted by breakpoints at all levels of input. In these market windows, the value of Bbt is minimal/nil. Market analysis is physics at speed in a relentlessly changing financial universe. Historical data, analyses, strategies and software have no role in the management of change in the marketplace. In football betting markets, these turbulent periods occur once every season on average and, during the upheaval, our Traders utilise intuition, creative pattern recognition and our holistic overview both of the sector and the markets to solve the new infrastructure at speed. Immersing oneself in the largely unique data on our servers is on a different level of efficiency of solution if compared with Bbt.
There are other problems with Bbt. In any complex scenario, there are very few individuals who are able to train up the Bbt software to the necessary levels of performance. The inputs are key and the laterally conceived selection of such inputs is one hell of a competitive advantage. Bbt, in the hands of your average economist, is liable to spot rogue patterns with illogical cause and effect linkages, and the ephemeral nature of their trading validity is a major issue in mature markets.
Two very separate areas that reveal the shortcomings of Bbt are medicine and international financial markets (IFMs). Advanced technologies are a great tool for the medical profession when utilised for their simplistic value as data-crunchers. Time is at a premium in the health arena and doctors are unable to personally collate and integrate the results from their research. Bbt provides the medics with a solid pool of data analysis regarding individual aspects of the patient. What the software is patently unable to achieve is an holistic prognosis taking into account all the medical conditions which exist in parallel. In these circumstances, it is the doctor's intuition and experience that offers the best chance of success.
The situation is similar in IFMs as clearly indicated by the current credit squeeze. As the economically comprised economies pump liquidity into the markets from their central banks to delay, but deepen, the eventual recession, the role of Bbt in establishing and extrapolating the chaos is ignored. Investment banks and hedge funds are overflowing with mathematical whizzkids developing fallacious Bbt models. These proprietary softwares were used to undertake risk analysis, trade and hedge during the recent bull market. In the short term, this application was successful but, in the bigger picture, their value collapses. Prior to the credit squeeze, the global financial sector had absolutely no idea where the real risk was residing. Everybody was busy packaging and repackaging their exposures to risk based on the "advice" offered by Bbt. This hotch-potch structure guaranteed the crisis. Furthermore, as they attempt to analyse, model and trade their way through the current market turbulence, the analysts at many of these firms are effectively trading blindfold in the dark. They do not possess a valid big picture framework and their models are bobbins.
The only individuals of analytical importance, whether we are looking at the football betting markets or the IFMs, are those with extensive market memory and a shrewd intuition. The market memory is critical as experience of historical realities and data-sets allows an advanced starting point for any contemporary analyses. Intuition is the biggie though. Top traders get gut feelings. This pattern recognition is hardly conscious but exists in the sub-conscious and enables an immediate response to the machinations of the distorted and corrupt financial arenas. Intuition is particularly valuable in specific time windows on both a macro- and microeconomic scale. These islands of intuition form a bedrock of our significant trading advantage and, consequently, we have no wish to discuss anything so isolationist in detail. But, intuition is the premier algorithm. It is multi-layered and multi-disciplinary and always bases logic at the foundation of any causal links. Holistic Human versus Quantitative Mechanistic is always a home win.
A further parallel to this myopic mode of thinking may be seen with the new paradigm grouping of economists. In their blinkered reality, the last twenty five years represents a sustainable improvement to the rate of growth of the world economy, apparently, and the combined influences of IT-based productivity gains and the imposition of neo-liberal shareholder capitalist policies will stretch out for ever more... Of course, this is ridiculous in the same manner as the death of intuition is nonsense. As the British and American governments desperately scramble the bankers to postpone the oncoming recession until after the forthcoming elections, such simplistic hubris will be shown to be baseless. Sure, IT has improved productivity as has every previous innovative breakpoint. It is also true that the economic enslavement of vast swathes of the world population has enabled companies to record outrageous profits coupled with rampant tax evasion (over half the leading 300 businesses in Britain paid no tax in 2006 - compare and contrast the correlation with their share prices). These short term advantages are more than factored into the market prices. What ISN'T discounted by the current prices are i) the massive impact of the necessary global reaction to climate change, and ii) the cyclical nature of slavery - the chattering classes always reach a threshold where they have individually taken their fill of the fruits of the erosion of human rights and guilt kicks in. Let the new paradigm people buy up their shares and we'll short sell their future realities, thank you very much...
In conclusion, black and white visions might sell books but they do not reflect reality. The lack of an holistic oversight leads to economists and market makers developing fallacious correlations and constructs which enable the fleet-footed to cream off profit with cutting edge trading models.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 24 September 2007
It Matters More When There's Money On It
Skybet loses money. Abramovich loses face. Mike Dean loses the plot.
Far more importantly, Premiership football lost a little more of its soul during yesterday's farce of an encounter between the American Reds and the Russian/Israeli Blues - it may well have been spectacular theatre but it certainly wasn't sport.
United won with a goal during the half time break, a sending off that wasn't warranted and penalty that was highly dubious. However, they would have won whatever and the match, already cheapened by the crisis at Chelsea, simply never happened. It was one of Baudrillard's illusory spectacular society realities - we expected a competitive football match with both sides straining for victory, we got a fractious facade.
Chelsea's performance was under the influence of demons. Despite a promise of financial inducements for a performance in the pre-match dressing room visit by Abramovich, the Chelsea players refused to perform. This is entirely indicative of the current uproar at the club. Through his imposition of a hierarchical culture based on division, backstabbing and private cliques, Abramovich has virtually destroyed what Mourinho created.
Chelsea have gone Dutch. The Netherlands national team perfected the art of racial disharmony within a hierarchy but they had the advantage that the negative impact of their organisational racism could be easily solved by simply dropping the likes of Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert etc. Chelsea are not so lucky (sic). From the moment Abramovich decided that he knows enough about football to be lecturing Michael Essien about midfield distribution, the chasm became all-consuming. Roman is a racist and the Black squad members have taken enough and they are talented and rich enough to sidestep the orders emanating from the Russian's dictatorial agenda.
Drogba was in tears at Mourinho's training ground departure; Ashley Cole, Malouda and Drogs bitterly complained at developments at Friday's attempt at a clear-the-air counselling session; a total non-performance was perpetrated by all Chelsea's Black players at Old Trafford. The fact that Van Basten was sitting behind Roman and his security entourage in the VIP section only adds to the Dutch analogy as he too has displayed a racist colour bias in his managership of the Dutch team. The perfect man for the job then, I guess...
"Those in power control the future by controlling the past" was one of Orwell's angles on psychopathy and the Chelsea publicity machine has spent the last few days reinventing the history of Mourinho's departure.
Mourinho resigned = reality.
Mourinho left by mutual agreement on Thursday morning but had been sacked by Friday and had never even been at the club by Sunday morning = Roman's reality.
The Portuguese staff, the Black players and the fans are horrified by Mourinho's exit = reality.
There was widespread dissension in the squad, Mourinho was despised and, anyway, Sheva wasn't happy = Roman's reality.
Shevchenko was substituted to the sound of "what a waste of money" from the Red hordes as the Ukrainian moved yet further beyond his sell-by date = reality.
Everybody in the Chelsea VIP section, under coercive influence, applauded rapturously as Sheva left the pitch having so nearly saved the day by his tireless running and speed = Roman's reality.
Chelsea have lost one of the best managers in Europe and replaced him with a man who enjoyed great success at Maccabi Haifa = reality.
This is a new dawn where Roman is directly involved in team selection = Chelsea's reality.
No successful and strategic businessman would have chosen to sack his prime asset three days before such a huge game - forget Liverpool, forget Arsenal, the title race only ever involved the Big 2 (prior to yesterday, anyway). If Abramovich had been acting to a private agenda, he would have selected a less destabilising window, say, the international break, and he would have assured himself that the reactive choice Avram Grant had the necessary coaching qualifications. There is proper grudge between the Big 2 - check out Peter Kenyon's face after the sending off - and Abramovich was check-mated by Mourinho who left when he could cause the maximum disruption.
Undermined first by the appointment of Frank Arneson and then by the arrival of Grant, Mourinho is shrewd enough to spot the signs and, although committed professionally to the club and to his contract, he developed a secondary and hidden agenda for potential use in emergencies.
Mourinho was the only individual with Chelsea affiliations to gain from yesterday. Chelsea's lack of a performance showed both the absence of his influence on the match and the respect in which he was held by 90% of the players. His price inflated for his next post and his bank account bulging with £23 million from Roman's leaky wallet, Mourinho also dumped big style on Abramovich, Arneson, Grant, Kenyon and Clarke. I have this image of Mourinho sipping some high quality Portuguese red while giggling his way through the performance of his triumph. If his encounter with Abramovich was a chess match, Wednesday's move would have had a !! following it...
Chelsea are suffering and will continue to experience organisational dysfunctionality which is fair dinkum really. However, the other key aspects that prevented a proper game of football from occurring yesterday are the more pertinent malignancies.
Prior to Black Wednesday, the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) had selected Mark Halsey for the Big Game. A volte-face was necessary and, after a considerable delay (the referee for the Big Game was the last to be confirmed for the weekend), the PGMOB under the tutelage of a select grouping of bookmakers decided on Mike Dean. Looking like Jasper Carrot on mogadon, Dean could have chosen to referee professionally and the inevitable United victory would still have resulted as Chelsea were about as lethal as Accrington Stanley. Instead, Dean chose to bring the game and the officials who manipulate it into disrepute on a global stage. United scored during the half-time break and via a dubious penalty while Mikel, who had the audacity not to sign for United, was the player of choice for the incorrect dismissal and Rooney, outrageously, was allowed to stay on the pitch. There was bias but it was unnecessary bias as Chelsea were self destructing anyway as shown by the three other penalty appeals against them and Joe Cole's desperate attempts to be dismissed. But, more disturbingly, the match decisions were entirely randomised. In the view of our Trading Team, the early penalty call (the "very committed" Joe Cole again) together with the same player and Rooney's sendings off were the only valid breakpoints. Grant's statement regarding "some strange decisions" was totally valid - tossing a coin after contentious happenings would have provided greater meritocracy.
Dean has got a bit of history with regard to betting having been banned by the PGMOB for his links to online gambling syndicate, Arbitros and Sunday only strengthened our view that the man's professionalism is compromised by his inappropriate desires. He also has selective hearing. Dean, the same Mike Dean that didn't hear the Islamophobic chants screeched at Mido by 3000 Newcastle fans, clearly heard the visiting fans rendition of "the referee's a bastard" yesterday as he refused Chelsea a valid corner just seconds later. Cack-handed in the extreme...
Following Rob Styles and his comedy capers (and nice new patio) that ruined the Liverpool/ Chelsea match last month, both the encounters featuring the Big 4 this season have been inexorably cheapened by a partnership of bookmakers and financiers influencing events on the pitch. Of course, this is the staple diet for the majority of Premiership games but these lesser events don't display the corruption of the English game to a worldwide audience.
The atmosphere was very subdued in the Sky commentary area post-match. There was none of the joyous glee that accompanied Skybet's betting coup on the last Sky match at Old Trafford against Tottenham. Just Jamie Redknapp looking for a fight, Richard Keys with gritted teeth and Andy Gray repeatedly stabbing his leg with his pen (revealing body language in case you didn't know). Sky were in control of this betting market until Mourinho's departure but, by kick off, they had considerable liabilities on a Man United victory. Gray began the second half with a thinly disguised menace to Dean after their half-time altercation. "I don't agree with you and I don't think many people do" was Gray's interpretation on Dean's justification for sending off Mikel.
The glum faces were founded on financial consequence. If Sky had maintained control of this, the first ever £500 million pre-match market, the rewards would have been considerable. As it was, they got hit by the mug money and one can't help but see elements of justice in Murdoch's men having to pay out to the masses who, in the norm, are abusively targeted by Sky's aggressive business posturing. Having also been undermined in the Liverpool versus Chelsea Big Game, Sky will be awaiting the next Shakesperean tragedy with some trepidation.
Sunday's encounter was a mismatch of a game as well as a collection of errors parading as a football match. Anybody who has watched the Cricket Twenty20 marketing experience is able to see that video technology reveals reality. That is real reality rather than the randomised version of it served up by the PGMOB. All of the key decisions in the two Big Games to date would have been rendered correct by the use of video. It is our misfortune that a by-product of the truth is a deterioration in the bookies bottom line.
In the words of Foucault: "in the economy of doubt, there is a fundamental difference between madness, on the one hand, and error, on the other". The event that was Manchester United and Chelsea exhibited both.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Far more importantly, Premiership football lost a little more of its soul during yesterday's farce of an encounter between the American Reds and the Russian/Israeli Blues - it may well have been spectacular theatre but it certainly wasn't sport.
United won with a goal during the half time break, a sending off that wasn't warranted and penalty that was highly dubious. However, they would have won whatever and the match, already cheapened by the crisis at Chelsea, simply never happened. It was one of Baudrillard's illusory spectacular society realities - we expected a competitive football match with both sides straining for victory, we got a fractious facade.
Chelsea's performance was under the influence of demons. Despite a promise of financial inducements for a performance in the pre-match dressing room visit by Abramovich, the Chelsea players refused to perform. This is entirely indicative of the current uproar at the club. Through his imposition of a hierarchical culture based on division, backstabbing and private cliques, Abramovich has virtually destroyed what Mourinho created.
Chelsea have gone Dutch. The Netherlands national team perfected the art of racial disharmony within a hierarchy but they had the advantage that the negative impact of their organisational racism could be easily solved by simply dropping the likes of Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert etc. Chelsea are not so lucky (sic). From the moment Abramovich decided that he knows enough about football to be lecturing Michael Essien about midfield distribution, the chasm became all-consuming. Roman is a racist and the Black squad members have taken enough and they are talented and rich enough to sidestep the orders emanating from the Russian's dictatorial agenda.
Drogba was in tears at Mourinho's training ground departure; Ashley Cole, Malouda and Drogs bitterly complained at developments at Friday's attempt at a clear-the-air counselling session; a total non-performance was perpetrated by all Chelsea's Black players at Old Trafford. The fact that Van Basten was sitting behind Roman and his security entourage in the VIP section only adds to the Dutch analogy as he too has displayed a racist colour bias in his managership of the Dutch team. The perfect man for the job then, I guess...
"Those in power control the future by controlling the past" was one of Orwell's angles on psychopathy and the Chelsea publicity machine has spent the last few days reinventing the history of Mourinho's departure.
Mourinho resigned = reality.
Mourinho left by mutual agreement on Thursday morning but had been sacked by Friday and had never even been at the club by Sunday morning = Roman's reality.
The Portuguese staff, the Black players and the fans are horrified by Mourinho's exit = reality.
There was widespread dissension in the squad, Mourinho was despised and, anyway, Sheva wasn't happy = Roman's reality.
Shevchenko was substituted to the sound of "what a waste of money" from the Red hordes as the Ukrainian moved yet further beyond his sell-by date = reality.
Everybody in the Chelsea VIP section, under coercive influence, applauded rapturously as Sheva left the pitch having so nearly saved the day by his tireless running and speed = Roman's reality.
Chelsea have lost one of the best managers in Europe and replaced him with a man who enjoyed great success at Maccabi Haifa = reality.
This is a new dawn where Roman is directly involved in team selection = Chelsea's reality.
No successful and strategic businessman would have chosen to sack his prime asset three days before such a huge game - forget Liverpool, forget Arsenal, the title race only ever involved the Big 2 (prior to yesterday, anyway). If Abramovich had been acting to a private agenda, he would have selected a less destabilising window, say, the international break, and he would have assured himself that the reactive choice Avram Grant had the necessary coaching qualifications. There is proper grudge between the Big 2 - check out Peter Kenyon's face after the sending off - and Abramovich was check-mated by Mourinho who left when he could cause the maximum disruption.
Undermined first by the appointment of Frank Arneson and then by the arrival of Grant, Mourinho is shrewd enough to spot the signs and, although committed professionally to the club and to his contract, he developed a secondary and hidden agenda for potential use in emergencies.
Mourinho was the only individual with Chelsea affiliations to gain from yesterday. Chelsea's lack of a performance showed both the absence of his influence on the match and the respect in which he was held by 90% of the players. His price inflated for his next post and his bank account bulging with £23 million from Roman's leaky wallet, Mourinho also dumped big style on Abramovich, Arneson, Grant, Kenyon and Clarke. I have this image of Mourinho sipping some high quality Portuguese red while giggling his way through the performance of his triumph. If his encounter with Abramovich was a chess match, Wednesday's move would have had a !! following it...
Chelsea are suffering and will continue to experience organisational dysfunctionality which is fair dinkum really. However, the other key aspects that prevented a proper game of football from occurring yesterday are the more pertinent malignancies.
Prior to Black Wednesday, the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) had selected Mark Halsey for the Big Game. A volte-face was necessary and, after a considerable delay (the referee for the Big Game was the last to be confirmed for the weekend), the PGMOB under the tutelage of a select grouping of bookmakers decided on Mike Dean. Looking like Jasper Carrot on mogadon, Dean could have chosen to referee professionally and the inevitable United victory would still have resulted as Chelsea were about as lethal as Accrington Stanley. Instead, Dean chose to bring the game and the officials who manipulate it into disrepute on a global stage. United scored during the half-time break and via a dubious penalty while Mikel, who had the audacity not to sign for United, was the player of choice for the incorrect dismissal and Rooney, outrageously, was allowed to stay on the pitch. There was bias but it was unnecessary bias as Chelsea were self destructing anyway as shown by the three other penalty appeals against them and Joe Cole's desperate attempts to be dismissed. But, more disturbingly, the match decisions were entirely randomised. In the view of our Trading Team, the early penalty call (the "very committed" Joe Cole again) together with the same player and Rooney's sendings off were the only valid breakpoints. Grant's statement regarding "some strange decisions" was totally valid - tossing a coin after contentious happenings would have provided greater meritocracy.
Dean has got a bit of history with regard to betting having been banned by the PGMOB for his links to online gambling syndicate, Arbitros and Sunday only strengthened our view that the man's professionalism is compromised by his inappropriate desires. He also has selective hearing. Dean, the same Mike Dean that didn't hear the Islamophobic chants screeched at Mido by 3000 Newcastle fans, clearly heard the visiting fans rendition of "the referee's a bastard" yesterday as he refused Chelsea a valid corner just seconds later. Cack-handed in the extreme...
Following Rob Styles and his comedy capers (and nice new patio) that ruined the Liverpool/ Chelsea match last month, both the encounters featuring the Big 4 this season have been inexorably cheapened by a partnership of bookmakers and financiers influencing events on the pitch. Of course, this is the staple diet for the majority of Premiership games but these lesser events don't display the corruption of the English game to a worldwide audience.
The atmosphere was very subdued in the Sky commentary area post-match. There was none of the joyous glee that accompanied Skybet's betting coup on the last Sky match at Old Trafford against Tottenham. Just Jamie Redknapp looking for a fight, Richard Keys with gritted teeth and Andy Gray repeatedly stabbing his leg with his pen (revealing body language in case you didn't know). Sky were in control of this betting market until Mourinho's departure but, by kick off, they had considerable liabilities on a Man United victory. Gray began the second half with a thinly disguised menace to Dean after their half-time altercation. "I don't agree with you and I don't think many people do" was Gray's interpretation on Dean's justification for sending off Mikel.
The glum faces were founded on financial consequence. If Sky had maintained control of this, the first ever £500 million pre-match market, the rewards would have been considerable. As it was, they got hit by the mug money and one can't help but see elements of justice in Murdoch's men having to pay out to the masses who, in the norm, are abusively targeted by Sky's aggressive business posturing. Having also been undermined in the Liverpool versus Chelsea Big Game, Sky will be awaiting the next Shakesperean tragedy with some trepidation.
Sunday's encounter was a mismatch of a game as well as a collection of errors parading as a football match. Anybody who has watched the Cricket Twenty20 marketing experience is able to see that video technology reveals reality. That is real reality rather than the randomised version of it served up by the PGMOB. All of the key decisions in the two Big Games to date would have been rendered correct by the use of video. It is our misfortune that a by-product of the truth is a deterioration in the bookies bottom line.
In the words of Foucault: "in the economy of doubt, there is a fundamental difference between madness, on the one hand, and error, on the other". The event that was Manchester United and Chelsea exhibited both.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Adeus José
Well, I'm going to miss him anyway...
The disappearance of The Special One from the English game was matched by the appearance of oodles of cash to Dietrological Gold clients who were advised on the 66/1 available on Mourinho being the first Premiership managerial casualty of the new season while everybody else was bleating on about Martin Jol and Juande Ramos.
Chelsea are going to miss Mourinho also.
By some distance, Mourinho was the most astute manager in the league in his ability to react to real time occurrences on the pitch. His skill in dovetailing his intuition with pre-match analysis resulted in Chelsea achieving much more than should have been the case when one considers their dysfunctional hierarchy and organisational structure. Two Premiership titles, two Champions League semi finals and a handful of peripheral cup competitions and trophies are just reward for the tactical nous of Mourinho in his time in West London. It is astonishing that he achieved so much in such an atmosphere as exists at Stamford Bridge. Personally, I'll also miss his blunt arrogance when fending off the banal irrelevencies of media journalism.
Mourinho resigned on Wednesday night and contacted the senior players to inform them of his decision prior to going into his meeting with Abramovich. Inevitably, Chelsea, in their terse hastily-assembled one sentence press release, claimed that mutual consent was the dynamic but the lack of a proper and immediate response from the club together with any reference in the press release to what Mourinho had achieved for Chelsea is suggestive of reaction rather than anything approaching a proactive strategy. Whenever the Chelsea hierarchy interact with the press, reading between the lines is the sole path to reality, end of story...
The experience of Chelsea offers a prime example of why the Arsenal board and management are totally correct in their opposition to the attempted takeover being perpetrated by alleged heroin dealer, Alisher Usmanov. Usmanov upped his stake in the club to 21% on Monday by purchasing the shares of Birol Nadir and Lansdowne Partners although it is understood than Stan Kroenke is not willing to sell out to or join up with the Uzbek oligarch which considerably alters the dynamics behind a hostile takeover. David Dein is pushing, in his position as chairman of Red And White Holdings (R&WH) - such a quaint footballing title - for a reinstatement on the board which may result in the Arsenal chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, having once again to speak with the fork-tongued one despite recently refusing to meet with Dein saying that he's already put up with "25 years of listening to him". As the old board are solid, Usmanov is dependent on hoovering up the shares of minor shareholders and it is indicative of the type of individuals that have bought into Premiership football on the fringes as opposed to the more major stakes that these very people are now the major concern of The Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST). By selling to Usmanov, these shareholders are preparing the ground for a major takeover battle with the likes of Sky, Usmanov, Dein, the Russian betting markets, the mafia and, entertainingly, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson (the real owner of West Ham United) on the one side and, in the other corner, we have Wenger, Fiszman, the AST, the Arsenal fans, the Queen and Mother Teresa.
Below, I'll go on to explain why I think that the Arsenal/Chelsea dichotomy is entirely indicative of where the English Premiership currently resides and I'll also share the reasons why I believe that Chelsea are rotten to the core which, with the absence of their one strategic genius, will lead to difficult times ahead.
But first, I'd like to explore the links between Gudmundsson, Magnusson, West Ham United, Landsbanki and the dynamic towards a takeover of Arsenal. Gudmundsson is the Mr Big behind the Hammers. Although, to date (a situation about to change), Eggert has been given his year in the spotlight, the puppet strings are undoubtedly wound around Gudmundsson's fingers. A reformed alcoholic who narrowly avoided prison when receiving a suspended sentence in his native Iceland in the 1990's for tax fraud, Gudmundsson made his billions (Forbes Rich List Number 799) by moving into the cowboy territory that was post-Soviet Russia and turning a Leningrad soft drinks company into a St Petersburg brewery with rumours of very close links to the Russian mafia - a point enhanced by his telecoms business in Bulgaria where, I know from the personal experience of working and living in next-door România, the mafia is ubiquitous in business. It was, no doubt, during his time in Russia that Gudmundsson met with Usmanov. Gudmundsson's Landsbanki are the bank serving as brokers to R&WH assisting in their strategy to buy up Arsenal shares prior to launching a hostile takeover. In effect, this results in the warped matrix that indicates that the powers behind West Ham United are aiding the change of ownership of another Premiership team. Now I'm sure that there must be some Premier League rule against this sort of thing although, with Richard Scudamore and his bunch of crooks in charge at league headquarters, one may never be certain. And, it should be remembered that the Premier League are intrinsically tied to West Ham and Pini Zahavi's MSI through their shared roles in the corruption that allowed the Hammers to avoid relegation last season.
Despite his profits via banking and brewing and his tax fraud and his business links to both the Russian mafia and a baby-boiler, perhaps, somewhere in the background, there is something that provides a picture of Gudmundsson the man. Here is one such image. Gudmundsson is married to Thora Hallgrimsson, who was previously married to and had four children by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Gudmundsson was so riled when Edda, a publishing house that he personally owns, were publishing a book detailing his wife's close links to aryan supremacists that he had the whole publication pulped. Gudmundsson then proceeded to attempt to buy DV, a daily Icelandic tabloid, simply to close it down because of its coverage of the missing chapter relating to Thora. Bless.
Anyway, getting back to the real point behind this post. Chelsea and Arsenal represent the opposite ends of the Premiership continuum. Chelsea have attempted to buy success by selling out to the worst type of money; Arsenal have succeeded, with the aberration of Dein, to put football before the global betting markets. Via the enlightened transfer policy of Arsène Wenger, Arsenal have spent, in nett terms, virtually nothing in the player market compared with the quarter of a billion pounds that has leaked from Abramovich's wallet. And what have they got for their money? Short-term success. Chelsea have bought three years of unparallelled (for them) achievement by buying over-priced players at their peak (ie they are about to go into decline), players linked to the agents and murky underworld associated with the club and, in particular, Mourinho's input when it was allowed. Chelsea are now stale. How much would you get on the open market for the likes of Lampard, Shevchenko and Ballack now? Even Michael Essien has been underperforming.
The organisation is rotten, there is no kinship just an atmosphere dominated by the short term dollar and making as much illicit money on the side as is humanly possible. Chelsea are very closely and compromisingly associated with underground Moscow bookmakers. The main agent hovering in the wings, Pini Zahavi, has an arrest warrant hanging over him in Brazil for alleged money laundering and Kia Joorabchian, of Carlos Tevez/ the Premier League/ West Ham United fame is always in the shadows. Positions are filled by cronyism as Abramovich layers the hierarchy with yes-men who will respond to Roman's rants. Avram Grant and Frank Arneson were brought in behind Mourinho's back and it is they and Abramovich who must take the ultimate responsibility for the lack of professionalism in the transfer market. It is also them who will be in charge at Manchester United on Sunday (the first $1 billion global betting market?). In a glorious piece of spin and/or self-promotion, Carlos Queiroz chose yesterday to announce that he might be tempted to step down as Manchester United number 2!
Abramovich has been reported as saying that he wishes for Chelsea to win more stylishly. Perhaps he should take lessons from the Iraq national team hierarchy when Saddam's son would have the players feet beaten for poor performances. But, there is a serious point here. Chelsea are not going to achieve creatively beautiful football on the pitch when the culture and atmosphere within the club is, at best, rancid and, at worst, criminal. Players are not going to risk their future career prospects for such an entity and team spirit at Chelsea is non-existent. Abramovich cannot buy everything, including love. He also is unable to buy the Champions League. As we recently pointed out, not since 1990/91 has a non-G14(18) team won the European Cup/ Champions League. Chelsea are not part of this elite club and are not on the reserve list although they will, however, no doubt be one of the lucky clubs receiving a call when the G14(18) expands to fifty clubs in a few months time.
We would suggest that, on a business level, the worst strategy for Chelsea would have been to undermine your prize asset and, yet, that is what Roman Abramovich has decided is, actually, the best course of action. Shevchenko only came to London because Abramovich wanted him and the £30 million transfer fee was on the idiot side of shrewd. Mourinho picked the team that he believed would perform best on the pitch and, quite reasonably, the sulky Ukrainian was often left out. It is our understanding that Mourinho was highly pressured by Abramovich to select Shevchenko for Chelsea's last two games after his goal-scoring performance for his national side against Italy. Mourinho, knowing that a partially fit player returning from a heavy duty international encounter at the other side of Europe would be a liability, objected but was overruled resulting in the two debacles that have been the last two matches of Mourinho's tenure. In those matches, at home to Blackburn and the mighty Rosenborg, Chelsea's attack, led by super-Shevchenko, have had 39 shots on goal resulting in just one goal. In this indirect way, Abramovich brought Mourinho's resignation on himself.
Compare with Arsenal... Arsenal are top of the league, sauntered past double UEFA Cup winning Sevilla 3-0 last night in the Champions League and are playing stunning total football reminiscent of the great Ajax team. And the majority of them are just kids. No links to underground betting markets are to be found here. Strategically managed and, with Dein's exception, responsibly owned, Arsenal have managed to create a culture of creativity and togetherness which results in everybody pulling in one direction for the good of everybody. The post-game huddle is a psychological stroke of genius and the style and performances of today's Arsenal are a striking example of the benefits of keeping the mafia money out of the game. Unfortunately, as we posted recently (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/08/arsnes-arsenal-about-to-go-arse-over.html), we believe that certain Premier League bosses are actively engaged in aiding the takeover of the Premiership by the highly liquid global football betting markets and the status of Arsenal, by necessity, will have to be undermined. We expect numerous outrageous refereeing decisions against the Gunners on grim northern playing fields in the coming months!
The Premiership offers such a broad range in club structures that one might think that, in an supposed democracy, government might wish to intervene or liaise with the footballing authorities regarding individuals like Abramovich, Usmanov, Shinawatra, Gaydamak, Hicks, Gillett, Yeung etc and their strategy of turning of English Premiership football into a massively abusive and corrupt international betting market. Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe's refusal to go anywhere near the Shinawatra affair together with Gordon Brown's dismissive response to the letter he received yesterday from Michel Platini would suggest otherwise. Platini continues to struggle against the realpolitik of the UEFA family. Platini wrote letters to all European governmental leaders asking for their help in saving football from the influence of money men whom he claims are ruining the modern game. Platini quite reasonably states: "A serious threat hangs over the development of European football: the malign and ever-present influence of money". His argument has been rejected by the prime minister and Downing Street last night issued a statement maintaining that the issues raised by Platini were best dealt with by the Premier League.
Not when the Premier League is working alongside the malignant money, it ain't, pal...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The disappearance of The Special One from the English game was matched by the appearance of oodles of cash to Dietrological Gold clients who were advised on the 66/1 available on Mourinho being the first Premiership managerial casualty of the new season while everybody else was bleating on about Martin Jol and Juande Ramos.
Chelsea are going to miss Mourinho also.
By some distance, Mourinho was the most astute manager in the league in his ability to react to real time occurrences on the pitch. His skill in dovetailing his intuition with pre-match analysis resulted in Chelsea achieving much more than should have been the case when one considers their dysfunctional hierarchy and organisational structure. Two Premiership titles, two Champions League semi finals and a handful of peripheral cup competitions and trophies are just reward for the tactical nous of Mourinho in his time in West London. It is astonishing that he achieved so much in such an atmosphere as exists at Stamford Bridge. Personally, I'll also miss his blunt arrogance when fending off the banal irrelevencies of media journalism.
Mourinho resigned on Wednesday night and contacted the senior players to inform them of his decision prior to going into his meeting with Abramovich. Inevitably, Chelsea, in their terse hastily-assembled one sentence press release, claimed that mutual consent was the dynamic but the lack of a proper and immediate response from the club together with any reference in the press release to what Mourinho had achieved for Chelsea is suggestive of reaction rather than anything approaching a proactive strategy. Whenever the Chelsea hierarchy interact with the press, reading between the lines is the sole path to reality, end of story...
The experience of Chelsea offers a prime example of why the Arsenal board and management are totally correct in their opposition to the attempted takeover being perpetrated by alleged heroin dealer, Alisher Usmanov. Usmanov upped his stake in the club to 21% on Monday by purchasing the shares of Birol Nadir and Lansdowne Partners although it is understood than Stan Kroenke is not willing to sell out to or join up with the Uzbek oligarch which considerably alters the dynamics behind a hostile takeover. David Dein is pushing, in his position as chairman of Red And White Holdings (R&WH) - such a quaint footballing title - for a reinstatement on the board which may result in the Arsenal chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, having once again to speak with the fork-tongued one despite recently refusing to meet with Dein saying that he's already put up with "25 years of listening to him". As the old board are solid, Usmanov is dependent on hoovering up the shares of minor shareholders and it is indicative of the type of individuals that have bought into Premiership football on the fringes as opposed to the more major stakes that these very people are now the major concern of The Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST). By selling to Usmanov, these shareholders are preparing the ground for a major takeover battle with the likes of Sky, Usmanov, Dein, the Russian betting markets, the mafia and, entertainingly, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson (the real owner of West Ham United) on the one side and, in the other corner, we have Wenger, Fiszman, the AST, the Arsenal fans, the Queen and Mother Teresa.
Below, I'll go on to explain why I think that the Arsenal/Chelsea dichotomy is entirely indicative of where the English Premiership currently resides and I'll also share the reasons why I believe that Chelsea are rotten to the core which, with the absence of their one strategic genius, will lead to difficult times ahead.
But first, I'd like to explore the links between Gudmundsson, Magnusson, West Ham United, Landsbanki and the dynamic towards a takeover of Arsenal. Gudmundsson is the Mr Big behind the Hammers. Although, to date (a situation about to change), Eggert has been given his year in the spotlight, the puppet strings are undoubtedly wound around Gudmundsson's fingers. A reformed alcoholic who narrowly avoided prison when receiving a suspended sentence in his native Iceland in the 1990's for tax fraud, Gudmundsson made his billions (Forbes Rich List Number 799) by moving into the cowboy territory that was post-Soviet Russia and turning a Leningrad soft drinks company into a St Petersburg brewery with rumours of very close links to the Russian mafia - a point enhanced by his telecoms business in Bulgaria where, I know from the personal experience of working and living in next-door România, the mafia is ubiquitous in business. It was, no doubt, during his time in Russia that Gudmundsson met with Usmanov. Gudmundsson's Landsbanki are the bank serving as brokers to R&WH assisting in their strategy to buy up Arsenal shares prior to launching a hostile takeover. In effect, this results in the warped matrix that indicates that the powers behind West Ham United are aiding the change of ownership of another Premiership team. Now I'm sure that there must be some Premier League rule against this sort of thing although, with Richard Scudamore and his bunch of crooks in charge at league headquarters, one may never be certain. And, it should be remembered that the Premier League are intrinsically tied to West Ham and Pini Zahavi's MSI through their shared roles in the corruption that allowed the Hammers to avoid relegation last season.
Despite his profits via banking and brewing and his tax fraud and his business links to both the Russian mafia and a baby-boiler, perhaps, somewhere in the background, there is something that provides a picture of Gudmundsson the man. Here is one such image. Gudmundsson is married to Thora Hallgrimsson, who was previously married to and had four children by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Gudmundsson was so riled when Edda, a publishing house that he personally owns, were publishing a book detailing his wife's close links to aryan supremacists that he had the whole publication pulped. Gudmundsson then proceeded to attempt to buy DV, a daily Icelandic tabloid, simply to close it down because of its coverage of the missing chapter relating to Thora. Bless.
Anyway, getting back to the real point behind this post. Chelsea and Arsenal represent the opposite ends of the Premiership continuum. Chelsea have attempted to buy success by selling out to the worst type of money; Arsenal have succeeded, with the aberration of Dein, to put football before the global betting markets. Via the enlightened transfer policy of Arsène Wenger, Arsenal have spent, in nett terms, virtually nothing in the player market compared with the quarter of a billion pounds that has leaked from Abramovich's wallet. And what have they got for their money? Short-term success. Chelsea have bought three years of unparallelled (for them) achievement by buying over-priced players at their peak (ie they are about to go into decline), players linked to the agents and murky underworld associated with the club and, in particular, Mourinho's input when it was allowed. Chelsea are now stale. How much would you get on the open market for the likes of Lampard, Shevchenko and Ballack now? Even Michael Essien has been underperforming.
The organisation is rotten, there is no kinship just an atmosphere dominated by the short term dollar and making as much illicit money on the side as is humanly possible. Chelsea are very closely and compromisingly associated with underground Moscow bookmakers. The main agent hovering in the wings, Pini Zahavi, has an arrest warrant hanging over him in Brazil for alleged money laundering and Kia Joorabchian, of Carlos Tevez/ the Premier League/ West Ham United fame is always in the shadows. Positions are filled by cronyism as Abramovich layers the hierarchy with yes-men who will respond to Roman's rants. Avram Grant and Frank Arneson were brought in behind Mourinho's back and it is they and Abramovich who must take the ultimate responsibility for the lack of professionalism in the transfer market. It is also them who will be in charge at Manchester United on Sunday (the first $1 billion global betting market?). In a glorious piece of spin and/or self-promotion, Carlos Queiroz chose yesterday to announce that he might be tempted to step down as Manchester United number 2!
Abramovich has been reported as saying that he wishes for Chelsea to win more stylishly. Perhaps he should take lessons from the Iraq national team hierarchy when Saddam's son would have the players feet beaten for poor performances. But, there is a serious point here. Chelsea are not going to achieve creatively beautiful football on the pitch when the culture and atmosphere within the club is, at best, rancid and, at worst, criminal. Players are not going to risk their future career prospects for such an entity and team spirit at Chelsea is non-existent. Abramovich cannot buy everything, including love. He also is unable to buy the Champions League. As we recently pointed out, not since 1990/91 has a non-G14(18) team won the European Cup/ Champions League. Chelsea are not part of this elite club and are not on the reserve list although they will, however, no doubt be one of the lucky clubs receiving a call when the G14(18) expands to fifty clubs in a few months time.
We would suggest that, on a business level, the worst strategy for Chelsea would have been to undermine your prize asset and, yet, that is what Roman Abramovich has decided is, actually, the best course of action. Shevchenko only came to London because Abramovich wanted him and the £30 million transfer fee was on the idiot side of shrewd. Mourinho picked the team that he believed would perform best on the pitch and, quite reasonably, the sulky Ukrainian was often left out. It is our understanding that Mourinho was highly pressured by Abramovich to select Shevchenko for Chelsea's last two games after his goal-scoring performance for his national side against Italy. Mourinho, knowing that a partially fit player returning from a heavy duty international encounter at the other side of Europe would be a liability, objected but was overruled resulting in the two debacles that have been the last two matches of Mourinho's tenure. In those matches, at home to Blackburn and the mighty Rosenborg, Chelsea's attack, led by super-Shevchenko, have had 39 shots on goal resulting in just one goal. In this indirect way, Abramovich brought Mourinho's resignation on himself.
Compare with Arsenal... Arsenal are top of the league, sauntered past double UEFA Cup winning Sevilla 3-0 last night in the Champions League and are playing stunning total football reminiscent of the great Ajax team. And the majority of them are just kids. No links to underground betting markets are to be found here. Strategically managed and, with Dein's exception, responsibly owned, Arsenal have managed to create a culture of creativity and togetherness which results in everybody pulling in one direction for the good of everybody. The post-game huddle is a psychological stroke of genius and the style and performances of today's Arsenal are a striking example of the benefits of keeping the mafia money out of the game. Unfortunately, as we posted recently (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/08/arsnes-arsenal-about-to-go-arse-over.html), we believe that certain Premier League bosses are actively engaged in aiding the takeover of the Premiership by the highly liquid global football betting markets and the status of Arsenal, by necessity, will have to be undermined. We expect numerous outrageous refereeing decisions against the Gunners on grim northern playing fields in the coming months!
The Premiership offers such a broad range in club structures that one might think that, in an supposed democracy, government might wish to intervene or liaise with the footballing authorities regarding individuals like Abramovich, Usmanov, Shinawatra, Gaydamak, Hicks, Gillett, Yeung etc and their strategy of turning of English Premiership football into a massively abusive and corrupt international betting market. Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe's refusal to go anywhere near the Shinawatra affair together with Gordon Brown's dismissive response to the letter he received yesterday from Michel Platini would suggest otherwise. Platini continues to struggle against the realpolitik of the UEFA family. Platini wrote letters to all European governmental leaders asking for their help in saving football from the influence of money men whom he claims are ruining the modern game. Platini quite reasonably states: "A serious threat hangs over the development of European football: the malign and ever-present influence of money". His argument has been rejected by the prime minister and Downing Street last night issued a statement maintaining that the issues raised by Platini were best dealt with by the Premier League.
Not when the Premier League is working alongside the malignant money, it ain't, pal...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 17 September 2007
Alas Its Hell In Hellas
Néa DhimokratÃa outrageously won yesterdays Greek elections despite being responsible for everything that is malignant in the country. The 42% of the population who made the choice of self rather than anything approaching altruistic concern for the erosion of a true bottom-up democracy should feel nothing but shame.
The rampant corruption that degrades many aspects of Greek society inevitably spreads over to football. Indeed, the parallel forms of corruption linking football and politics are unnervingly similar.
The confrontational elements which underpin both of these areas of obsessive national concern produce both a form of fake theatre and a lack of momentum in any positive direction as the constituent power bases de-energise one another through their blinkered competitive focus. Yet, at the top of this societal belief boxing, the political state itself is merely a carve up between two all-powerful political clans which have governed the country for over fifty years. Looking strictly at the division of power, the fiefdom shares more similarities with an African state as opposed to a European. The clans of Karamanlis and Papandreou share equivalence with Panathinaikos and Olympiacos both in terms of alleged political leanings and in their maintenance of a coercive duopoly.
Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are much much more than merely football teams. For a start, the Piraeus team are associated with the political left while the Trifilli (the Shamrocks) people come from the other side. These two teams are in dominant control of the Hellenic Super League to a degree that makes the Premiership quadropoly appear positively enlightening - the last thirteen titles have not left their combined grasp with Olympiacos winning all but one of the last eleven "competitions" allowing Panathinaikos just the one victory in coincidence with the 2004 Olympics. The duopolists duopolise other sports too with Panaithinaikos virtually replicating the Olympiacos footballing supremacy by winning nine national basketball titles in the last decade. As I said, it is a carve up.
The ethereal linkage of these two sports organisations to the population via the pseudo-claims to particular political allegiances is a sham. Although the working class en masse support the Thrylos of Piraeus, in a similar manner to American Blacks with Bill Clinton, the object of their adoration is part of the problem rather than part of the cure. The President of Olympiacos is one Socratis Kokkalis. As well as presiding over the Erythrolefki, Kokkalis is the Chief Executive Officer and major shareholder in Intracom which specialises in computer and defence system software development. Oh, and he's interested in betting... Intracom supplies software to OPAP, the Greek gambling monopoly. OPAP is a very interesting little set up. Government controlled, the OPAP monolith has exclusive rights to all gambling in Greece until 2020. Additionally, OPAP has close business ties with the Magic (sic) Sign, Ladbrokes. Collaboration exists both on a market making level and in more senior cooperative strategic business developmental areas. Ladbrokes are effectively gaining a slice of the very liquid Greek gambling market entirely illegally and even have their logo referenced on the ubiquitous OPAP betting coupons. Ladbrokes, doing something illegal??? Well, no actually, for once they aren't strictly if one looks at the situation hierarchically. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is insisting on Greece opening up its gambling markets to competition so that everybody can get a slice of people's addictions. The Greek government of Karamanlis said "Ohi" in a Metaxas stylee. The government, Kokkalis, OPAP and Ladbrokes are doing very nicely by maintaining a monopolistic structure with supportive cartelisations. William Hill, in their perennial battling with Ladbrokes, are not having any of this. Having being trumped by the Greek police after attempting to set up three gambling internet cafes in Arta, William Hill announced that it had filed for gaming licences in Greece and was planning to challenge the decisions in the ECJ if the Greek government refused to grant the licenses. Basically, the standard bookmaker sectoral strategy of "if you are unable to set up in the legal market, establish yourselves in the black market, and vice versa". As the president of OPAP, noted tellingly, "The only company with the right to operate betting in Greece is OPAP. Some people are getting rich while the Greek state hemorrhages."
Aside from shenanigans in the infrastructure of the Greek gambling sector, there have been numerous allegations that Kokkalis with his links to government, OPAP, the Hellenic Football Federation and, by proximity, the refereeing committee has been actively corrupting the game of football, particularly in favour of Olympiacos. Historically in Greece, as in numerous other south European countries, there is a significant positive correlation between the political party in power and the choice of football league champions. Despite losing power immediately prior to the 2004 Olympics, PASOK have maintained influence in the footballing sphere entirely due to the power web operated by Kokkalis. Footballing fans are both used to and accepting of these biases in favour of the two leading football teams.
Kokkalis also has a bit of history, not all of it the fabrications of Néa DhimokratÃa. The PASOK government of 2002 under, it must be said, extensive pressure from the centre-right, charged Kokkalis with "with four felonies and two misdemeanors, including espionage against Greece; money laundering (through off-shore companies); defrauding investors in his Intracom telecom company; bribing government officials; and receiving criminal proceeds in the form of ‘gifts.’” A very strange type of Socialist, indeed...
Yesterday's victory for Karamanlis and his similarly mistitled New Democrats is a political travesty. To complete a day of Hellenic political misery, the LAOS nationalists entered parliament, the first time a far-right party has been represented in Athens in over a quarter of a century. The populace eventually decided that the Thatcherite agenda, and the facing down of the education unions certainly shared similarities to early 80's Britain, which is enriching the establishment while creating a clear economic divide between the middle and working classes is preferable. And this despite the mismanagement and, some would say, culpability in the the recent forest fires around Athens that have resulted in over sixty deaths - the government, property developers and the construction companies move as one in Greece. In a country which invented Pyrrhic victories, as more and more leaks occur in the coming months regarding these alleged corruptions, Karamanlis' lack of a proper mandate will be his undoing.
Greek political society also shows its links to football in their coordinated reaction to major societal events. There have been three occurrences of the entire football league programme shutting down in the last six months. The first followed the riot and a killing prior to an Olympiacos versus Panathinaikos women's volleyball match. The second was the cancellation of the opening round of matches in the 2007/08 Hellenic Super League due to the forest fire deaths. And, the third was so that the Greeks could elect which wing of the dictatorship will retain power for the short to medium term future. To date, two of the three opening weeks of the season have been cancelled with the result that Olympiacos go into their Champions League game against Lazio tomorrow with only one competitive game. That game was, however, away to the Shamrocks and you can be assured the Red And Whites were match fit for that particular encounter.
The Greeks invented everything worth inventing apart from the fleugelhorn and the football - the Greeks were doing Plato while England was still run by the Celts. They even invented democracy. The fact that the very tenets of democracy are being undermined in Greece by a monopolistic neo-liberal and/or criminalised elite bestows upon the Greek nation a government not worthy of their vast and shared political intellect. These illusions of democracy are parallelled in football where illiberal decisions, often made in the very same rooms as the political ones, determine realities.
The Olympics and the Euro 2004 triumph showed a new vibrant self confident Greek populace to the world. It is a pity that such people are not allowed democratic political representation.
But, then again, who is?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The rampant corruption that degrades many aspects of Greek society inevitably spreads over to football. Indeed, the parallel forms of corruption linking football and politics are unnervingly similar.
The confrontational elements which underpin both of these areas of obsessive national concern produce both a form of fake theatre and a lack of momentum in any positive direction as the constituent power bases de-energise one another through their blinkered competitive focus. Yet, at the top of this societal belief boxing, the political state itself is merely a carve up between two all-powerful political clans which have governed the country for over fifty years. Looking strictly at the division of power, the fiefdom shares more similarities with an African state as opposed to a European. The clans of Karamanlis and Papandreou share equivalence with Panathinaikos and Olympiacos both in terms of alleged political leanings and in their maintenance of a coercive duopoly.
Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are much much more than merely football teams. For a start, the Piraeus team are associated with the political left while the Trifilli (the Shamrocks) people come from the other side. These two teams are in dominant control of the Hellenic Super League to a degree that makes the Premiership quadropoly appear positively enlightening - the last thirteen titles have not left their combined grasp with Olympiacos winning all but one of the last eleven "competitions" allowing Panathinaikos just the one victory in coincidence with the 2004 Olympics. The duopolists duopolise other sports too with Panaithinaikos virtually replicating the Olympiacos footballing supremacy by winning nine national basketball titles in the last decade. As I said, it is a carve up.
The ethereal linkage of these two sports organisations to the population via the pseudo-claims to particular political allegiances is a sham. Although the working class en masse support the Thrylos of Piraeus, in a similar manner to American Blacks with Bill Clinton, the object of their adoration is part of the problem rather than part of the cure. The President of Olympiacos is one Socratis Kokkalis. As well as presiding over the Erythrolefki, Kokkalis is the Chief Executive Officer and major shareholder in Intracom which specialises in computer and defence system software development. Oh, and he's interested in betting... Intracom supplies software to OPAP, the Greek gambling monopoly. OPAP is a very interesting little set up. Government controlled, the OPAP monolith has exclusive rights to all gambling in Greece until 2020. Additionally, OPAP has close business ties with the Magic (sic) Sign, Ladbrokes. Collaboration exists both on a market making level and in more senior cooperative strategic business developmental areas. Ladbrokes are effectively gaining a slice of the very liquid Greek gambling market entirely illegally and even have their logo referenced on the ubiquitous OPAP betting coupons. Ladbrokes, doing something illegal??? Well, no actually, for once they aren't strictly if one looks at the situation hierarchically. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is insisting on Greece opening up its gambling markets to competition so that everybody can get a slice of people's addictions. The Greek government of Karamanlis said "Ohi" in a Metaxas stylee. The government, Kokkalis, OPAP and Ladbrokes are doing very nicely by maintaining a monopolistic structure with supportive cartelisations. William Hill, in their perennial battling with Ladbrokes, are not having any of this. Having being trumped by the Greek police after attempting to set up three gambling internet cafes in Arta, William Hill announced that it had filed for gaming licences in Greece and was planning to challenge the decisions in the ECJ if the Greek government refused to grant the licenses. Basically, the standard bookmaker sectoral strategy of "if you are unable to set up in the legal market, establish yourselves in the black market, and vice versa". As the president of OPAP, noted tellingly, "The only company with the right to operate betting in Greece is OPAP. Some people are getting rich while the Greek state hemorrhages."
Aside from shenanigans in the infrastructure of the Greek gambling sector, there have been numerous allegations that Kokkalis with his links to government, OPAP, the Hellenic Football Federation and, by proximity, the refereeing committee has been actively corrupting the game of football, particularly in favour of Olympiacos. Historically in Greece, as in numerous other south European countries, there is a significant positive correlation between the political party in power and the choice of football league champions. Despite losing power immediately prior to the 2004 Olympics, PASOK have maintained influence in the footballing sphere entirely due to the power web operated by Kokkalis. Footballing fans are both used to and accepting of these biases in favour of the two leading football teams.
Kokkalis also has a bit of history, not all of it the fabrications of Néa DhimokratÃa. The PASOK government of 2002 under, it must be said, extensive pressure from the centre-right, charged Kokkalis with "with four felonies and two misdemeanors, including espionage against Greece; money laundering (through off-shore companies); defrauding investors in his Intracom telecom company; bribing government officials; and receiving criminal proceeds in the form of ‘gifts.’” A very strange type of Socialist, indeed...
Yesterday's victory for Karamanlis and his similarly mistitled New Democrats is a political travesty. To complete a day of Hellenic political misery, the LAOS nationalists entered parliament, the first time a far-right party has been represented in Athens in over a quarter of a century. The populace eventually decided that the Thatcherite agenda, and the facing down of the education unions certainly shared similarities to early 80's Britain, which is enriching the establishment while creating a clear economic divide between the middle and working classes is preferable. And this despite the mismanagement and, some would say, culpability in the the recent forest fires around Athens that have resulted in over sixty deaths - the government, property developers and the construction companies move as one in Greece. In a country which invented Pyrrhic victories, as more and more leaks occur in the coming months regarding these alleged corruptions, Karamanlis' lack of a proper mandate will be his undoing.
Greek political society also shows its links to football in their coordinated reaction to major societal events. There have been three occurrences of the entire football league programme shutting down in the last six months. The first followed the riot and a killing prior to an Olympiacos versus Panathinaikos women's volleyball match. The second was the cancellation of the opening round of matches in the 2007/08 Hellenic Super League due to the forest fire deaths. And, the third was so that the Greeks could elect which wing of the dictatorship will retain power for the short to medium term future. To date, two of the three opening weeks of the season have been cancelled with the result that Olympiacos go into their Champions League game against Lazio tomorrow with only one competitive game. That game was, however, away to the Shamrocks and you can be assured the Red And Whites were match fit for that particular encounter.
The Greeks invented everything worth inventing apart from the fleugelhorn and the football - the Greeks were doing Plato while England was still run by the Celts. They even invented democracy. The fact that the very tenets of democracy are being undermined in Greece by a monopolistic neo-liberal and/or criminalised elite bestows upon the Greek nation a government not worthy of their vast and shared political intellect. These illusions of democracy are parallelled in football where illiberal decisions, often made in the very same rooms as the political ones, determine realities.
The Olympics and the Euro 2004 triumph showed a new vibrant self confident Greek populace to the world. It is a pity that such people are not allowed democratic political representation.
But, then again, who is?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Sky's Takeover Of The English Premiership
Out of the first one hundred Premiership matches this season, Sky Television have selected just one Arsenal game for live coverage (against Portsmouth) and, taking the data up to the December limit of Sky's disclosures, only the minnows of Wigan, Fulham, Birmingham, Derby, Reading, Blackburn and Middlesboro are shown less than the Gunners. Why so?
Global betting turnover on live Sky Premiership games is markedly higher than the other Premiership games. In 2007/08 to date, the average turnover on Sky live games has been £130 million ($260 million), on Setanta live games £75 million and on the other matches £50 million. There is a dual impact of this skewed turnover from the perspective of the European bookmakers. Firstly, more turnover is equivalent with greater profits as leisure punters are generally persuaded to place their money on inappropriate market options via the gross disinformation leveraged by the complicit media on these matches. Secondly, the greater liquidity in the global marketplace allows insiders from the bookmakers in control of the events to maximise their trading earnings on such matches without tilting the markets. Double dollar whammy.
The average betting turnover is even greater when one just restricts the Sky live games to the ones involving the Big 4 (reaching over £150 million). A market manipulator would wish to gain as much control of the outcome of the Big 4's games as is possible and this is the first reason behind the lack of Arsenal games on the Sky platform. As we have posted previously and recurrently, Arsenal are unfairly targeted overall for their refusal to bow down and give homage to the betting markets. While all the other top teams (and some not-so-top ones too) have been allowing their infrastructures to be warped to the requirements of major league professional gambling operations, Arsenal have stayed true to their roots of being a club for the fans. Arsenal play to win but not on the betting markets. This totally pisses off the major bookmakers as they are liable to develop imbalanced books whenever Arsenal games are shown on Sky. Obviously, in the eyes of Murdoch's manipulators, there is a simple psychopathic solution - only show Arsenal games that are highly unlikely to produce imbalanced books. As any professional analyst will tell you, Portsmouth matches are complex but very profitable if you know what you are looking for. To leisure punters, Portsmouth games are simply a no-no. The only other two Arsenal live matches feature those very difficult to analyse Big 4 events - one against Liverpool and the other against Manchester United. A key point to be noted here is that Sky ONLY wish to televise games under their direct and complete control. Arsenal matches are fair and balanced in betting market terms and it is not as if these matches have information that is hidden from the Sky team. To Sky a lack of control is anathema to the same degree as anyone else being in control.
So, who are Sky determined to show us in this first phase of the season? The following list is revealing on a range of levels.
6 live games - Liverpool and Manchester United
5 live games - Portsmouth
4 live games - Manchester City, Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Ham United, Chelsea, Sunderland and Tottenham.
Portsmouth, the third most covered team? The mighty Pompey??... Allows for Jamie to bleat on about his dad and for 'Arry to enhance his earnings possibilities, I reckon. Interestingly, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE TEAMS featured four or more times by Sky are the ones that have sold out to the new breed of private equity heads, arms dealers, betting market practitioners, offshore financial centre operators and other assorted businessmen whose wealth has been created by a mixture of addiction, criminality and the mafiosi. Only Tottenham are not directly owned by such psychos and they, of course, are heavily compromised by their very close links to Mansion88 Asian bookmakers.
Well, obviously, these new breeds are going to want to have their team beamed around the world in Sky live games as much as is feasibly possible - more exposure, more liquidity in the betting markets and more illicit profits from undermining the game of football. This distortion in favour of the teams that have sold out to corrupt ownership is very revealing about Sky's strategy and dovetails quite comfortably with the biases exhibited in their news manipulation and all aspects of their inexpertly hidden agenda.
A further area of interest related to the Sky live events are the choices of referee for the matches. Following this weekend, the 14 Sky live games will have featured only eight of the Premiership officials with Riley, Styles, Halsey, Tanner and Clattenburg all getting more than one game apiece. There are nineteen officials available, admittedly too few to prevent corruption, and equanimity would indicate that the Sky games should be shared equally among the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) officials. A simple question has to be why eleven referees have yet to be treated to a Sky live match?
There are very clear parallels between the behaviour of Sky with regard to the major televised football matches and the horseracing industry's similar warping of reality concerning the major race meetings. As soon as the betting turnover dwarfs the prize money, situations may be created whereby it is in the interests of ALL insiders (owners, jockeys, trainers, bookmakers, the racecourses and the criminalised institutions that govern British horseracing) to doctor the outcome. Of course, there have to be a whole bunch of losers here and, unfortunately, these are the leisure punters who foolishly depended on such inconsequences as form and tips when making their investment decision.
Sky is an irritation on a whole range of levels. As with all Murdoch's operations, every possible squeeze is utilised to add to their bottom line at the customers expense. These major level biases and corruptions form the foundation for Sky's manipulated agenda. But, we have learned to accept the massive degree of invalid corruption emanating from the overall Sky hierarchy. It is those everyday nonsenses and lack of professionalism that permanently grate on our lives - the repeated breakdown in satellite communications, the widespread disinformation relating to betting markets, the criminalised talking heads, the inability to confirm contracts with other media suppliers resulting in blank screens (that have already been paid for), the smug commentators who are fleecing the uninitiated with their verbal dexterities, the commentators pretending to be at the stadium when they are sitting in a London studio, the provision of jobs-for-the-boys for the highly compromised individuals who have undertaken Sky's dirty work historically, the railroading of customers into purchasing more expensive packages and/or hardware by both removing sports events to new platforms or by the prevention of video facilities on services that you are paying through the nose to receive, timetabling live matches to coincidence with competitors, delaying Football First match choice on a Saturday night to directly compete with Match of the Day to the benefit (sic) of all seven year olds, unilaterally pulling Sky from the Virgin platform etc etc.
And, now they have the barefaced cheek to be offering us "A Year In The Life Of Michael Owen". We bet that Steve Smith and Goldchip bookmakers are conspicuous by their absence.
The whole market profile of Sky and, indeed, all Murdoch's companies is one of highly aggressive psychopathy. The marketing motif may indicate that you, the customer, is gaining a great deal but the only winning deal on the table is Murdoch's and, in his driven desire to part you from your money, he will utilise ANY, and I mean ANY, tactic available to him to achieve this aim, legal or otherwise.
All of these things are annoying but they pale into insignificance when set against the backdrop of the Sky live football matches and their intriguing outcomes plus the corruption of the English game at the hands of the Sky money machine.
Our Trading Team have made a bold decision. We are to terminate our contract with Sky and utilise other alternatives to gain access to the visuals of the matches on which we are trading in-running. Our advice would be for all other true fans of football to do the same and, while you are at it, discard any contract relating to broadband or telecommunications too.
My Economics Ph.D thesis was entitled "The Impact Of Conspicuous Money On Outcomes In British Horserace Betting Markets". Thanks to the impact of Sky television, I could easily produce the equivalent paper with the word "Horserace" crossed out and "Football" written in in crayon.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Global betting turnover on live Sky Premiership games is markedly higher than the other Premiership games. In 2007/08 to date, the average turnover on Sky live games has been £130 million ($260 million), on Setanta live games £75 million and on the other matches £50 million. There is a dual impact of this skewed turnover from the perspective of the European bookmakers. Firstly, more turnover is equivalent with greater profits as leisure punters are generally persuaded to place their money on inappropriate market options via the gross disinformation leveraged by the complicit media on these matches. Secondly, the greater liquidity in the global marketplace allows insiders from the bookmakers in control of the events to maximise their trading earnings on such matches without tilting the markets. Double dollar whammy.
The average betting turnover is even greater when one just restricts the Sky live games to the ones involving the Big 4 (reaching over £150 million). A market manipulator would wish to gain as much control of the outcome of the Big 4's games as is possible and this is the first reason behind the lack of Arsenal games on the Sky platform. As we have posted previously and recurrently, Arsenal are unfairly targeted overall for their refusal to bow down and give homage to the betting markets. While all the other top teams (and some not-so-top ones too) have been allowing their infrastructures to be warped to the requirements of major league professional gambling operations, Arsenal have stayed true to their roots of being a club for the fans. Arsenal play to win but not on the betting markets. This totally pisses off the major bookmakers as they are liable to develop imbalanced books whenever Arsenal games are shown on Sky. Obviously, in the eyes of Murdoch's manipulators, there is a simple psychopathic solution - only show Arsenal games that are highly unlikely to produce imbalanced books. As any professional analyst will tell you, Portsmouth matches are complex but very profitable if you know what you are looking for. To leisure punters, Portsmouth games are simply a no-no. The only other two Arsenal live matches feature those very difficult to analyse Big 4 events - one against Liverpool and the other against Manchester United. A key point to be noted here is that Sky ONLY wish to televise games under their direct and complete control. Arsenal matches are fair and balanced in betting market terms and it is not as if these matches have information that is hidden from the Sky team. To Sky a lack of control is anathema to the same degree as anyone else being in control.
So, who are Sky determined to show us in this first phase of the season? The following list is revealing on a range of levels.
6 live games - Liverpool and Manchester United
5 live games - Portsmouth
4 live games - Manchester City, Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Ham United, Chelsea, Sunderland and Tottenham.
Portsmouth, the third most covered team? The mighty Pompey??... Allows for Jamie to bleat on about his dad and for 'Arry to enhance his earnings possibilities, I reckon. Interestingly, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE TEAMS featured four or more times by Sky are the ones that have sold out to the new breed of private equity heads, arms dealers, betting market practitioners, offshore financial centre operators and other assorted businessmen whose wealth has been created by a mixture of addiction, criminality and the mafiosi. Only Tottenham are not directly owned by such psychos and they, of course, are heavily compromised by their very close links to Mansion88 Asian bookmakers.
Well, obviously, these new breeds are going to want to have their team beamed around the world in Sky live games as much as is feasibly possible - more exposure, more liquidity in the betting markets and more illicit profits from undermining the game of football. This distortion in favour of the teams that have sold out to corrupt ownership is very revealing about Sky's strategy and dovetails quite comfortably with the biases exhibited in their news manipulation and all aspects of their inexpertly hidden agenda.
A further area of interest related to the Sky live events are the choices of referee for the matches. Following this weekend, the 14 Sky live games will have featured only eight of the Premiership officials with Riley, Styles, Halsey, Tanner and Clattenburg all getting more than one game apiece. There are nineteen officials available, admittedly too few to prevent corruption, and equanimity would indicate that the Sky games should be shared equally among the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) officials. A simple question has to be why eleven referees have yet to be treated to a Sky live match?
There are very clear parallels between the behaviour of Sky with regard to the major televised football matches and the horseracing industry's similar warping of reality concerning the major race meetings. As soon as the betting turnover dwarfs the prize money, situations may be created whereby it is in the interests of ALL insiders (owners, jockeys, trainers, bookmakers, the racecourses and the criminalised institutions that govern British horseracing) to doctor the outcome. Of course, there have to be a whole bunch of losers here and, unfortunately, these are the leisure punters who foolishly depended on such inconsequences as form and tips when making their investment decision.
Sky is an irritation on a whole range of levels. As with all Murdoch's operations, every possible squeeze is utilised to add to their bottom line at the customers expense. These major level biases and corruptions form the foundation for Sky's manipulated agenda. But, we have learned to accept the massive degree of invalid corruption emanating from the overall Sky hierarchy. It is those everyday nonsenses and lack of professionalism that permanently grate on our lives - the repeated breakdown in satellite communications, the widespread disinformation relating to betting markets, the criminalised talking heads, the inability to confirm contracts with other media suppliers resulting in blank screens (that have already been paid for), the smug commentators who are fleecing the uninitiated with their verbal dexterities, the commentators pretending to be at the stadium when they are sitting in a London studio, the provision of jobs-for-the-boys for the highly compromised individuals who have undertaken Sky's dirty work historically, the railroading of customers into purchasing more expensive packages and/or hardware by both removing sports events to new platforms or by the prevention of video facilities on services that you are paying through the nose to receive, timetabling live matches to coincidence with competitors, delaying Football First match choice on a Saturday night to directly compete with Match of the Day to the benefit (sic) of all seven year olds, unilaterally pulling Sky from the Virgin platform etc etc.
And, now they have the barefaced cheek to be offering us "A Year In The Life Of Michael Owen". We bet that Steve Smith and Goldchip bookmakers are conspicuous by their absence.
The whole market profile of Sky and, indeed, all Murdoch's companies is one of highly aggressive psychopathy. The marketing motif may indicate that you, the customer, is gaining a great deal but the only winning deal on the table is Murdoch's and, in his driven desire to part you from your money, he will utilise ANY, and I mean ANY, tactic available to him to achieve this aim, legal or otherwise.
All of these things are annoying but they pale into insignificance when set against the backdrop of the Sky live football matches and their intriguing outcomes plus the corruption of the English game at the hands of the Sky money machine.
Our Trading Team have made a bold decision. We are to terminate our contract with Sky and utilise other alternatives to gain access to the visuals of the matches on which we are trading in-running. Our advice would be for all other true fans of football to do the same and, while you are at it, discard any contract relating to broadband or telecommunications too.
My Economics Ph.D thesis was entitled "The Impact Of Conspicuous Money On Outcomes In British Horserace Betting Markets". Thanks to the impact of Sky television, I could easily produce the equivalent paper with the word "Horserace" crossed out and "Football" written in in crayon.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Crime And Punishment And Steve Staunton
Usmanov eats babies for breakfast and Abramovich offers financial inducements to the Russians to beat your national heroes. No matter on your perspective, the new breed of East European owners and board members in the Premiership are far more entertaining in their degree of psychopathy than the likes of Louis Edwards, who merely sold poisoned meat knowingly to Manchester schoolchildren.
Schillings lawyers, acting on behalf of Alisher Usmanov, are threatening writs to various websites and blogs if allegations are repeated about the Uzbek's very murky past. This is the past relating to people being boiled alive, disappearing dissidents, mysterious falls from very high windows, proximity to the Uzbek heroin trade and widespread mafiosi links in case you have missed the point here. Freedom is anathema to the likes of Usmanov and when well-meaning Gunners fans and independent blogosphere operators finger the man's historical abuses, he reaches for the writs. In his ideal world, Usmanov would reach for the cauldron or the gun but, this is England, and the threat of a writ serves his purpose.
Football Is Fixed/ Dietrological will continue to post what we wish to post. If Usmanov wants a day in court, fine. It would take a highly masochistic self-harm profile to willingly have your criminality trawled through the law courts in front of a curious mainstream media and Usmanov limits his disposal of harm to others. Fortunately, the hierarchy and the intellects that matter within Arsenal are aware of Usmanov's baggage and the series of public pronouncements from Fiszman, Wenger and, particularly, Hill-Wood indicates that Usmanov and Red And White Holdings (R&WH) have a battle on their hands. Historically, Usmanov prefers futile victories and backs away from protracted confrontations as such deceleration costs him money and, apart from fencing and crime, money is what Mr Usmanov likes best.
As does that other man from the heart of Holy Russia, Roman Abramovich. Not content with wasting his cash on Ballack and Shevchenko, the Chelsea owner offered the Russia team £40,000 ($80,000) per man to defeat England in Wednesday's crucial Euro 2008 Qualifier. Admittedly, the money was directed through opaque channels (what money related to Abramovich isn't) but the cash was on the table both by sealed envelopes and via the National Academy of Football in Moscow. Interestingly, while other industry professionals in Europe were backing England in a game that they simply had to win, the professional money in Moscow was favouring the Russians.
And England duly won as we predicted last week. If you are one of those "flag of St George" sort of people, it must be so galling to witness what the English national team might achieve if some of the key players on the pitch shared team focus on success with regard to trophies as opposed to success in landing a nice little piece of insider betting. At least we can all look forward to the faces of red-crossed misery filling our scenes when the Three Lions are defeated in the latter stages of the Euro 2008 finals next summer. So close and yet so far. So, so far...
Which brings us on to the latest rounds of the Qualifiers for UEFA's shindig.
We bet that Raymond Domenech is busy consulting his astrological charts this morning as French qualification and, despite a new contract, his job, hang by the thinnest of threads after Scotland's stunning victory in Paris. Monsieur Domenech angered the powers-that-be within UEFA by bringing the corrupting of referees into the media spotlight when UEFA (and all other football institutions) would prefer such goings-on to remain firmly in the shadows away from public gaze. Domenech's team would, under any normal circumstances, have been subtly aided by the officials as it became apparent that Scotland were a real proposition. From the angle of professional trader, the officiating of Konrad Plautz was very meritocratic - we believe that the French would have been presented with an injury time penalty for Ferguson's handball in all usual scenarios. And, Plautz is one of UEFA's main men. He gets the big important games and acts accordingly - he refereed the recent Super Cup between Milan and Sevilla, for example. Running Euro 2008 Group B through the computer suggests that there is value in opposition to French qualification in the markets. We will reserve trading judgement though and wait for UEFA to reveal its hand further on this matter - remember it was one of their competitions that Domenech alluded to being compromised by the actions of a corrupt UEFA referee. In a similar manner that Mike Newell has disappeared from any football radar since exposing the bungs scandal in Britain, we expect Domenech will soon be offering chart readings as a career as opposed to as an idiotic management tool for the alleged benefit of the French national team.
Baby eaters, billionaires, Scorpio-favouring managers, corrupt footballers and referees. At least, one can still find old-fashioned football in one corner of Europe. Steve Staunton's Eire are crap. But, at least, they are honestly crap. It is an impossibility for the authorities and management behind Irish football to become any more inept and amateurish. Totally impossible...
Jack Charlton left a legacy for the Irish game. Not only did the man oversee all the best Irish hour-and-a-halves, he created a real interest in "that bloody English game" and the current Irish team should be seeing the benefit of those youngsters converted and energised by that great Irish team. And what have we got? John O'Shea! Half of the players that are able to pull on the Emerald, rarely, if ever, do as the club wage packets are where their eyes prefer to focus. Most of those who could play through ancestry actually choose not to as the set up has such a bad name.
It all started with the FAI and its commitment to being run as if it were a back-stick hurling outfit. Strategic thinking, market analysis and sports science is not where these men wish to be. They prefer a degree of amateurishness in their sport and the supporters and plastic paddy's are forced to endure the fruits of this laissez-faire attitude. Mick McCarthy and his creative strategy of falling out with Roy Keane before failing to recognise that the Spaniards were playing a man light during extra-time and choosing to sit back for a draw and the inevitable penalty shootout defeat. Suckered in Suwon. The less said about Brian Kerr, who also demonstrated a rampant addiction to parity, the better. 'Nuff said already. So, the FAI sit down to make a decision about the future direction of the Irish game. How about that Steve Staunton chap? Red hair, Irish accent, seems a friendly sort of guy. But, what about his complete lack of experience or lack of any indication that he might possess the relevant qualities required in modern-day international management? Oh, don't be worrying yourselves about that, he might be an eejit but, at least, he's our eejit.
The Irish get it wrong on every single measure. Not being one of the chosen nations both due to the poverty of their domestic football and their lack of financial clout, any qualification for a major tournament has to be plotted like a military campaign. The odds are against Eire. There will be the inevitable refereeing decisions not unlike Kyrie Vassaras and his creative termination of any Irish chances last night. But these things are going to happen whatever so the Irish FA and management should be targeting the areas where they can make a difference to their prospects.
One of these clear areas of potential strategic advantage is in the fixture schedule. Through bartering and innovative negotiation, the professional outfits are always able to construct a suitable route ahead regarding fixtures. For lesser countries, the key skill is to reach agreement with the other group participants without pushing your luck too far. If deadlock is reached, UEFA decides and their listing will always favour the sides that they wish to progress. So, lets look at Eire's fixture planning.
The most important game was always going to against the Czech Republic in Dublin. While the Czechs sat at home enjoying a training session of a 7-0 win against San Marino, the Irish were being walloped in Cyprus in 90 degrees of heat and humidity. Four days later was not a good date for the big match against the Czech Republic.
The second most important game for Eire was this week's return against Bruckner's boys. In a further piece of enhanced self-destruction, Staunton's men decided that the best preparation was to travel to Slovakia for an über-competitive match in a swamp while the Czechs sauntered past San Marino again even gaining the benefit of an extra man for half an hour (as it was still only 1-0, you see) just in case they were over-exerting themselves. Once again, the four day window bestowed a proper advantage which was extrapolated by Vassaras.
It is understandable that the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, Carrick, Carragher etc choose the financial security route of reluctant anglianisation. Indeed, where would the England team be without the players of Jamaican and Irish descent? But, the management in Eire have been entirely myopic and totally non-proactive in their failure to persuade the first- and second-generation Irish in England. Where are the latter-day Ray Houghton's and Andy Townsend's? And who can blame the likes of Nolan at Bolton? Would you rather work your socks off for a bunch of organisational incompetents or do a spot of gardening?
Although, perhaps, unfortunate with Robson's health, the choice of Staunton has been disastrous. He does not read the game well enough, he is not strategic enough in the art of war and he is unable to react to real-time happenings on the pitch.
Eire must expect tough calls in the key games. Some of the refereeing in the loss in Germany was interesting and, over the campaign as a whole, the penalty and red card against the Irish in Cyprus and last night's dismissal of Marc Bolan in Prague were key and strategic. The slicker second level nations eg Croatia have learned from experience that a level playing field is not on the table here. In the major group encounters, avoidance of anything that might be misconstrued as properly punishable behaviour will complicate the machinations of the likes of Vassaras. Such risk cannot be entirely eliminated but a country is able to improve its chances by careful choices with respect to gameplan and playing the game as it actually is in these warped times.
Furthermore, why on earth did the Irish FA not reach agreement over using Croke Park (2 qualifiers, 2 victories, no goals conceded) sooner in the campaign?
And, anyway, any team that requires 94 minutes to score a winning goal against San Marino does not deserve to be in Austria/Switzerland next year.
Get pavi Roy Keane with a mandate to clear out the dross and professionalise the operation asap.
Extremes of amateurism in Eire will be followed by the extremities of corruption as the Premiership returns on Saturday. In an enlightened piece of marketing, the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) has decreed that this weekend will be "the Premiership referees are whiter than white" weekend. On one level, in the absence of Uriah Rennie, this is most certainly the case but the campaign attempts to undermine the reactions by players, management, fans, media and all other human beings to poor refereeing by the PGMOB officials. We would have thought an actual improvement in the officialdom should be the target but, apparently, only the marketing of a perception of improvement is required. The AirAsia/Shinawatra sponsored referees will all sport rather fetching t-shirts bearing the immortal slogan "Don't X The Line" in their pre-match warm-ups. Can't wait...
Whether the catchy motif relates to the football pools, cocaine or the Far East betting markets where the handicap line rules the market, we don't know.
In a burst of inappropriate optimism, we would hope it references the personal dilemma facing all top tier referees in England - don't take the bookies dollar and don't cross the line to criminality...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Schillings lawyers, acting on behalf of Alisher Usmanov, are threatening writs to various websites and blogs if allegations are repeated about the Uzbek's very murky past. This is the past relating to people being boiled alive, disappearing dissidents, mysterious falls from very high windows, proximity to the Uzbek heroin trade and widespread mafiosi links in case you have missed the point here. Freedom is anathema to the likes of Usmanov and when well-meaning Gunners fans and independent blogosphere operators finger the man's historical abuses, he reaches for the writs. In his ideal world, Usmanov would reach for the cauldron or the gun but, this is England, and the threat of a writ serves his purpose.
Football Is Fixed/ Dietrological will continue to post what we wish to post. If Usmanov wants a day in court, fine. It would take a highly masochistic self-harm profile to willingly have your criminality trawled through the law courts in front of a curious mainstream media and Usmanov limits his disposal of harm to others. Fortunately, the hierarchy and the intellects that matter within Arsenal are aware of Usmanov's baggage and the series of public pronouncements from Fiszman, Wenger and, particularly, Hill-Wood indicates that Usmanov and Red And White Holdings (R&WH) have a battle on their hands. Historically, Usmanov prefers futile victories and backs away from protracted confrontations as such deceleration costs him money and, apart from fencing and crime, money is what Mr Usmanov likes best.
As does that other man from the heart of Holy Russia, Roman Abramovich. Not content with wasting his cash on Ballack and Shevchenko, the Chelsea owner offered the Russia team £40,000 ($80,000) per man to defeat England in Wednesday's crucial Euro 2008 Qualifier. Admittedly, the money was directed through opaque channels (what money related to Abramovich isn't) but the cash was on the table both by sealed envelopes and via the National Academy of Football in Moscow. Interestingly, while other industry professionals in Europe were backing England in a game that they simply had to win, the professional money in Moscow was favouring the Russians.
And England duly won as we predicted last week. If you are one of those "flag of St George" sort of people, it must be so galling to witness what the English national team might achieve if some of the key players on the pitch shared team focus on success with regard to trophies as opposed to success in landing a nice little piece of insider betting. At least we can all look forward to the faces of red-crossed misery filling our scenes when the Three Lions are defeated in the latter stages of the Euro 2008 finals next summer. So close and yet so far. So, so far...
Which brings us on to the latest rounds of the Qualifiers for UEFA's shindig.
We bet that Raymond Domenech is busy consulting his astrological charts this morning as French qualification and, despite a new contract, his job, hang by the thinnest of threads after Scotland's stunning victory in Paris. Monsieur Domenech angered the powers-that-be within UEFA by bringing the corrupting of referees into the media spotlight when UEFA (and all other football institutions) would prefer such goings-on to remain firmly in the shadows away from public gaze. Domenech's team would, under any normal circumstances, have been subtly aided by the officials as it became apparent that Scotland were a real proposition. From the angle of professional trader, the officiating of Konrad Plautz was very meritocratic - we believe that the French would have been presented with an injury time penalty for Ferguson's handball in all usual scenarios. And, Plautz is one of UEFA's main men. He gets the big important games and acts accordingly - he refereed the recent Super Cup between Milan and Sevilla, for example. Running Euro 2008 Group B through the computer suggests that there is value in opposition to French qualification in the markets. We will reserve trading judgement though and wait for UEFA to reveal its hand further on this matter - remember it was one of their competitions that Domenech alluded to being compromised by the actions of a corrupt UEFA referee. In a similar manner that Mike Newell has disappeared from any football radar since exposing the bungs scandal in Britain, we expect Domenech will soon be offering chart readings as a career as opposed to as an idiotic management tool for the alleged benefit of the French national team.
Baby eaters, billionaires, Scorpio-favouring managers, corrupt footballers and referees. At least, one can still find old-fashioned football in one corner of Europe. Steve Staunton's Eire are crap. But, at least, they are honestly crap. It is an impossibility for the authorities and management behind Irish football to become any more inept and amateurish. Totally impossible...
Jack Charlton left a legacy for the Irish game. Not only did the man oversee all the best Irish hour-and-a-halves, he created a real interest in "that bloody English game" and the current Irish team should be seeing the benefit of those youngsters converted and energised by that great Irish team. And what have we got? John O'Shea! Half of the players that are able to pull on the Emerald, rarely, if ever, do as the club wage packets are where their eyes prefer to focus. Most of those who could play through ancestry actually choose not to as the set up has such a bad name.
It all started with the FAI and its commitment to being run as if it were a back-stick hurling outfit. Strategic thinking, market analysis and sports science is not where these men wish to be. They prefer a degree of amateurishness in their sport and the supporters and plastic paddy's are forced to endure the fruits of this laissez-faire attitude. Mick McCarthy and his creative strategy of falling out with Roy Keane before failing to recognise that the Spaniards were playing a man light during extra-time and choosing to sit back for a draw and the inevitable penalty shootout defeat. Suckered in Suwon. The less said about Brian Kerr, who also demonstrated a rampant addiction to parity, the better. 'Nuff said already. So, the FAI sit down to make a decision about the future direction of the Irish game. How about that Steve Staunton chap? Red hair, Irish accent, seems a friendly sort of guy. But, what about his complete lack of experience or lack of any indication that he might possess the relevant qualities required in modern-day international management? Oh, don't be worrying yourselves about that, he might be an eejit but, at least, he's our eejit.
The Irish get it wrong on every single measure. Not being one of the chosen nations both due to the poverty of their domestic football and their lack of financial clout, any qualification for a major tournament has to be plotted like a military campaign. The odds are against Eire. There will be the inevitable refereeing decisions not unlike Kyrie Vassaras and his creative termination of any Irish chances last night. But these things are going to happen whatever so the Irish FA and management should be targeting the areas where they can make a difference to their prospects.
One of these clear areas of potential strategic advantage is in the fixture schedule. Through bartering and innovative negotiation, the professional outfits are always able to construct a suitable route ahead regarding fixtures. For lesser countries, the key skill is to reach agreement with the other group participants without pushing your luck too far. If deadlock is reached, UEFA decides and their listing will always favour the sides that they wish to progress. So, lets look at Eire's fixture planning.
The most important game was always going to against the Czech Republic in Dublin. While the Czechs sat at home enjoying a training session of a 7-0 win against San Marino, the Irish were being walloped in Cyprus in 90 degrees of heat and humidity. Four days later was not a good date for the big match against the Czech Republic.
The second most important game for Eire was this week's return against Bruckner's boys. In a further piece of enhanced self-destruction, Staunton's men decided that the best preparation was to travel to Slovakia for an über-competitive match in a swamp while the Czechs sauntered past San Marino again even gaining the benefit of an extra man for half an hour (as it was still only 1-0, you see) just in case they were over-exerting themselves. Once again, the four day window bestowed a proper advantage which was extrapolated by Vassaras.
It is understandable that the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, Carrick, Carragher etc choose the financial security route of reluctant anglianisation. Indeed, where would the England team be without the players of Jamaican and Irish descent? But, the management in Eire have been entirely myopic and totally non-proactive in their failure to persuade the first- and second-generation Irish in England. Where are the latter-day Ray Houghton's and Andy Townsend's? And who can blame the likes of Nolan at Bolton? Would you rather work your socks off for a bunch of organisational incompetents or do a spot of gardening?
Although, perhaps, unfortunate with Robson's health, the choice of Staunton has been disastrous. He does not read the game well enough, he is not strategic enough in the art of war and he is unable to react to real-time happenings on the pitch.
Eire must expect tough calls in the key games. Some of the refereeing in the loss in Germany was interesting and, over the campaign as a whole, the penalty and red card against the Irish in Cyprus and last night's dismissal of Marc Bolan in Prague were key and strategic. The slicker second level nations eg Croatia have learned from experience that a level playing field is not on the table here. In the major group encounters, avoidance of anything that might be misconstrued as properly punishable behaviour will complicate the machinations of the likes of Vassaras. Such risk cannot be entirely eliminated but a country is able to improve its chances by careful choices with respect to gameplan and playing the game as it actually is in these warped times.
Furthermore, why on earth did the Irish FA not reach agreement over using Croke Park (2 qualifiers, 2 victories, no goals conceded) sooner in the campaign?
And, anyway, any team that requires 94 minutes to score a winning goal against San Marino does not deserve to be in Austria/Switzerland next year.
Get pavi Roy Keane with a mandate to clear out the dross and professionalise the operation asap.
Extremes of amateurism in Eire will be followed by the extremities of corruption as the Premiership returns on Saturday. In an enlightened piece of marketing, the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) has decreed that this weekend will be "the Premiership referees are whiter than white" weekend. On one level, in the absence of Uriah Rennie, this is most certainly the case but the campaign attempts to undermine the reactions by players, management, fans, media and all other human beings to poor refereeing by the PGMOB officials. We would have thought an actual improvement in the officialdom should be the target but, apparently, only the marketing of a perception of improvement is required. The AirAsia/Shinawatra sponsored referees will all sport rather fetching t-shirts bearing the immortal slogan "Don't X The Line" in their pre-match warm-ups. Can't wait...
Whether the catchy motif relates to the football pools, cocaine or the Far East betting markets where the handicap line rules the market, we don't know.
In a burst of inappropriate optimism, we would hope it references the personal dilemma facing all top tier referees in England - don't take the bookies dollar and don't cross the line to criminality...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 7 September 2007
Britannia Rules The Waves (Sic)
What is the point of these international breaks apart from for the encouragement of xenophobic neo-nationalists from Serbia to England? All we get is non-competitive, manipulated matches that are virtually irrelevant in that UEFA (or FIFA with regard to the World Cup) have already determined who the desired qualifiers are to be. Following the original competition draw, the arrangement of the match calendar and the selection of the referees, not very much is left to chance.
Additionally, on a political level, the matches allegedly attempt to confront the wide variety of nationalistic clashes around Europe and these efforts, although potentially worthy, frequently fall flat. This weekend sees the cancellation of the match between Azerbaijan and Armenia as the degree of distrust over Nagorno Karabakh undermines any chance of sport taking place. Similarly with the crazy idea of teaming up Turkey and Greece as the rioting in Athens demonstrated after the first meeting in Euro 2008. UEFA has learned that some match-ups cannot occur eg England and Eire or Turkey and Armenia but persists in tinkering in deep-rooted national disputes in an attempt to build bridges that are simply not yet ready to be built.
We'll focus on UEFA 2008 Qualifying Group Group E to emphasise some of the problems that result from these meaningless events. According to the media over the last couple of weeks, the only news items worthy of note have related to England's midfield. Can the Three Lions win without Fat Frank? Can the Three Lions win WITH Fat Frank? Should Stevie G have pain-killing injections? Or perhaps, we should let the national hero play in pain?! Can the Canadian can the Occupied Territories? The original focus was on the goalkeeping position but, as we will explain below, that particular prank has been sidelined by recent events and the critical focus is now on the midfield.
Whatever happens this weekend and next midweek against the Russians, England will qualify for next summer's Euro 2008 Finals. The print media demand it, the bookmakers will not allow failure, UEFA needs the major nations represented for their highly selective party, the marketing and advertising people require it and the television people insist on it. So, the only real questions to be answered by market analysts relate to the route of England's qualification. This process is more difficult than it appears due to the particularly hot nature of England's group. Just looking at the betting angle on the group is indicative of some of the distorting issues at play here. England is the prime global betting territory on the planet - turnover on all Premiership games and England internationals is stratospheric. The main betting centre in Europe that does not come under the proprietary influence of England/Gibraltar or the Far East is Russia. Via historical political ties, Russia still enjoys peculiar links with both Macedonia and Croatia plus a more antagonistic one with Estonia. Add unfortunate little Andorra and the European country formerly known as Palestine with the close links between Israeli and Russian betting markets, populations and football teams plus the anti-semitic bias in the current Kremlin leadership and we have one giant hotch-potch of a complex modelling job on hand here.
Analytically, there are three obvious approaches to such a qualifying group. Firstly, intuition and market memory reveals many of the more manipulative strategies that influence the outcomes. Bookmakers, in particular, are not a very bright bunch of people and tend to use the same tactics repeatedly so long as such tactics generate excessive profit. For example, check out how many England games are level at half-time with England going on to win after 90 minutes when the Three Lions are at short odds on. This has always been a solid earner for the layers. Secondly, we use our Unified Trading Model (UTM) to address both the fundamentals and the market information to find value in the markets whether these markets relate to individual games or to outright qualification. Thirdly, we utilise black box analytical tools eg neural networks to discover unusual patterns in the market information that might be undetectable even to the most experienced market analysts. In combination, under the robustness of our UTM, the realities that have been decided, on your behalf, in the corridors of power become evident.
It is an unfortunate fact that some of the people reading this post care not one jot about any of this but are so focused on Engerland, the land of hope and glory who, by the way, are never never never going to be slaves, just in case you were worrying about that particular issue, that the only thing that matters is will McClaren's millionaires beat the Occupied Territories? The analytical answer to this irrelevancy is that they do not need to win in order to qualify - a draw would suffice as long as the home games against Russia and Croatia produce victories and England avoid defeat in Moscow. We'll leave you to do the maths on this but the Croatia game is a given as they will have already qualified by the time they visit Wembley. From a bookmaking angle, the perfect scenario would be a huge gamble on England on Saturday followed by a wretched performance. The media reaction will be massively abusive and will persuade even the most ardent of loyalist that the tournament is up for the Three Lions. England will then be able to defeat the Russians (which will teach them to be held responsible for bringing polonium into the world's financial pit) with virtually no liabilities for the bookmakers. We are not saying that this scenario will occur - as I write, it is still around thirty hours to kick off and an awful lot of dollars, pounds and shekels have still to be placed on the poker table. But, Ladbrokes are claiming that they already have huge liabilities on an English win on Saturday. A few points that need to be made here. If Ladbrokes are encouraging punters to back England when the company, allegedly, already has major imbalances in their book then only a fool would rush in to demonstrate their patriotism. Secondly, if Ladbrokes were taking such a hit, they might just have been persuaded to shorten the price on the hosts which, of course, they haven't. Thirdly, Ladbrokes spokesperson Robin Hutchison spins that: "All the money, as you'd expect, has been for England" which, from the wide range of markets that we have access to, is simply a lie - most of the cumulative (ie professional and amateur) money, to date, has been on the draw.
To finish off, we would wish to address three other issues.
* Following on from our post yesterday regarding the supposed quality of Premiership referees, it is interesting to note that, for the weekend's 20 Euro 2008 Qualifiers, the number of English officials selected is precisely ZERO (three Italians, two Dutch and a couple of Spaniards but the PGMOB boys are conspicuous by their absence).
* All leisure punters should be aware that there is never any value in backing England even when they are up for a game. The bookmakers always price up England games with a built-in value remover which, for instance, on Saturday's game takes the English market supremacy approximately 0.65 goal shorter than it should be. From the bookmakers perspective, it is an unfortunate reality that the Three Lions do have to win occasionally in order to be able to present the bookies with the betting bonanza of next summer's finals. As there are an awful lot of mugs out there who bet on the English as some sort of article of faith - put your hand on your heart and your England badge and bet on the boys whatever the circumstances in a devout religious stylee - the only solution is value elimination. Indeed, if a punter were to blindly bet AGAINST England on the Asian Handicaps in EVERY game, you would generate a profit!
* "England's Number One" is a refrain that has reached the degree of tedium that can only be matched by those idiotic neophobes who denigrate musical instruments throughout England games in pursuit of the glory of the Second World War. There has been a major campaign to get Calamity James back between the posts for England as, with Fat Frank muppeting around the midfield and Michael Owen doing the business of Goldchip bookmakers, the triumvirate represent total control of the event for the layers. The screeching reached a zenith following Robinson's performance against the Germans - can there be a worse crime in this country than gifting the dreaded Germans a goal? Unfortunately, Calamity has been particularly calamitous in the intervening period and James reached his own zenith of creative underperformance at the Emirates last week when a full binliner in goal would have been of more use to the Portsmouth defence. Following on from his Grobbelaar-esque efforts against Chelsea the previous week, the media became strangely muted about Calamity's inclusion in either of the next two games. The bookies are desperate to get James back in the starting eleven but even they are aware that this is not a feasible argument currently. One has to feel for Scott Carson who is streets ahead of both James and Robinson (as is Robert Green, by the way) but has little chance of being promoted to his meritocratic position. Carson larked that: "Ray Clemence [England's goalkeeping coach] has got more chance of starting a game than me at the moment." True... Carson should do several things if he wishes to gain the Engerland Number One slot. Firstly, move to a southern club as the powers-that-be rarely venture north of Barnet. Secondly, start a ghost-written newspaper column issuing words of pseudo-wisdom to the masses. Thirdly, hang around Victor Chandler's flagship Mayfair casino until a dodgy bookmaker suggests an offer that cannot be refused. Sorted...
We are most definitely with The Guardian's Marina Hyde when it comes to spectacular society and the national football team - her view is that there is little or no difference between the "reality" of England and the "reality" of Amy Winehouse.
Send them both to rehab! No no no?
Update: Following the preparation of this post, there was significant money around Europe on an England victory against Israel throughout Saturday not that you would have guessed this from the pricing of the major firms who were obviously keen to disguise this punt. It was a bad day at the office for the layers on a £300 million ($600 million) global betting market. Additionally, the majority of the big teams at short odds favourite were landed with only Turkey and, very late in the day, Portugal and Spain coming to the bookies salvation.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Additionally, on a political level, the matches allegedly attempt to confront the wide variety of nationalistic clashes around Europe and these efforts, although potentially worthy, frequently fall flat. This weekend sees the cancellation of the match between Azerbaijan and Armenia as the degree of distrust over Nagorno Karabakh undermines any chance of sport taking place. Similarly with the crazy idea of teaming up Turkey and Greece as the rioting in Athens demonstrated after the first meeting in Euro 2008. UEFA has learned that some match-ups cannot occur eg England and Eire or Turkey and Armenia but persists in tinkering in deep-rooted national disputes in an attempt to build bridges that are simply not yet ready to be built.
We'll focus on UEFA 2008 Qualifying Group Group E to emphasise some of the problems that result from these meaningless events. According to the media over the last couple of weeks, the only news items worthy of note have related to England's midfield. Can the Three Lions win without Fat Frank? Can the Three Lions win WITH Fat Frank? Should Stevie G have pain-killing injections? Or perhaps, we should let the national hero play in pain?! Can the Canadian can the Occupied Territories? The original focus was on the goalkeeping position but, as we will explain below, that particular prank has been sidelined by recent events and the critical focus is now on the midfield.
Whatever happens this weekend and next midweek against the Russians, England will qualify for next summer's Euro 2008 Finals. The print media demand it, the bookmakers will not allow failure, UEFA needs the major nations represented for their highly selective party, the marketing and advertising people require it and the television people insist on it. So, the only real questions to be answered by market analysts relate to the route of England's qualification. This process is more difficult than it appears due to the particularly hot nature of England's group. Just looking at the betting angle on the group is indicative of some of the distorting issues at play here. England is the prime global betting territory on the planet - turnover on all Premiership games and England internationals is stratospheric. The main betting centre in Europe that does not come under the proprietary influence of England/Gibraltar or the Far East is Russia. Via historical political ties, Russia still enjoys peculiar links with both Macedonia and Croatia plus a more antagonistic one with Estonia. Add unfortunate little Andorra and the European country formerly known as Palestine with the close links between Israeli and Russian betting markets, populations and football teams plus the anti-semitic bias in the current Kremlin leadership and we have one giant hotch-potch of a complex modelling job on hand here.
Analytically, there are three obvious approaches to such a qualifying group. Firstly, intuition and market memory reveals many of the more manipulative strategies that influence the outcomes. Bookmakers, in particular, are not a very bright bunch of people and tend to use the same tactics repeatedly so long as such tactics generate excessive profit. For example, check out how many England games are level at half-time with England going on to win after 90 minutes when the Three Lions are at short odds on. This has always been a solid earner for the layers. Secondly, we use our Unified Trading Model (UTM) to address both the fundamentals and the market information to find value in the markets whether these markets relate to individual games or to outright qualification. Thirdly, we utilise black box analytical tools eg neural networks to discover unusual patterns in the market information that might be undetectable even to the most experienced market analysts. In combination, under the robustness of our UTM, the realities that have been decided, on your behalf, in the corridors of power become evident.
It is an unfortunate fact that some of the people reading this post care not one jot about any of this but are so focused on Engerland, the land of hope and glory who, by the way, are never never never going to be slaves, just in case you were worrying about that particular issue, that the only thing that matters is will McClaren's millionaires beat the Occupied Territories? The analytical answer to this irrelevancy is that they do not need to win in order to qualify - a draw would suffice as long as the home games against Russia and Croatia produce victories and England avoid defeat in Moscow. We'll leave you to do the maths on this but the Croatia game is a given as they will have already qualified by the time they visit Wembley. From a bookmaking angle, the perfect scenario would be a huge gamble on England on Saturday followed by a wretched performance. The media reaction will be massively abusive and will persuade even the most ardent of loyalist that the tournament is up for the Three Lions. England will then be able to defeat the Russians (which will teach them to be held responsible for bringing polonium into the world's financial pit) with virtually no liabilities for the bookmakers. We are not saying that this scenario will occur - as I write, it is still around thirty hours to kick off and an awful lot of dollars, pounds and shekels have still to be placed on the poker table. But, Ladbrokes are claiming that they already have huge liabilities on an English win on Saturday. A few points that need to be made here. If Ladbrokes are encouraging punters to back England when the company, allegedly, already has major imbalances in their book then only a fool would rush in to demonstrate their patriotism. Secondly, if Ladbrokes were taking such a hit, they might just have been persuaded to shorten the price on the hosts which, of course, they haven't. Thirdly, Ladbrokes spokesperson Robin Hutchison spins that: "All the money, as you'd expect, has been for England" which, from the wide range of markets that we have access to, is simply a lie - most of the cumulative (ie professional and amateur) money, to date, has been on the draw.
To finish off, we would wish to address three other issues.
* Following on from our post yesterday regarding the supposed quality of Premiership referees, it is interesting to note that, for the weekend's 20 Euro 2008 Qualifiers, the number of English officials selected is precisely ZERO (three Italians, two Dutch and a couple of Spaniards but the PGMOB boys are conspicuous by their absence).
* All leisure punters should be aware that there is never any value in backing England even when they are up for a game. The bookmakers always price up England games with a built-in value remover which, for instance, on Saturday's game takes the English market supremacy approximately 0.65 goal shorter than it should be. From the bookmakers perspective, it is an unfortunate reality that the Three Lions do have to win occasionally in order to be able to present the bookies with the betting bonanza of next summer's finals. As there are an awful lot of mugs out there who bet on the English as some sort of article of faith - put your hand on your heart and your England badge and bet on the boys whatever the circumstances in a devout religious stylee - the only solution is value elimination. Indeed, if a punter were to blindly bet AGAINST England on the Asian Handicaps in EVERY game, you would generate a profit!
* "England's Number One" is a refrain that has reached the degree of tedium that can only be matched by those idiotic neophobes who denigrate musical instruments throughout England games in pursuit of the glory of the Second World War. There has been a major campaign to get Calamity James back between the posts for England as, with Fat Frank muppeting around the midfield and Michael Owen doing the business of Goldchip bookmakers, the triumvirate represent total control of the event for the layers. The screeching reached a zenith following Robinson's performance against the Germans - can there be a worse crime in this country than gifting the dreaded Germans a goal? Unfortunately, Calamity has been particularly calamitous in the intervening period and James reached his own zenith of creative underperformance at the Emirates last week when a full binliner in goal would have been of more use to the Portsmouth defence. Following on from his Grobbelaar-esque efforts against Chelsea the previous week, the media became strangely muted about Calamity's inclusion in either of the next two games. The bookies are desperate to get James back in the starting eleven but even they are aware that this is not a feasible argument currently. One has to feel for Scott Carson who is streets ahead of both James and Robinson (as is Robert Green, by the way) but has little chance of being promoted to his meritocratic position. Carson larked that: "Ray Clemence [England's goalkeeping coach] has got more chance of starting a game than me at the moment." True... Carson should do several things if he wishes to gain the Engerland Number One slot. Firstly, move to a southern club as the powers-that-be rarely venture north of Barnet. Secondly, start a ghost-written newspaper column issuing words of pseudo-wisdom to the masses. Thirdly, hang around Victor Chandler's flagship Mayfair casino until a dodgy bookmaker suggests an offer that cannot be refused. Sorted...
We are most definitely with The Guardian's Marina Hyde when it comes to spectacular society and the national football team - her view is that there is little or no difference between the "reality" of England and the "reality" of Amy Winehouse.
Send them both to rehab! No no no?
Update: Following the preparation of this post, there was significant money around Europe on an England victory against Israel throughout Saturday not that you would have guessed this from the pricing of the major firms who were obviously keen to disguise this punt. It was a bad day at the office for the layers on a £300 million ($600 million) global betting market. Additionally, the majority of the big teams at short odds favourite were landed with only Turkey and, very late in the day, Portugal and Spain coming to the bookies salvation.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 6 September 2007
"There Is No Criminal Like An English Criminal"
International breaks breed vacuous nonsense. Step forward Sky with an "in-depth" survey which apparently shows that English referees are the best in the world. Really?
For a start, Murdoch's manipulators failed to inform us exactly who they questioned, how many people were in the sample group, what nationality mix existed, who undertook the poll and how the question was phrased. Without such background, we are in bobbins territory here.
We'd like to hazard a guess that, in fact, no such survey exists - just a figment of the imagination and a blatant use of the mainstream media to provide disinformation about the highly corrupted referee roster in England. To the Premier League and the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB), this was a necessary exercise following a whole collection of early season blunders, frequently in the full glare of Sky's televisual exposure.
So, are the PGMOB bunch the best in the world?
Our answer would have to be a resounding no. In fact, NO...
A few points in support of this assertion are provided below:
* Even if the alleged poll did take place, the xenophobic nature of any population will always skew such a survey. If you were to ask the English (or indeed most other nationalities) which country has the best criminals or the most creative tax avoiders, the same nationalistic bias would be evident.
* We have posted frequently the highly corrupt infrastructures perpetrated by the PGMOB in league with Scudamore's brigade at head office. In addition to some officials exhibiting a racist bias in their decision making, peculiar links to certain global betting markets and a compromising sponsorship deal with AirAsia - a company set up by Thaksin Shinawatra, we have a very limited pool of officials for Premiership games. In other European leagues 30 to 40 referees are chosen while England sticks to just nineteen officials. Of the 47 Premiership games to date this season, 34 of them (72%) have been officiated by just nine referees (Bennett 5 games, Clattenburg, Dean, Halsey, Riley and Wiley 4, Foy, Styles and Webb 3). With such a small and dominant grouping, the probability of corruption increases exponentially. These ref's annual wages may be trumped by several orders of magnitude in any match - the average global betting turnover on Premiership games in the current season has been £74 million ($148 million) and some events have seen turnover four times this level. Everybody has their price and referees who take home merely tens of thousands of pounds in legitimate earnings annually are no different from the rest of us when it comes down to moral rectitude.
* Throughout Europe, the best referees are generally to be found lower down the domestic league ladders. These officials are rarely corrupt and are determinedly professional in trying to develop their officiating careers to the highest possible strata. It is unfortunate that the selection process for the top levels is not meritocratic - as in any septic tank, the stools always rise to the top.
* An economically valid manner of determining the status of referees from any particular country is to compare selections for Europe's premier club competition, the Champions League. If one checks out the UEFA selections for last season and the qualifying rounds for the current tournament, one finds the following numbers of matches per country (the second phase matches are given a weighting of x2 to take account of their importance): Germany 23; Italy and Spain 17; Norway 16; England 14. Looking at the events since Michel Platini took over from the inappropriately incumbent Lennart Johansson, the data is even more revealing. Only three out of 61 Champions League games have seen the choice of a PGMOB official which is hardly a ringing endorsement for the professionalism of English officials.
* There is no focus on the true agendas of the PGMOB officials in the mainstream English media and such media instead put down any perceived indiscretions to good old English eccentricity - never a peep about betting money. Graham Poll, three yellow cards, allegedly threatening Chelsea players - what a wag! Compare the number of column inches given to Raymond Domenech, the French manager, and his allegations about the Italians buying off referees in Under-21 competitions. We have no opinion on the match that Domenech alludes to but Italian referees have got a bit of previous, to put it mildly. Think calciocaos Mark I and Mark II, Paolo Rossi and the major betting-and-bribes scandal of the eighties or the numerous occurrences relating to Internazionale in the European Cup in the sixties. Related to this story are two very interesting reactions. Firstly, Michel Platini, who is quickly realising the necessities of realpolitik in the UEFA family, protested about Domenech's comments despite the fact that he played for Juventus for five season's immediately following Rossi's suspension and he can hardly have avoided the corrupt quirks of the Italian game. For Platini to defend the validity of the Italian version of our great sport is myopic. Secondly, Arsenal's Wenger, obviously fancying the French manager's post at some point in the future, spoke on RMC radio castigating Domenech with the twisted logic of: "Personally I didn't appreciate it. I believe managers have a form of responsibility to calm things down before matches. I don't think he [Domenech] was right". Unless Wenger is taking an unusual interest in the betting patterns of Under-21 international matches, he is clearly promoting a peculiarly French version of omerta here. Personally, I am not a great fan of Domenech's managerial style and France are a top side in spite of his input as opposed to because of it. But, I applaud his courage to speak out as very few other insiders are willing to do so, Mr Wenger included.
* During last Friday's emotionally fraught Super Cup match between Milan and Sevilla, Jim Beglin on ITV stated that referee Konrad Plautz was favouring the Andalucians. Fellow commentator Clive Tyldesley suggested that Beglin might wish to explain what he meant by that comment which, after several seconds of peculiarly pregnant pause, he did. His attempt at backtracking from any implication that an official might exhibit bias was unconvincing as he pretty much stuck to his guns with some minor platitudinal nuances thrown in.
The top level English referees are not the best in the world. They are not the best in Europe. They are not even the best in England - watch any Championship or Football League game and compare with Rob Styles for Liverpool/Chelsea or Howard Webb for Man Utd/Spurs. The English Premiership is evidently not the only league in Europe that suffers from the referees proximity to global betting markets - think Germany, Italy, Croatia, Russia etc etc etc. However, in our view, the Premiership is the worst on a corruption level currently as it is the only territory that is in public denial of the links between organised crime and refereeing. While this denial remains the spun reality, the game will continue its steady and inexorable demise.
Our final quote is from that highly principled operator, Mr Sven Goran Eriksson. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, ol' blue eyes stated that: "The best thing about English referees is that they are fair". Coming from the manager of a club that is owned by double arrest-warranted Thaksin Shinawatra, a man who is indirectly sponsoring (and, hence, paying) the Premiership officials, this can only be taken as a clear example of Swedish doublespeak.
One note of concern relating to His Excellency's ability to keep buying off those whom he deems necessary to be bought off should be mentioned here. Shinawatra is currently bemoaning the fact that his Swiss bank accounts have been frozen although both the Swiss and Thai authorities clearly state that this is not the case. In our estimation, Shinawatra hasn't managed to secrete away enough cash in offshore financial centres (OFCs) to fund his spending spree and is creating fallacious realities to prepare the people in the blue half of Manchester for the worst. "Good old bank secrecy is no more. Absolute discretion is a thing of the past," the good doctor bleated. Our collective hearts are bleeding...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
For a start, Murdoch's manipulators failed to inform us exactly who they questioned, how many people were in the sample group, what nationality mix existed, who undertook the poll and how the question was phrased. Without such background, we are in bobbins territory here.
We'd like to hazard a guess that, in fact, no such survey exists - just a figment of the imagination and a blatant use of the mainstream media to provide disinformation about the highly corrupted referee roster in England. To the Premier League and the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB), this was a necessary exercise following a whole collection of early season blunders, frequently in the full glare of Sky's televisual exposure.
So, are the PGMOB bunch the best in the world?
Our answer would have to be a resounding no. In fact, NO...
A few points in support of this assertion are provided below:
* Even if the alleged poll did take place, the xenophobic nature of any population will always skew such a survey. If you were to ask the English (or indeed most other nationalities) which country has the best criminals or the most creative tax avoiders, the same nationalistic bias would be evident.
* We have posted frequently the highly corrupt infrastructures perpetrated by the PGMOB in league with Scudamore's brigade at head office. In addition to some officials exhibiting a racist bias in their decision making, peculiar links to certain global betting markets and a compromising sponsorship deal with AirAsia - a company set up by Thaksin Shinawatra, we have a very limited pool of officials for Premiership games. In other European leagues 30 to 40 referees are chosen while England sticks to just nineteen officials. Of the 47 Premiership games to date this season, 34 of them (72%) have been officiated by just nine referees (Bennett 5 games, Clattenburg, Dean, Halsey, Riley and Wiley 4, Foy, Styles and Webb 3). With such a small and dominant grouping, the probability of corruption increases exponentially. These ref's annual wages may be trumped by several orders of magnitude in any match - the average global betting turnover on Premiership games in the current season has been £74 million ($148 million) and some events have seen turnover four times this level. Everybody has their price and referees who take home merely tens of thousands of pounds in legitimate earnings annually are no different from the rest of us when it comes down to moral rectitude.
* Throughout Europe, the best referees are generally to be found lower down the domestic league ladders. These officials are rarely corrupt and are determinedly professional in trying to develop their officiating careers to the highest possible strata. It is unfortunate that the selection process for the top levels is not meritocratic - as in any septic tank, the stools always rise to the top.
* An economically valid manner of determining the status of referees from any particular country is to compare selections for Europe's premier club competition, the Champions League. If one checks out the UEFA selections for last season and the qualifying rounds for the current tournament, one finds the following numbers of matches per country (the second phase matches are given a weighting of x2 to take account of their importance): Germany 23; Italy and Spain 17; Norway 16; England 14. Looking at the events since Michel Platini took over from the inappropriately incumbent Lennart Johansson, the data is even more revealing. Only three out of 61 Champions League games have seen the choice of a PGMOB official which is hardly a ringing endorsement for the professionalism of English officials.
* There is no focus on the true agendas of the PGMOB officials in the mainstream English media and such media instead put down any perceived indiscretions to good old English eccentricity - never a peep about betting money. Graham Poll, three yellow cards, allegedly threatening Chelsea players - what a wag! Compare the number of column inches given to Raymond Domenech, the French manager, and his allegations about the Italians buying off referees in Under-21 competitions. We have no opinion on the match that Domenech alludes to but Italian referees have got a bit of previous, to put it mildly. Think calciocaos Mark I and Mark II, Paolo Rossi and the major betting-and-bribes scandal of the eighties or the numerous occurrences relating to Internazionale in the European Cup in the sixties. Related to this story are two very interesting reactions. Firstly, Michel Platini, who is quickly realising the necessities of realpolitik in the UEFA family, protested about Domenech's comments despite the fact that he played for Juventus for five season's immediately following Rossi's suspension and he can hardly have avoided the corrupt quirks of the Italian game. For Platini to defend the validity of the Italian version of our great sport is myopic. Secondly, Arsenal's Wenger, obviously fancying the French manager's post at some point in the future, spoke on RMC radio castigating Domenech with the twisted logic of: "Personally I didn't appreciate it. I believe managers have a form of responsibility to calm things down before matches. I don't think he [Domenech] was right". Unless Wenger is taking an unusual interest in the betting patterns of Under-21 international matches, he is clearly promoting a peculiarly French version of omerta here. Personally, I am not a great fan of Domenech's managerial style and France are a top side in spite of his input as opposed to because of it. But, I applaud his courage to speak out as very few other insiders are willing to do so, Mr Wenger included.
* During last Friday's emotionally fraught Super Cup match between Milan and Sevilla, Jim Beglin on ITV stated that referee Konrad Plautz was favouring the Andalucians. Fellow commentator Clive Tyldesley suggested that Beglin might wish to explain what he meant by that comment which, after several seconds of peculiarly pregnant pause, he did. His attempt at backtracking from any implication that an official might exhibit bias was unconvincing as he pretty much stuck to his guns with some minor platitudinal nuances thrown in.
The top level English referees are not the best in the world. They are not the best in Europe. They are not even the best in England - watch any Championship or Football League game and compare with Rob Styles for Liverpool/Chelsea or Howard Webb for Man Utd/Spurs. The English Premiership is evidently not the only league in Europe that suffers from the referees proximity to global betting markets - think Germany, Italy, Croatia, Russia etc etc etc. However, in our view, the Premiership is the worst on a corruption level currently as it is the only territory that is in public denial of the links between organised crime and refereeing. While this denial remains the spun reality, the game will continue its steady and inexorable demise.
Our final quote is from that highly principled operator, Mr Sven Goran Eriksson. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, ol' blue eyes stated that: "The best thing about English referees is that they are fair". Coming from the manager of a club that is owned by double arrest-warranted Thaksin Shinawatra, a man who is indirectly sponsoring (and, hence, paying) the Premiership officials, this can only be taken as a clear example of Swedish doublespeak.
One note of concern relating to His Excellency's ability to keep buying off those whom he deems necessary to be bought off should be mentioned here. Shinawatra is currently bemoaning the fact that his Swiss bank accounts have been frozen although both the Swiss and Thai authorities clearly state that this is not the case. In our estimation, Shinawatra hasn't managed to secrete away enough cash in offshore financial centres (OFCs) to fund his spending spree and is creating fallacious realities to prepare the people in the blue half of Manchester for the worst. "Good old bank secrecy is no more. Absolute discretion is a thing of the past," the good doctor bleated. Our collective hearts are bleeding...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Sunday, 2 September 2007
Deregulating The Psychopaths
Britain's new Gambling Act came into force at the weekend. This piece of legislation was established by Blair's manipulators at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, particularly the odious Tessa Jowell who is now wasting taxpayers money on behalf of the white elephant London Olympics, together with the Gambling Commission which is an organ effectively controlled by the gambling industry.
The Gambling Act 2005 allegedly aims to ensure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly, it purports to protect children and the vulnerable from being harmed or exploited by gambling and, most humorously, it targets keeping crime out of gambling. By paying lip service to such issues, the new Act is actually about opening up the advertising media to the bookmakers and casinos which is an interesting angle on the protection of the public.
Several members of the Dietrological team have enjoyed (sic) involvement with the government ministers and other operators related to this Act and, at no point, have any of the bodies established to police the industry shown the slightest interest in facing up to the rampant criminality in the gambling sector nor the manipulation of betting markets by insiders resulting in most sports having outcomes that are determined by betting patterns as opposed to the skills of the participants.
When Gordon Brown swept away the corrupt regime of his predecessor and put the super-casino in Manchester on hold, we dared to hope that the situation might improve under the new administration. We need not have bothered holding our collectives breaths.
The new Minister for Sport is right wing reactionary Gerry Sutcliffe who, for example, when asked about his response to Thaksin Shinawatra taking over Manchester City, offered the weasel-like reply that he chooses not to comment on specific cases. What is Sutcliffe likely to comment on then? We should expect vague duplicitous generalisations together with an overriding concern not to face down the criminalisation of the sports sector, I guess. It is peculiar that Sutcliffe is more than willing to comment on other specific political issues such as his very strong and vocal support for ID cards, the creation of foundation hospitals, the introduction of student top-up fees, backing Labour's anti-terrorism laws and speaking out in favour of both the Iraq war and replacing Trident as well as various other Tory-esque measures. Yet, the takeover of an English football club by a tyrant who faces two arrest warrants in his homeland with numerous human rights abuses having been widely documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch is, apparently, not worthy of comment. Sutcliffe is just the sort of pliant career politician that the gambling industry would have chosen for the post of Minister for Sport if they had any say in the matter - which, of course, in a democratic society like Britain, they don't!? Bring back Richard Caborn who at least stood up for something resembling the occasional principle rather than shape-shifting his integrity to the benefit of the magnitude of his mortgage and in favour of his children's private education.
Anyway, we have a new Gambling Act and we are stuck with it. So, what are the likely impacts on the football betting markets?
Last weekend gave us some indication as to what we might expect in the future from the newly deregulated gambling sector and the industry participants. Due to suddenly having the option to widely advertise and market their addictive wares to new potential customers, the major market operators are targeting such clients very aggressively. The Big Three bookmakers in Britain are all members of the Association of Major Levy Payers which operates as a trade association to protect the bookies interests (as if such protection is required). Historically, these major league players in Europe have been the most abusive when it comes down to the overround percentage (the degree to which the bookmakers tilt the markets in their favour to avoid anything like a level playing field). The Big Three generally offer fixed odds football markets with an overround of 113%, the fringe operators price up to around 107% to gain market share while the betting exchanges hover around the 104% mark. It is surely no coincidence that the Big Three en masse moved to an average of 107% on the weekend's Premiership matches which effectively undercut the other psychopathic layers like Skybet while directly competing on price with the peripheral firms wiping out their one area of competitive advantage in the process. William Hill were the perpetrators of this marketing strategy and the other two firms fell dutifully into line. Under normal circumstances, this strategy would be something to applaud but we are not dealing with an impromptu outbreak of altruism on behalf of the layers here. Its a Tesco strategy at play. The Big Three simply wish to grab as much of the new market for the gullibles who are to be attracted to the gambling sector by the heavy duty advertising campaign planned for the month of September. Indeed, William Hill have already indicated that the overround will return to the abusive levels of old at the end of the month. In the meantime, however, the Big Three will not only cream off most of the new bettors but they will also persuade clients from the lower tiered bookies to transfer their accounts - why deal with offshore criminals when you can deal with onshore ones based in London or Leeds instead? Many of these peripheral firms are already finding the business highly competitive due the Asian firms reasserting control of much of the marketplace and some firms like Premierbet have already gone to that great Licenced Betting Office in the sky. As we posted last week, even Bet-Un-Fair are feeling the pinch. In confirmation, its a Tesco battlefield - price up to wipe out the opposition and then raise prices in a monopolistic and psychopathic manner.
Now, we can't really believe that New Labour's aim when implementing the Gambling Act 2005 was to create a more cartelised industry sector, with more corrupt markets and more manipulated outcomes, can we? Of course not, Jowell, Blair, Sutcliffe, the Gambling Commission and the rest were actually really focusing on the issue of problem gambling and criminality in sport. Honestly...
Where would we be without these people?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The Gambling Act 2005 allegedly aims to ensure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly, it purports to protect children and the vulnerable from being harmed or exploited by gambling and, most humorously, it targets keeping crime out of gambling. By paying lip service to such issues, the new Act is actually about opening up the advertising media to the bookmakers and casinos which is an interesting angle on the protection of the public.
Several members of the Dietrological team have enjoyed (sic) involvement with the government ministers and other operators related to this Act and, at no point, have any of the bodies established to police the industry shown the slightest interest in facing up to the rampant criminality in the gambling sector nor the manipulation of betting markets by insiders resulting in most sports having outcomes that are determined by betting patterns as opposed to the skills of the participants.
When Gordon Brown swept away the corrupt regime of his predecessor and put the super-casino in Manchester on hold, we dared to hope that the situation might improve under the new administration. We need not have bothered holding our collectives breaths.
The new Minister for Sport is right wing reactionary Gerry Sutcliffe who, for example, when asked about his response to Thaksin Shinawatra taking over Manchester City, offered the weasel-like reply that he chooses not to comment on specific cases. What is Sutcliffe likely to comment on then? We should expect vague duplicitous generalisations together with an overriding concern not to face down the criminalisation of the sports sector, I guess. It is peculiar that Sutcliffe is more than willing to comment on other specific political issues such as his very strong and vocal support for ID cards, the creation of foundation hospitals, the introduction of student top-up fees, backing Labour's anti-terrorism laws and speaking out in favour of both the Iraq war and replacing Trident as well as various other Tory-esque measures. Yet, the takeover of an English football club by a tyrant who faces two arrest warrants in his homeland with numerous human rights abuses having been widely documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch is, apparently, not worthy of comment. Sutcliffe is just the sort of pliant career politician that the gambling industry would have chosen for the post of Minister for Sport if they had any say in the matter - which, of course, in a democratic society like Britain, they don't!? Bring back Richard Caborn who at least stood up for something resembling the occasional principle rather than shape-shifting his integrity to the benefit of the magnitude of his mortgage and in favour of his children's private education.
Anyway, we have a new Gambling Act and we are stuck with it. So, what are the likely impacts on the football betting markets?
Last weekend gave us some indication as to what we might expect in the future from the newly deregulated gambling sector and the industry participants. Due to suddenly having the option to widely advertise and market their addictive wares to new potential customers, the major market operators are targeting such clients very aggressively. The Big Three bookmakers in Britain are all members of the Association of Major Levy Payers which operates as a trade association to protect the bookies interests (as if such protection is required). Historically, these major league players in Europe have been the most abusive when it comes down to the overround percentage (the degree to which the bookmakers tilt the markets in their favour to avoid anything like a level playing field). The Big Three generally offer fixed odds football markets with an overround of 113%, the fringe operators price up to around 107% to gain market share while the betting exchanges hover around the 104% mark. It is surely no coincidence that the Big Three en masse moved to an average of 107% on the weekend's Premiership matches which effectively undercut the other psychopathic layers like Skybet while directly competing on price with the peripheral firms wiping out their one area of competitive advantage in the process. William Hill were the perpetrators of this marketing strategy and the other two firms fell dutifully into line. Under normal circumstances, this strategy would be something to applaud but we are not dealing with an impromptu outbreak of altruism on behalf of the layers here. Its a Tesco strategy at play. The Big Three simply wish to grab as much of the new market for the gullibles who are to be attracted to the gambling sector by the heavy duty advertising campaign planned for the month of September. Indeed, William Hill have already indicated that the overround will return to the abusive levels of old at the end of the month. In the meantime, however, the Big Three will not only cream off most of the new bettors but they will also persuade clients from the lower tiered bookies to transfer their accounts - why deal with offshore criminals when you can deal with onshore ones based in London or Leeds instead? Many of these peripheral firms are already finding the business highly competitive due the Asian firms reasserting control of much of the marketplace and some firms like Premierbet have already gone to that great Licenced Betting Office in the sky. As we posted last week, even Bet-Un-Fair are feeling the pinch. In confirmation, its a Tesco battlefield - price up to wipe out the opposition and then raise prices in a monopolistic and psychopathic manner.
Now, we can't really believe that New Labour's aim when implementing the Gambling Act 2005 was to create a more cartelised industry sector, with more corrupt markets and more manipulated outcomes, can we? Of course not, Jowell, Blair, Sutcliffe, the Gambling Commission and the rest were actually really focusing on the issue of problem gambling and criminality in sport. Honestly...
Where would we be without these people?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 1 September 2007
David Dein - Loads Of Cash But No Credibility
As we posted yesterday, the potential takeover of Arsenal by Alisher Usmanov is as out of order in footballing terms as His Excellency The Doctor moving in on Manchester City. There is little point in the Premier League having a fit and proper persons criteria for club ownership if reptilian psychos are repeatedly able to slip through the net.
Fortunately, from Arsenal's perspective, Arsène Wenger decided to put the record straight yesterday with respect to his personal attitude to the shenanigans of his former colleague David Dein. Wenger's decision to go public with his views regarding his club have had a dual impact. Firstly, the clarification has clearly drawn the battle lines for the takeover battle ahead and, secondly, his carefully worded statement together with other breaking news yesterday represents the Monica Lewinsky moment for neatly coiffured Mr Dein.
Lets have a look at the modus operandi of Dein.
* Throughout his public statements relating to the selling of his shares to Red And White Holdings (R&WH) and his acceptance of the position of chairman in the said company, Dein painted himself as a principled tactician who has a deep love for Arsenal Football Club. He also implied that he was working alongside Wenger to achieve this potential ownership structure. While Dein was able to secrete away his own and other's realities, this little scam worked a treat. Then along came August 31st 2007 - Dein's day of impeachment.
* His first misjudgement was in assuming that nobody would bother googling Mr Usmanov. To say that the man has a bit of baggage would be a sublime understatement. Mafiosi, the heroin trade, disappearing dissidents, journalists falling from windows and very thick files in the archives of Human Rights watch and Amnesty International tend to puncture the "for the good of Arsenal" angle that Dein was attempting to spin. Usmanov stated yesterday that his purchase was "not strategic or political but a portfolio investment" which is a clear indication that he sees value in the commodity of Arsenal and will sell when such value no longer exists. Usmanov has behaved similarly previously when he bought into Corus Steel in 2003 but pulled out when he was unable to secure a seat on the board.
* When Dein opens his mouth, words come out but not truths. Prior to selling his shares to Usmanov, he had attempted last week to sell them to Stanley Kroenke but the American refused to allow Dein to maintain an interest in the shareholding via a warped ownership structure once the sale had been completed. Obviously focusing on the good of Arsenal rather than the good of himself, Clintonesque Dein then struck a swift deal with Usmanov as he was offered the position of chairman of R&WH so long as he sold all of his shares in the club. In the medium term, Dein's influence has surely been diluted. Had he retained his shares his power would have been considerable, but without them he may be expendable to the billionaire tycoon from Uzbekistan.
* All of Dein's bluff about his love of the Gunners wears even thinner when one addresses the destabilising impacts he has had on the club he apparently adores. The split that Dein perpetrated in the board in April was selfish to the core and the man continued to undermine Wenger, the club and the board over the summer as Dein's son, acting as Thierry Henry's agent, solicited the Frenchman's transfer to Barcelona - no doubt, once again, for the good of the Gunners.
* By claiming that Wenger was somehow in cahoots with him, Dein made a further fatal error. Wenger made his position absolutely clear in his Friday press conference and the words from Wenger's mouth inversely correlate with the lies emanating from Dein's. "I'm concerned with the intent of people coming in," said Wenger followed by an unequivocal "Am I concerned that major foreign investment might affect the way we work here? Yes". The Arsenal manager sees no value in wealthy and unprincipled operators taking over the club as the whole structure of the club becomes dependent on the whims of one untrustworthy financial dealer. By choosing to focus instead on a fruitful youth policy, an economically viable transfer strategy and maintaining a culture within the Arsenal hierarchy that engenders teamwork and a shared attitude, Arsenal will be able to outmanoeuvre the short-termists who have jumped into the financier's lair. Wenger even managed to outflank Dein on the Henry transfer saga which was intended to create uproar but actually resulted in a great deal for Arsenal by selling a player whose value can only go downwards.
The attitude of Wenger and the board members opposed to Kroenke's and R&WH's psychopathic strategies deserve support from all fans who have a real devotion to the game. Premiership football teams are able to progress without selling out to the global betting market strategies of the new breed of owners and there are very few honest individuals left in English football and we should applaud their efforts to steer clear of the Far East markets and, instead, to develop a more creative strategy for success.
Finally, the editing of Wenger's press conference perpetrated by Sky News was quite revealing. Comments about Usmanov? Non. About the behaviour of Dein? Non. Anything on R&WH? Non. Just some highly selective and edited phrases relating to Wenger's new contract. You can always rely on Sky to misinform viewers about their realities. Similar disinformational rubbish has been printed by those other unreliable gambling organs The Racing Post and Sporting Life who share Sky's interests in the victory of the gambling elements in the game. The claim that Wenger is "unconcerned by the possibility of a takeover" as put out by Sporting Life is a particularly interesting slant on reality.
Somewhere between hostile and lukewarm would have been a more accurate reflection of Wenger's attitude...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Fortunately, from Arsenal's perspective, Arsène Wenger decided to put the record straight yesterday with respect to his personal attitude to the shenanigans of his former colleague David Dein. Wenger's decision to go public with his views regarding his club have had a dual impact. Firstly, the clarification has clearly drawn the battle lines for the takeover battle ahead and, secondly, his carefully worded statement together with other breaking news yesterday represents the Monica Lewinsky moment for neatly coiffured Mr Dein.
Lets have a look at the modus operandi of Dein.
* Throughout his public statements relating to the selling of his shares to Red And White Holdings (R&WH) and his acceptance of the position of chairman in the said company, Dein painted himself as a principled tactician who has a deep love for Arsenal Football Club. He also implied that he was working alongside Wenger to achieve this potential ownership structure. While Dein was able to secrete away his own and other's realities, this little scam worked a treat. Then along came August 31st 2007 - Dein's day of impeachment.
* His first misjudgement was in assuming that nobody would bother googling Mr Usmanov. To say that the man has a bit of baggage would be a sublime understatement. Mafiosi, the heroin trade, disappearing dissidents, journalists falling from windows and very thick files in the archives of Human Rights watch and Amnesty International tend to puncture the "for the good of Arsenal" angle that Dein was attempting to spin. Usmanov stated yesterday that his purchase was "not strategic or political but a portfolio investment" which is a clear indication that he sees value in the commodity of Arsenal and will sell when such value no longer exists. Usmanov has behaved similarly previously when he bought into Corus Steel in 2003 but pulled out when he was unable to secure a seat on the board.
* When Dein opens his mouth, words come out but not truths. Prior to selling his shares to Usmanov, he had attempted last week to sell them to Stanley Kroenke but the American refused to allow Dein to maintain an interest in the shareholding via a warped ownership structure once the sale had been completed. Obviously focusing on the good of Arsenal rather than the good of himself, Clintonesque Dein then struck a swift deal with Usmanov as he was offered the position of chairman of R&WH so long as he sold all of his shares in the club. In the medium term, Dein's influence has surely been diluted. Had he retained his shares his power would have been considerable, but without them he may be expendable to the billionaire tycoon from Uzbekistan.
* All of Dein's bluff about his love of the Gunners wears even thinner when one addresses the destabilising impacts he has had on the club he apparently adores. The split that Dein perpetrated in the board in April was selfish to the core and the man continued to undermine Wenger, the club and the board over the summer as Dein's son, acting as Thierry Henry's agent, solicited the Frenchman's transfer to Barcelona - no doubt, once again, for the good of the Gunners.
* By claiming that Wenger was somehow in cahoots with him, Dein made a further fatal error. Wenger made his position absolutely clear in his Friday press conference and the words from Wenger's mouth inversely correlate with the lies emanating from Dein's. "I'm concerned with the intent of people coming in," said Wenger followed by an unequivocal "Am I concerned that major foreign investment might affect the way we work here? Yes". The Arsenal manager sees no value in wealthy and unprincipled operators taking over the club as the whole structure of the club becomes dependent on the whims of one untrustworthy financial dealer. By choosing to focus instead on a fruitful youth policy, an economically viable transfer strategy and maintaining a culture within the Arsenal hierarchy that engenders teamwork and a shared attitude, Arsenal will be able to outmanoeuvre the short-termists who have jumped into the financier's lair. Wenger even managed to outflank Dein on the Henry transfer saga which was intended to create uproar but actually resulted in a great deal for Arsenal by selling a player whose value can only go downwards.
The attitude of Wenger and the board members opposed to Kroenke's and R&WH's psychopathic strategies deserve support from all fans who have a real devotion to the game. Premiership football teams are able to progress without selling out to the global betting market strategies of the new breed of owners and there are very few honest individuals left in English football and we should applaud their efforts to steer clear of the Far East markets and, instead, to develop a more creative strategy for success.
Finally, the editing of Wenger's press conference perpetrated by Sky News was quite revealing. Comments about Usmanov? Non. About the behaviour of Dein? Non. Anything on R&WH? Non. Just some highly selective and edited phrases relating to Wenger's new contract. You can always rely on Sky to misinform viewers about their realities. Similar disinformational rubbish has been printed by those other unreliable gambling organs The Racing Post and Sporting Life who share Sky's interests in the victory of the gambling elements in the game. The claim that Wenger is "unconcerned by the possibility of a takeover" as put out by Sporting Life is a particularly interesting slant on reality.
Somewhere between hostile and lukewarm would have been a more accurate reflection of Wenger's attitude...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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