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
