Approximation in decision making may be fine if such approximation is random. In top level English football, it most certainly is not random.
Why is it that all the power structures in football desire errors?
When video technology exists and is successfully used in all other major team sports (rugby union, rugby league, cricket), why is football ostrich-syndromed about validating their sport?
It is evident that it is to the pernicious benefit of the people who are corrupting the game that the referees and other key insiders be owned. The abuser's strategy is carried out by individuals who possess virtual omnipotence regarding the outcome of a match. We should not expect anything less of the hyper-owners and bookmakers who leech onto the game.
But we should be more expectant of a route to meritocracy being on the agendas of FIFA and UEFA. Yet, despite all the marketing fizz of their campaigns against the various types of corruption endemic in the sport, neither body supports the use of video technology to authenticate the realities that are provided to us as entertainment, not sport but entertainment. The same linkages that connect bookmakers and owners to referees and key players also exist between football's governing bodies and the match officials. All the power merchants seek competitive advantage either in the promotion of a marketable competition or in the more psychopathic guaranteeing of profit in the betting markets or warping the results to their proprietary agendas. Now, this might look like football and sound like football but football it ain't. It is power brokers battling on the pitch via the control of referees.
Two months into the season and there have been five major spectacular global media matches on our screens. The outcomes of each and every one of these games has been corrupted by power lobbies linked to insiders. To refresh memories, the games are listed below:
Liverpool v Chelsea - Chelsea given a farcical penalty by Rob Styles who then failed to send Michael Essien off despite brandishing a second yellow card to the Ghanaian. Styles was stood down for a week but at least he gained a nice new patio and driveway courtesy of Roman Abramovich.
Manchester City v Manchester United - Thaksin Shinawatra needed a victory as the match coincided with the vote in his native Thailand for a new constitution which may have further compromised his diminishing power base there. Clattenburg accommodated by denying United a penalty in the first thirty minutes when the Reds were rampant. A goal then would have almost certainly changed the match outcome.
Manchester United v Chelsea - Mike Dean's comedy performance denied Manchester three penalties before giving them one which wasn't; sent off Mikel incorrectly before failing to send off Joe Cole and Rooney for more serious indiscretions; added extra first half injury time to allow United's attacks to reach the fruition of a goal. United were always going to win this encounter after Mourinho had walked out on Chelsea's dysfunctionality but Dean ensured that a farce resulted.
Russia v England - As we posted on Thursday, the result of this vital Euro 2008 qualifier (well, vital if you remove items like climate change, AIDS, Darfur and global poverty from the equation) was induced by an inducement. One of our key contacts in Asia has shown us the evidence regarding referee Cantalejo having an encounter with some key Russian representatives together with the related Far East betting patterns and we have to conclude that this match outcome was corrupted. Incorrect result again.
Everton v Liverpool - Clattenburg was the best Premiership referee last season and, until yesterday, was still at the top of our listings for the current campaign. Then he ruined the spectacle of the Merseyside derby. A penalty for a foul outside the area; a sending off when prompted by Stevie G not to merely give Hibbert a yellow card; the denial of two penalties (one a certainty and the other a 50-50) to Everton; the failure to send off Kuyt for a two-footed assault on Phil Neville. But the icing on a very corrupt cake was the rather revealing smirk on Clattenburg's face after he had awarded Liverpool their second penalty - a smile which clearly demonstrated that the job was a good'un - match outcome a fallacy.
If you provide an infrastructure that enables corruptions to be perpetrated then, inevitably, the types of character who choose to gain an edge by being in control of these corruptions are attracted to the game. If you then allow the mechanics of the sport to be compromised by these same individuals, the journey is one of a steady deterioration in the game (or "the product" as it is now quaintly termed).
We would hope that our arguments are convincing as to the role of the officials in this outrageous criminality. In the words of my former Economics Professor "the referee's are in a very powerful position". And so they are.
There is one simple solution to this destruction of our sport - video technology. Take the power away from one flawed referee and use instant replays to determine the truth. The match outcomes would be markedly more honest, the fans would discuss the beauty of the sport rather than the quality of the corruption, trophies would be won by skill rather than power hierarchies. Check out last night's Rugby Union World Cup Final. If it had not been for the intervention of Alain Rolland and the video referee and his determination to get the key match decision correct, England would have been given an incorrect try which might well have altered the match result. Although the xenophobic ITV commentators attempted to warp this totally correct decision to be the post-match focus, all of the England players (past and present) recognised that a foot brushing the line is in touch. End of story. Instead of a load of little Englander nonsense, we were able to celebrate the victory party of the South Africans, a victory which was gained in a meritocratic manner. All of the referees decisions, being on open mike, were audible. Nothing was deliberately made obtuse or vague. Compare and contrast with the closed microphone circuitry utilised in Premiership football. In fact, apart from the job title of sports referee, there was otherwise nothing coincident between the officiating of Clattenburg and Rolland nor, indeed, in the structural degree of integrity between the two sports.
The arguments against the use of video tech are flawed, myopic or simply laughable. The time delay for a decision to be taken is irrelevant as the game is already littered with such breaks for free kicks, corners, penalties, disciplinary stuff and injuries. The pitiful argument that video tech is not 100% accurate pales into insignificance when one compares the efficacy of the technology with the human error situation (criminalised or otherwise). Video tech is 95% correct which is a level that Mike Dean generally or Mark Clattenburg yesterday can only dream of.
Equally revealing are the protagonists lined up on either side of the video tech fence. Hyper-owners, bookmakers, corrupt players, the media, Sky, Blatter and, to his discredit, Platini wish for the power links between themselves and the officials to be maintained. Arsène Wenger and Football Is Fixed are from the other side and it has to be worthy of note here that Wenger's Arsenal are one of the very few leading teams that do not exploit the potential for referee-based corruption.
We must demand change otherwise football is following horseracing on the gradient to becoming merely a betting medium. The parallels are already there if you look in the right places. In the mid-twentieth century horserace meetings were packed with fans and punters enjoying their well-deserved leisure time. The repeated corruptions that have tarnished horseracing in the last fifty years have now resulted in racecourses where human beings are conspicuous by their absence (I would struggle to classify the owners, trainers, bookmakers and jockeys who are still present at these farcical events as members of our species). The large empty spaces in the grounds of all but the glory hunting teams is indicative of the similar demise in football attendance. The sole determinant of horserace outcome is the betting activity on the rails, in the betting ring together with the money returned to the course from the betting offices nationwide. Although public, this psychopathic environment disguises the market realities by the use of destructive disinformation in the media and on the course and the development of a private language, tic tac, that is opaque to the average member of the human race. Similarly, the sole determinant of Premiership and major UEFA and FIFA football matches is the betting activity in the illegal underground markets in Asia. This infrastructure has the additional advantage that it is not public and may be only viewed by proximity to the corrupt markets themselves. Who needs tic tac when you've got Shinawatra?
The process of the turning of the world's greatest sport into a betting medium will continue apace. The major protagonists all display psychopathic personality disorders (PPDs) to various extents and it is interesting to assess the impact of these disorders on their financial strategies. PPDs individuals are short-termist and non-strategic. They fail to respond socially to any given circumstance and choose to target any opportunity for proprietary gain, preferably at the expense of others. The shareholder capitalist system that we all endure is based on giving a free rein to these characters to seek profit and abuses where the rest of the human race fears to tread. This is not only worrying for the planet but for the sport of football as a whole and also for the clubs who have jumped on the psycho bandwagon. Being short-termist, the likes of Shinawatra, Abramovich, Gudmundsson, Gaydamak throw their illicit financial assets at their new toys resulting in an immediate gain in performance on the field of play - nobody could deny that Man City, Chelsea, West Ham or Portsmouth are punching above their weight due to the black market money supporting their endeavours. But psychopathic business structures all possess a similarity in time profiles. The initial application of a no-holds-barred culture undoubtedly improves a shareprice or a league table position but at what cost? All of the hyper-owners are actively involved in the global betting markets. While they are developing a power base in their club, they veer towards proactive performance enhancement through mechanisms like the buying off of match officials. But, eventually, the realities of betting market liquidity kicks in and selective performance highly correlated with the betting markets becomes the template of choice - several of the Premiership teams under hyper-ownership have already reached this stage of strategic development. As horseracing clearly demonstrates, it is far easier to lose deliberately than to win - the loss is in one's own hands (or rather, the trainers and the jockeys) while a victory involves everybody else in the event. As the hyper-owners concentrate on their selfish profit motives rather than the medium-long term good of the team, the time profile moves forward to an era of frustration for the fans and illicit financial gains for the psychos. At some point, a more attractive financial opportunity will arise elsewhere and the football club will be left holding the shell of their cultural identity while the antisocials will be reconciliating their gold in their Swiss bank accounts.
Aside from Wenger, all managerial participants in this massive corruption play along with the propaganda and lies. Take Rafa Benitez and his apoplectic response to the Liverpool/Chelsea game outlined above and compare with his idiocy following yesterday's match. Any sign of a balanced assessment of the realities? Nada... Instead the latter day tinkerman came up with the a defence of Clattenburg's biases concluding with "In England, you don't like to see players diving and it was a surprise to me" in reference to Lescott falling under the influence of Carragher's GBH in injury time. This attitude is crass stupidity and plays into the hands of the manipulators of the English game - corruption is great when in our favour but not so great when not. Listen beardy-weirdy, corruption is not great full stop.
So what are we left with? Marketed and branded hype about a product, a product whose real value is diminishing rapidly due to the lack of customer focus, customers who are choosing gardening or some other sport rather than being hoodwinked by a bunch of criminals, and criminals who are perpetrating a massive corruption hand in hand with the regulatory bodies, the media and the institutions that allegedly exist to protect the game.
Prediction. Football as we know it will soon be dead. Every single instance within the game will be warped to the needs of the betting markets and the monopolistic requirements of the football establishment. We will be left with a declining fanbase, global criminality and a planet of betting addicts.
Shit, we're almost there...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
