It has never been like this before and it will never be the same again - there is no better definition of the basic matrix of all financial markets. Constant evolution drives the markets forward as these multidisciplinary playgrounds are complex beyond the static realities of a pure science. That is why it is so interesting.
In parallel with the not-so-random walk of the markets, march the career opportunities related to analysts. One of the most peculiar constructs is that which has created the opportunity for market analysts to work inside football clubs as a major part of the club's proprietary competitive edge.
Sports science, psychological motivation techniques, the use of legal (and not so legal) performance enhancing substances (PESs), dietary enhancement and numerous other strategies have moved football into this brave new world. In the era of the £1 billion football betting market, the market analyst will soon become equally indispensable.
When such colossal sums of money are being laid on the outcome of just one football match, the sector develops some highly skewed incentives. And it is incentives that drive the financial markets. We have focused on the power of referees repeatedly on this blog and the advantages that analysts could bring to the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) is marked, for example. Oh, and it would be corrupt... Similarly with working alongside bookmakers with an equivalent black market/grey market profile. I can't go for that...
But football teams are another territory altogether. When the original foundations were being laid to create a trading model that would be robust for all types of financial market, the possibility that the resulting model would have a vital significance to a team's strategy would have been simply laughable. It is a damning indictment of the impact of the malignant ones that this is now our reality. Baudrillard would have been proud...
So, why are market analysts so key to the success of football teams, I hear you ask? In more ways than would initially appear possible would be the answer of choice. Let's go there...
* The analysis, psychological profiling and real-time monitoring of referees and other officials is a key input to all matches. The determination of the corrupt incentives and linkages pre-match is combined with the in-running assessment of the game in motion. For example, we read Markus Merk (and many other officials) like a book and the value to Celtic of our input both prior to and during the Milan game last week would have been considerable - we could even have prevented the happy slapping incident as the Milan penalty could have been avoided. Joking apart, if any club wishes to optimise their performance in both domestic and European competitions, a thorough analysis of the officials is critical.
* Analysis of the opponents is another key aspect - and I'm not talking whether they will be employing a 4-5-1 system here. A disturbingly high percentage of Premiership teams are proactively involved in the global betting markets. Some of the market stances and positions being taken by these operators are considerable and, obviously, impact upon the incentives for the game ahead. Knowledge of your opponents portfolio angles is massive - players may be rested or chemical enhancements might be authorised on the basis of such information. Additionally, the fundamental analysis undertaken by analysts can nurture further advantages for a club. Dietrological use extensive configurative modelling to determine team's fitness levels, utilisation of PESs, internal morale issues, strategic focus etc.
* Infrastructural issues impact upon club's strategic horizons. All tournaments and competitions incorporate their own hidden agendas, the knowledge of which is informational dynamite. We shared one of these with you last season over the inevitability of a Chelsea versus Manchester United FA Cup Final. In such an instance, whether working with the chosen teams or their opponents, big picture politics of the regulatory organisation is a competitive advancement.
* Through modelling the financial markets that dominate our modern game, analysts are able to directly influence outcome on both their own and, if they choose the corrupt path, their competitors matches. We have demonstrated ad nauseum how conspicuous money influences outcome in markets ranging from football to horseracing, from derivatives to options. Markets may be influenced in their eternal search for efficiency by the control of information as much as by the active partaking of market positions. And, yet, when the global football markets become legal and regulated, the advantages bestowed by the best analysis will be optimal. Selective and well-timed informational releases to influence media while concurrently taking into account the complex market betting patterns that will define future realities is a multiple input operation of some significant value. The legalised trading of both internal and external matches will become THE core competency for ALL the major teams. No matter how slick the management, how good the players, how inventive the transfer policy, all of these advantages will be rendered virtually useless without top-notch analytical inputs.
* In-Running betting markets may also be targeted for edge. It varies but approximately 50% of liquidity occurs while the match is in motion - it represents the more pernicious reasoning behind the development of miked-up but non-open source officials in the Premiership. Stuff happens. Pre-match market profiles, incentives and trading realities vary with massive volatility in a market structure that is dominated by equilibrium positions. Explaining this briefly, most financial markets have pricing structures that allow incremental price movements related to the flow of money orders plus inside information and market breakpoints. A football betting market moves both incrementally and atmospherically but, additionally, by integral leaps on certain occurrences. For example, a goal scored should (but doesn't always) result in the market adjusting by 1.0 goals while a sending off generally yields a 0.10 of a goal leap for each period of ten minutes remaining. But the key route to a robust advantage in-running is pure market analysis. The incentives of all participants vary in real-time as the match progresses. Officials, bookmakers, the major professional traders, the regulatory bodies and the management and players are involved in this random walk waltz of financial opportunity. Creative structuring of match strategies using Game Theory and the like is easily utilised to influence the liabilities in the market place but, once again, the eventual establishment of white market legalised global betting platforms will transform the value of the market analyst to his/her associated club.
* The related issues of fragmented cartelisational realities and market depth impinge upon all analysis affecting both the pre-match and the in-running markets. Trading anonymously, incrementalised investment, avoidance of tilting the market against one's interests, the creative use of disinformation (in the nicest way!) to enhance profits all require a clear big picture overview of the relevant sectors.
* All analysts develop extensive databases of corrupt industry insiders together with the accompanying forensic psychology, market analysis and behavioural profiling. There is valuable input to be gained in knowing when a particular goalkeeper feels the pressures to have a Barthez-day!
* A network effect will establish even greater advantages to the clubs who are foresightful enough to work with the best analysts. The quality of output is directly correlated with the quality of input and the systemic economies of data will be mutually beneficial and mutually rewarding.
* All of the practical solutions outlined above will be further developed utilising complex reactive algorithms specifically created to incorporate highly unstructured data yielding more competitive advantage in the process.
* In conclusion, it is feasible with an holistic overview to re-skew the incentives to one's own advantage without having to enter into the corrupt world of the betting markets. One is able to achieve this by offsetting the manipulations undertaken against one's interests. In the not-too-distant future, there will be other legal revenue streams to enhance this process. The clubs must take note.
Some of the simplest structures related to the above are already evident in the game - an example being the use of amphetamine-based PESs at half-time which allows a first half of underperformance (with related market drift) to be obliterated by a high energy second period resulting in both three points and a market killing. There are two prime issues related to the current state of play here. Firstly, to be able to take full advantage, one needs to venture into cowboy territory. Secondly, the current strategies are blunt and one-dimensional and, consequently, of little medium term value. This is a typical economic paradigm for a psychopathic trading system. Fortunately, the cowboys will eventually become legit or will be peripheralised and a more meritocratic global trading platform will be available. Then we'll have a proper game...
Okay, so it ain't exactly football but this conceptual framework is our future reality. Indeed, Dietrological are already undertaking a high level consultancy project for one Premiership team in a not-too-dissimilar area of concern. Such consultancies will become increasingly the norm. As football normalises, if that is in any way an appropriate word in these circumstances, to the standard sectoral template which exists throughout the spectrum of shareholder capitalism, it will become indistinguishable from any other entertainment-based product. The game will cease to be competitive as we currently understand competitive and will instead resemble those hideous happenings that spectacular society forces upon us in the marketing-induced world. You know the sort of thing - in Macau, Diana Ross sings The Supremes at a casino that is the size of a small town while the punters are fleeced and, around the corner, the Third World exist in the sweatshops which represent the true non-marketed reality of this spectacular system.
Anyway, I'm off to look for an agent...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
