The Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) reluctantly allows twenty match referees to be on their roster, after two referees appealed against their careers being curtailed prior to the start of the season.
To date, only 18 of these officials have been selected due to Clattenburg's financial affairs and Uriah Rennie's skin colour.
In Serie A, 31 referees have been used in the current season, with no one referee having officiated at more than six matches.
Following this next weekend, Howard Webb will have had 17 appointments (including 4th Official slots) in 13 rounds of Premiership games, and twelve of these events have been the high profile live Sky/Setanta events.
For each of the last two seasons, Mr Webb has finished in penultimate position in our Bum Ref Index, and he was sent home early from Euro 2008 for enforcing an unenforceable rule of the game.
With Premiership managers threatening to go on strike over the dreadful standard of the refereeing in the league, it is worth reflecting on why such a small, and largely inept, group are allowed to officiate in the world's biggest league.
When some games are grossing £1 billion pre-match betting liquidity in Asia, having such a structure with so few refs and a high bias in who gets selected for what, is a template seemingly established to be problematical in the integrity department.
Do the mathematics...
The televised matches are the biggest turnover events and, when one assesses the PGMOB selection of referees for these matches, the situation becomes even more perilous.
Only 12 referees ################################################ have been given these appointments, and even within this inner group of the Select Group, there is a hierarchy.
So, Howard Webb has refereed eight of the 47 live events to date, and Mike Dean, who was banned just a couple of years ago for his links to online gambling site, Arbitros Racing, has been given 7 matches.
Riley with 6, Bennett and Wiley with 5 games apiece, Mickey Mouse Atkinson 4 and Dowd 3, suddenly, we are able to see that out of these 47 high turnover live matches, just 7 officials have controlled 38 of these events.
Over 80% of the biggest betting matches are officiated by just 7 officials.
We are not saying in this place that any of these officials are corrupt, although we outline a rather disturbing linkage between one official and one manager below, but why such a structure?
If Premiership managers are threatening to down tools, professional traders are regarding the selection of the particular match officials as of paramount importance in analysing a particular market and when fans are actually discussing the potentially illegal machinations that are determining the outcomes of the matches that they are paying their hard-earned cash to witness, this infrastructure has become invalid.
If I represented a corrupt body that wished to contort hyperrealities in the English Premiership for proprietary gain, I would be desirous of as small a grouping of senior match officials as possible.
After all, how would I go about gaming a pool of 100 officials?
Other territories are significantly more open about the Reality of corruption.
Dynamo Kyiv versus Shakhtar Donetsk games use officials from a different country, La Gazzetta dello Sport analyses referee selections at headline level, etc etc.
Even in Scotland, with its two-tiered bias to Rangers over Celtic, and bias to the Auld Firm over everybody else, there is a momentum to be facing up to the impact of these machinations.
Although it should be added, there appears to be a risk of a distortion of Reality here.
Graham Roberts has just published a book claiming bias in favour of the Auld Firm but he neatly avoids any differentiation between the two Glasgow giants with, if anything, a suggestion that Celtic receive a rub of the green more than 'Gers.
Yeah right...
In a similar manner that calciopoli targeted Juventus, leading to the loss of players, Champions League income and demotion, while equally guilty Milan laughed all the way to the bank despite being more culpable in the match machination department, there is a concern that any evaluation of the bias north of the border will be similarly non-discriminating or selective.
Roberts' suggestion of using foreign referees (not English, please) for the major Rangers v Celtic events surely makes sense though.
There are a couple of other points that need to be made regarding the selection of referees in the English Premiership.
Firstly, there are frequent changes of match official pre-match.
Over the last two seasons and to date for 2008/09, there have been 30 changes of referee in the Premiership.
In 15 years of data for Serie A, Bundesliga and La Liga combined, there have been less than a handful of such alterations.
These changes distort markets and we have evidence that the adjustment process is being gamed by those in possession of the information early. This is both insider trading and market manipulation.
In one weekend, earlier this season, there were 14 changes in the Select Group selections (refs, linesmen, 4th officials) prior to the off.
14??!!
I know its grim living in this island but is there some epidemic that we should be aware of here?
Secondly, why aren't the marks that managers give to officials made public?
Then referees and other officials might be selected meritocratically.
This is such an obvious barrier against corruption that it is ludicrous that the PGMOB doesn't implement it.
It has reached the stage where the managers have had enough. Apart from the threatened strike action, Roy Keane gave Mickey Mouse a 10/10 after three incorrect goals were given to Chelsea in a recent 'game'.
The outcome? A disrepute charge!
Hackett doesn't do Humour.
And, so to the final part of our post, where we demonstrate a rather disturbing pattern between one match referee and one Premiership manager.
We will call them Mr X and Mr Y.
Listed below are the most recent events where Mr X and Mr Y have been in cahoots, or not...
You decide...
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A few final points.
Why are these patterns not spotted within the PGMOB?
Why has Mr X been given 8 of Mr Y's games in one and a third seasons?
The average should be 2 games per season, even in a tilted environment like the Premiership.
As Alex Ferguson said about the retirement of Graham Poll: "He'd better get out before he stopped smiling."
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 14 November 2008
Monday, 6 October 2008
A Case To Answer?
************FOOTBALL IS FIXED IS DAILY FOR OCTOBER************
When criminals are originally fingered by the police, their reaction to the discovery of their criminality in the following period is revealing, and forms a major part of the forensic psychology linked to the legal process.
So it is with football...
Are Bayern Munchen and Glasgow Rangers guilty of taking kickbacks to throw last year's UEFA Cup Semi Final and Final, respectively?
The matches at the weekend allowed our first assessment of the forensic psychology.
Rangers lost at St Mirren for the first time in 22 years - the only goal was scored by Stephen McGinn, grandson of former Celtic chairman Jack.
St Mirren had only one shot on target and one corner.
Rangers had 24 shots in total and 14 corners.
Visually, Rangers were dire, the irrepressible football of late being entirely absent from their performance.
Initial forensic psychological assessment - guilty.
Bayern Munchen had a home match against one of their few client clubs, Bochum.
3-1 up with five minutes to go, the Bavarian giants threw away their lead against a team that had previously picked up just one point in three away games.
But the forensic psychological impact on FC Bayern has been apparent for weeks - remember them slumping to being 0-5 down at home to a very moderate Werder Bremen team, this being followed by a dire performance in defeat at Hannover.
So that is just one point from the last three matches for the biggest team in Germany...
Initial forensic psychological assessment - guilty.
And, as we predicted in yesterday's post, the Hyperreality has disappeared from our event horizon.
There are two scenarios.
Either a leading British team were robbed of glory in the UEFA Cup Final by an underworld Russian mob...
...Or, a leading British team sold the match to an underworld Russian mob.
Either way, one might have thought that there might have been just a smidgen more coverage on what is, after all, a major international criminal conspiracy affecting the integrity of the second main European-wide football tournament.
Evidently nowhere near as critical as Michael Owen losing his place in the England squad, though.
"End of Owen's England career may be near" we are informed by the Telegraph.
End of the words 'football' and 'integrity' being uttered in close proximity to one another, would be our angle on your hyperrealities.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
When criminals are originally fingered by the police, their reaction to the discovery of their criminality in the following period is revealing, and forms a major part of the forensic psychology linked to the legal process.
So it is with football...
Are Bayern Munchen and Glasgow Rangers guilty of taking kickbacks to throw last year's UEFA Cup Semi Final and Final, respectively?
The matches at the weekend allowed our first assessment of the forensic psychology.
Rangers lost at St Mirren for the first time in 22 years - the only goal was scored by Stephen McGinn, grandson of former Celtic chairman Jack.
St Mirren had only one shot on target and one corner.
Rangers had 24 shots in total and 14 corners.
Visually, Rangers were dire, the irrepressible football of late being entirely absent from their performance.
Initial forensic psychological assessment - guilty.
Bayern Munchen had a home match against one of their few client clubs, Bochum.
3-1 up with five minutes to go, the Bavarian giants threw away their lead against a team that had previously picked up just one point in three away games.
But the forensic psychological impact on FC Bayern has been apparent for weeks - remember them slumping to being 0-5 down at home to a very moderate Werder Bremen team, this being followed by a dire performance in defeat at Hannover.
So that is just one point from the last three matches for the biggest team in Germany...
Initial forensic psychological assessment - guilty.
And, as we predicted in yesterday's post, the Hyperreality has disappeared from our event horizon.
There are two scenarios.
Either a leading British team were robbed of glory in the UEFA Cup Final by an underworld Russian mob...
...Or, a leading British team sold the match to an underworld Russian mob.
Either way, one might have thought that there might have been just a smidgen more coverage on what is, after all, a major international criminal conspiracy affecting the integrity of the second main European-wide football tournament.
Evidently nowhere near as critical as Michael Owen losing his place in the England squad, though.
"End of Owen's England career may be near" we are informed by the Telegraph.
End of the words 'football' and 'integrity' being uttered in close proximity to one another, would be our angle on your hyperrealities.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Sunday, 5 October 2008
'Kin 'Ell, Kinnear! Rangers Sold The UEFA Final?? #
************FOOTBALL IS FIXED IS DAILY FOR OCTOBER************
"The Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, has written that the Prime Minister 'resembles a tragic hero in a Hardy novel: an essentially good man brought down by one error of judgement'. What is this one error of judgement? The bank-rolling of two murderous colonial adventures? No. The unprecedented growth of the British arms industry and the sale of weapons to the poorest countries? No. The replacement of manufacturing and public service by an arcane cult serving the ultra-rich? No. The Prime Minister's 'folly' is 'postponing the election last year'." - John Pilger.
When truth is replaced by silence," said the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "the silence is a lie."
The Guardian is similarly silent when confronted with the global menace of underground football betting markets and matches rigged by teams, players or match officials.
So, while everybody else was discussing the dreadful standard of refereeing in the Premiership last weekend, the leading left-of-centre (sic) comic gave us "We Should Treat Our Referees Like Gods" by Steven Wells, a man who is evidently celebrating life in another solar system.
Journalistic abdication at its lowest ebb...
If you were diligent and observant, you may have spotted a brief glimpse of the most major footballing story of the week in The Guardian - it was online for a few hours before the hyperreal news took over.
So, while The Guardian focused on the critical newsworthy significance of a grown man swearing at journalists in a press conference, the Real news was absent.
Silence.
Apart from repeated coverage of the swearing - firstly, the breaking news, then, the transcript, followed by the video and the whole hyperreal farce being nicely terminated by a piece discussing the "awful lot of fuss there's been about Joe Kinnear's cussing".
How far up their own backsides do these people wish to venture?
Anyway.
Real news.
It is alleged that Zenit Leningrad bought last year's UEFA Cup via bribery, affecting both the Semi Final against Bayern Munchen and the Final in Manchester against Rangers.
While resisting the urge to utter "shame" in the latter case, this is not really the done thing.
Damn Russki's buying matches - that's Communism for you.
This story isn't just some gossipy bit of nonsense - its the Real McCoy.
Leading Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, famous for investigating Pinochet and Argentinian war criminals, Henry Kissinger and American war criminals in Guantanamo, has had 20 members of the leading and global Russian underworld gang, Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya, arrested in Spain. They have been held since June.
Garzón has phone intercepts where Gennadios Petrov, the gang leader, discussed the buying of the Semi Final 2nd Leg against FC Bayern.
Petrov is known to have links with Zenit and El Pais stated: "... that the organisation of Petrov had interests in Zenit, is manifestly clear."
Meanwhile, ABC said that Petrov boasted of spending €20-40 million buying match outcomes in the latter stages of last year's UEFA Cup. A further part of the tape reveals that "50 million" had been paid to the Bavarian side to lose the Second Leg of the Semi Final in Leningrad.
Garzón has asked German prosecutors to help with an investigation.
FC Bayern are evidently shocked that this Reality has come to light - ###########
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Eventually, a Bavarian spokesperson settled on the statement that FC Bayern have "no knowledge of such suspicions", ##################################
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Meanwhile, Zenit deny dishonesty and are threatening all sorts of shenanigans in response. They would be wise to wait for the release of the conversations on the Operation Troica tapes before adding buffoonery to their alleged criminality.
UEFA plan to investigate.
UEFA spokesperson, William Gaillard, stated with resolve: "We are going to look at this closely."
What?
As closely as you looked into Dynamo Tbilisi and Panionios, or the final Albanian Euro 2008 Qualifiers, or Liverpool v Besiktas in the Champions League or etc etc etc etc etc.
The same fate awaits all such investigations - bureaucratic burial at headquarters.
Bad for the brand, you see...
Early Warning GmbH are the 'police force' that UEFA utilise to investigate suspicious betting patterns.
They might as well as have used a latter day Inspector Clouseau.
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In the Semi Final First Leg, there was a clear agenda against Zenit - the match was refereed by leading UEFA light, Ľuboš Micheľ.
He gave Bayern a penalty which they proceeded to miss, he booked Zenit players with uncanny targeting, in that three of the four bookings resulted in key players missing from the Second Leg, including Andrei Arshavin. The suspensions meant that the Russian side went into the second match with only two fit and eligible defenders.
FC Bayern received no bookings, despite 13 fouls.
Indeed, Bayern would have won had not Lucio scored an improbable own goal to level things up.
In the First Leg, Bayern were rated at 76 by our Trading Team (100 = maximum; 0 = minimum).
In the Second Leg, Bayern fell to slightly unbelievable 33.
4-0 Zenit triumphed.
Henning Øvrebø officiated and there was nothing in his performance to suggest that he was involved with the alleged corruption. Indeed, he booked Pogrebnyak leading to the star striker missing the Final.
If Bayern were receiving kickbacks, it certainly did not show up in their summer transfer activity. ###########################################
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So, what about the Final itself, that glorious day when half of Glasgow vomited profusely in Manchester, in order to demonstrate their evolutionary zeal?
Well, once again, there was nothing in the performance of the match referee Frojdfeldt to imply involvement in illicit activities.
This would leave the bribery of opponents as the only feasible route to ensure victory.
One of the features of the Final was ###################################
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Usually, when we start sousveillance for motives, we seek out financial need rather than straight greed - it is a higher threshold of need that creates the incentives to bend Realities for personal gratification.
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Surely a Loyal Team with Loyal Supporters would not act with such treachery?
So far, so believable, if still slightly fuzzy.
There are some questions that are raised by the mainstream media's lack of willingness to publicise this massive story and by UEFA's inability to eradicate the menaces of gambling and match fixing.
Firstly, if Zenit did buy the Final AND Rangers had nothing to do with the illegalities, why aren't the British press jumping up and down, and generally raising a racket?
It was a European Final.
'Gers were potentially robbed of glory.
This most certainly isn't on the level of the Panionios game!
You also might think that a rabidly anti-Russian press in Britain might just have run with this story...
Secondly, in the words of one of our readers, "The Guardian don't really like let on about fixed matches, do they?"
That's what being pally with the bookies does for your journalistic integrity...
Thirdly, where exactly are Early Warning looking for match fixing? Because, in our humble opinion, it cannot be in the right locations.
Large numbers of matches are fixed at all phases of the three flagship UEFA tournaments.
Worse still, the professionals who are rigging the matches are gaming the policing!!!
Early Warning live up to their name - they provide UEFA with early warnings of unusual betting patterns in the early market stages. #########################
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All senior trading professionals make the vast majority of their earnings out of fixed matches - primary agents do the fixing, while secondary ones #############
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Unless proper and rigorous barriers are put in place, matches will continue to be rigged both for glory and betting purposes.
As it currently stands, we know of certain market operators #############
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UEFA are none the wiser.
Of course, by Monday morning, this story will never have happened.
It is an invalid Reality. It cannot be reported.
We expect a rapturous build up to England versus Kazakhstan instead.
And we'll let Mr Gaillard into a little secret...
... the insiders in the England team do not place their money early, and they do not place their money publicly.
If UEFA want to resolve the issue of integrity in football, they are going to have to team up with FIFA and go after these private markets.
It is our motion that the liabilities on the ########################## account will be indicative of the outcome of the England game.
There you go, Early Warning, investigate it...
Unfortunately, the blocked out parts of the posts and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
"The Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, has written that the Prime Minister 'resembles a tragic hero in a Hardy novel: an essentially good man brought down by one error of judgement'. What is this one error of judgement? The bank-rolling of two murderous colonial adventures? No. The unprecedented growth of the British arms industry and the sale of weapons to the poorest countries? No. The replacement of manufacturing and public service by an arcane cult serving the ultra-rich? No. The Prime Minister's 'folly' is 'postponing the election last year'." - John Pilger.
When truth is replaced by silence," said the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "the silence is a lie."
The Guardian is similarly silent when confronted with the global menace of underground football betting markets and matches rigged by teams, players or match officials.
So, while everybody else was discussing the dreadful standard of refereeing in the Premiership last weekend, the leading left-of-centre (sic) comic gave us "We Should Treat Our Referees Like Gods" by Steven Wells, a man who is evidently celebrating life in another solar system.
Journalistic abdication at its lowest ebb...
If you were diligent and observant, you may have spotted a brief glimpse of the most major footballing story of the week in The Guardian - it was online for a few hours before the hyperreal news took over.
So, while The Guardian focused on the critical newsworthy significance of a grown man swearing at journalists in a press conference, the Real news was absent.
Silence.
Apart from repeated coverage of the swearing - firstly, the breaking news, then, the transcript, followed by the video and the whole hyperreal farce being nicely terminated by a piece discussing the "awful lot of fuss there's been about Joe Kinnear's cussing".
How far up their own backsides do these people wish to venture?
Anyway.
Real news.
It is alleged that Zenit Leningrad bought last year's UEFA Cup via bribery, affecting both the Semi Final against Bayern Munchen and the Final in Manchester against Rangers.
While resisting the urge to utter "shame" in the latter case, this is not really the done thing.
Damn Russki's buying matches - that's Communism for you.
This story isn't just some gossipy bit of nonsense - its the Real McCoy.
Leading Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, famous for investigating Pinochet and Argentinian war criminals, Henry Kissinger and American war criminals in Guantanamo, has had 20 members of the leading and global Russian underworld gang, Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya, arrested in Spain. They have been held since June.
Garzón has phone intercepts where Gennadios Petrov, the gang leader, discussed the buying of the Semi Final 2nd Leg against FC Bayern.
Petrov is known to have links with Zenit and El Pais stated: "... that the organisation of Petrov had interests in Zenit, is manifestly clear."
Meanwhile, ABC said that Petrov boasted of spending €20-40 million buying match outcomes in the latter stages of last year's UEFA Cup. A further part of the tape reveals that "50 million" had been paid to the Bavarian side to lose the Second Leg of the Semi Final in Leningrad.
Garzón has asked German prosecutors to help with an investigation.
FC Bayern are evidently shocked that this Reality has come to light - ###########
###########################################################
Eventually, a Bavarian spokesperson settled on the statement that FC Bayern have "no knowledge of such suspicions", ##################################
#############################################################
###################
###################################################
###############################################
#############################################################
#################
Meanwhile, Zenit deny dishonesty and are threatening all sorts of shenanigans in response. They would be wise to wait for the release of the conversations on the Operation Troica tapes before adding buffoonery to their alleged criminality.
UEFA plan to investigate.
UEFA spokesperson, William Gaillard, stated with resolve: "We are going to look at this closely."
What?
As closely as you looked into Dynamo Tbilisi and Panionios, or the final Albanian Euro 2008 Qualifiers, or Liverpool v Besiktas in the Champions League or etc etc etc etc etc.
The same fate awaits all such investigations - bureaucratic burial at headquarters.
Bad for the brand, you see...
Early Warning GmbH are the 'police force' that UEFA utilise to investigate suspicious betting patterns.
They might as well as have used a latter day Inspector Clouseau.
#####################################################################
###########################################################
##########################################################
######################################################################
##########################################################
In the Semi Final First Leg, there was a clear agenda against Zenit - the match was refereed by leading UEFA light, Ľuboš Micheľ.
He gave Bayern a penalty which they proceeded to miss, he booked Zenit players with uncanny targeting, in that three of the four bookings resulted in key players missing from the Second Leg, including Andrei Arshavin. The suspensions meant that the Russian side went into the second match with only two fit and eligible defenders.
FC Bayern received no bookings, despite 13 fouls.
Indeed, Bayern would have won had not Lucio scored an improbable own goal to level things up.
In the First Leg, Bayern were rated at 76 by our Trading Team (100 = maximum; 0 = minimum).
In the Second Leg, Bayern fell to slightly unbelievable 33.
4-0 Zenit triumphed.
Henning Øvrebø officiated and there was nothing in his performance to suggest that he was involved with the alleged corruption. Indeed, he booked Pogrebnyak leading to the star striker missing the Final.
If Bayern were receiving kickbacks, it certainly did not show up in their summer transfer activity. ###########################################
##################################################
#########################################################################
##################################
###############################################
So, what about the Final itself, that glorious day when half of Glasgow vomited profusely in Manchester, in order to demonstrate their evolutionary zeal?
Well, once again, there was nothing in the performance of the match referee Frojdfeldt to imply involvement in illicit activities.
This would leave the bribery of opponents as the only feasible route to ensure victory.
One of the features of the Final was ###################################
##########################################################
######################################################################
####################################
Usually, when we start sousveillance for motives, we seek out financial need rather than straight greed - it is a higher threshold of need that creates the incentives to bend Realities for personal gratification.
############################################################
######################################################
#################################################################
########################################################
##################################################################
#################
Surely a Loyal Team with Loyal Supporters would not act with such treachery?
So far, so believable, if still slightly fuzzy.
There are some questions that are raised by the mainstream media's lack of willingness to publicise this massive story and by UEFA's inability to eradicate the menaces of gambling and match fixing.
Firstly, if Zenit did buy the Final AND Rangers had nothing to do with the illegalities, why aren't the British press jumping up and down, and generally raising a racket?
It was a European Final.
'Gers were potentially robbed of glory.
This most certainly isn't on the level of the Panionios game!
You also might think that a rabidly anti-Russian press in Britain might just have run with this story...
Secondly, in the words of one of our readers, "The Guardian don't really like let on about fixed matches, do they?"
That's what being pally with the bookies does for your journalistic integrity...
Thirdly, where exactly are Early Warning looking for match fixing? Because, in our humble opinion, it cannot be in the right locations.
Large numbers of matches are fixed at all phases of the three flagship UEFA tournaments.
Worse still, the professionals who are rigging the matches are gaming the policing!!!
Early Warning live up to their name - they provide UEFA with early warnings of unusual betting patterns in the early market stages. #########################
##################################################################
############
##############################################################
#############################################################
All senior trading professionals make the vast majority of their earnings out of fixed matches - primary agents do the fixing, while secondary ones #############
#######################################################
#######################################
###################
Unless proper and rigorous barriers are put in place, matches will continue to be rigged both for glory and betting purposes.
As it currently stands, we know of certain market operators #############
##################################################################
#####################
###################################################################
UEFA are none the wiser.
Of course, by Monday morning, this story will never have happened.
It is an invalid Reality. It cannot be reported.
We expect a rapturous build up to England versus Kazakhstan instead.
And we'll let Mr Gaillard into a little secret...
... the insiders in the England team do not place their money early, and they do not place their money publicly.
If UEFA want to resolve the issue of integrity in football, they are going to have to team up with FIFA and go after these private markets.
It is our motion that the liabilities on the ########################## account will be indicative of the outcome of the England game.
There you go, Early Warning, investigate it...
Unfortunately, the blocked out parts of the posts and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Why Are Catholics Better At Football? #
While trying to determine how the Glasgow Rangers website could possibly attempt to give any justification for the singing of "The Famine Song" by their fans at the recent match with Celtic, a Cavern of Reality appeared before my eyes.
Its because 'we' are better at footie than them.
That's what it is...
Ha!
Sorted :)
"The Famine's over, why don't you fuck off home" rang out the mustachioed hordes as their team were thrashing the Bhoys last week.
Oh, how we laughed at the Hyperreality.
A team, once the pride of the immigrant Irish community, but now managed by a dodgy bookmaker, a war criminal, a neo-capitalist and with an allegedly racist manager was playing the British team, now the plaything of a failing property developer whose business is in the process of exploring the peripheries of the global credit crunch, and a team with a capacity for, shall we say, influencing events on the field of play.
Singing songs of, not yesteryear, but yester-century seems to be quite the perfect backdrop for something that bears no linkage with Reality.
It is offensive.
But, so is what is happening to football.
So, the two things would seem to dovetail to me.
Just like playing the flute and undertaking paramilitary marching in front of Celtic fans.
We can take a joke.
No problem.
Its a power thing in Scotland.
Rangers could never abide the fact that we were better than them at football.
So they rig it.
They've always rigged it.
The fact that we are anywhere near their inflated total of league titles is testimony in itself to our superiority at football.
From the position of power, songs and sentiments are those of oppression - "Up To Our Knees In Fenian Blood" and "We Are The Billy Goats".
From the position of being oppressed, songs and sentiments take on an altogether more defensive note with the spirit of resistance and rebellion as a statement of often reluctant aggression - "The Fields Of Athenry", "Joe McDonnell", "The Men Behind The Wire", "Four Green Fields" and the like.
So, we'll qualify our original question:
"Excluding the Trophy Totalisation Hyperrealities of Scotland and Northern Regions of the Emerald Isle, Why are Catholics Better at Football?"
Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France (to a large extent), Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Poland, Germany (arguably) and Eire (with Jamaica, the very foundation of the English national team in recent years)...
Every single World Cup has been won by a nominally Catholic country apart from the one donated to this Sceptred Isle by a dodgy Russian linesperson in '66.
Other countries import the global Catholic underworld and rearrange their nationalities to suit the Hyperreality.
So, Poles Klose and Podolski lead the German attack rather than the Polish.
And, there are Brazilians in most second and third tier national teams plus some higher level ones like Croatia and Japan.
Having escaped Catholicism in youth, have I been blind to the fact that, despite all the weird guilt stuff and the vision that it is quite reasonable for "forty year old virgins in dresses to beat young boys on the backside with wooden sticks", Catholicism has brought something good to the world - Proper Football?
And while I was contemplating this very thought, a stream of consciousness flowed with more questions about the world in which we find ourselves...
Unfortunately, the remainder of this post and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Its because 'we' are better at footie than them.
That's what it is...
Ha!
Sorted :)
"The Famine's over, why don't you fuck off home" rang out the mustachioed hordes as their team were thrashing the Bhoys last week.
Oh, how we laughed at the Hyperreality.
A team, once the pride of the immigrant Irish community, but now managed by a dodgy bookmaker, a war criminal, a neo-capitalist and with an allegedly racist manager was playing the British team, now the plaything of a failing property developer whose business is in the process of exploring the peripheries of the global credit crunch, and a team with a capacity for, shall we say, influencing events on the field of play.
Singing songs of, not yesteryear, but yester-century seems to be quite the perfect backdrop for something that bears no linkage with Reality.
It is offensive.
But, so is what is happening to football.
So, the two things would seem to dovetail to me.
Just like playing the flute and undertaking paramilitary marching in front of Celtic fans.
We can take a joke.
No problem.
Its a power thing in Scotland.
Rangers could never abide the fact that we were better than them at football.
So they rig it.
They've always rigged it.
The fact that we are anywhere near their inflated total of league titles is testimony in itself to our superiority at football.
From the position of power, songs and sentiments are those of oppression - "Up To Our Knees In Fenian Blood" and "We Are The Billy Goats".
From the position of being oppressed, songs and sentiments take on an altogether more defensive note with the spirit of resistance and rebellion as a statement of often reluctant aggression - "The Fields Of Athenry", "Joe McDonnell", "The Men Behind The Wire", "Four Green Fields" and the like.
So, we'll qualify our original question:
"Excluding the Trophy Totalisation Hyperrealities of Scotland and Northern Regions of the Emerald Isle, Why are Catholics Better at Football?"
Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France (to a large extent), Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Poland, Germany (arguably) and Eire (with Jamaica, the very foundation of the English national team in recent years)...
Every single World Cup has been won by a nominally Catholic country apart from the one donated to this Sceptred Isle by a dodgy Russian linesperson in '66.
Other countries import the global Catholic underworld and rearrange their nationalities to suit the Hyperreality.
So, Poles Klose and Podolski lead the German attack rather than the Polish.
And, there are Brazilians in most second and third tier national teams plus some higher level ones like Croatia and Japan.
Having escaped Catholicism in youth, have I been blind to the fact that, despite all the weird guilt stuff and the vision that it is quite reasonable for "forty year old virgins in dresses to beat young boys on the backside with wooden sticks", Catholicism has brought something good to the world - Proper Football?
And while I was contemplating this very thought, a stream of consciousness flowed with more questions about the world in which we find ourselves...
Unfortunately, the remainder of this post and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 28 August 2008
How To Be A Postmodern Football Fan #
Already bored of the fake theatre of the new season in the English Premiership?
Do you have any concern where on earth Dimitar Berbatov might end up?
Is it really true that Liverpool are focusing on the Premiership rather than the Champions League?
And, if it is true (we think it is), should it really have any consequence on our lives?
And, what about Ronaldo?
It doesn't matter, see...
...when you think about it.
Gary Imlach is right.
It is not possible to passionately support a PLC.
And, in that case, it is totally im-fucking-possible to support the business entity of an oligarch or a human rights abuser.
Chelsea aren't Chelsea anymore.
Manchester City aren't Citeh anymore.
And, as for Portsmouth...
The Manchester United fans got it right with the creation of FC United Of Manchester.
If the rules allow for the leveraged buyout of your club by a bunch of neo-capitalist philistines from Texas or wherever, then your leisure time is best spent elsewhere.
Like Buxton, where FCUoM won a thrilling and Real football match 1-0 at the weekend.
Anyone fancy helping set up a FC Celtic Of Glasgow?
It is not possible to passionately support chairman John Reid.
Or owner Dermot Desmond...
Or better still.
With the end of football-as-we-knew-it in Britain, why not simply pick a team off the global conveyor belt?
And rather than choosing teams for spurious reasons like "the plane stopped off at their airport for refuelling" or "their away kit looks a bit like the Arsenal shirt", lets choose a proper reason for supporting a football team.
Politics.
Below we explore the range of options for the discerning post-Marxist, postmodernist, class conscious football fan.
If you are of a more fascistic persuasion, you will probably find that the neighbours of the sides listed below will offer you your required daily dose of neo-nuttiness.
We have kept away from the major rivalries in British and Six Counties football - Celtic/Rangers, Liverpool/Everton, Villa/Birmingham, Arsenal/Spurs, Linfield/Cliftonville, United/City - as such club animosities have been historically based on religion primarily, although, in a non-meritocratic tiered society like Britain, religion usually defines class.
* Boca Juniors (Argentina) - If you are after a big team to replace ManLiverArseSki, Boca is the only option. Maradona would be reason enough, and then Carlos Tevez came along.
Living in La Boca, next to the Bombonera stadium, Tevez refused to move once he became a favourite Boca player. He simply had a tunnel built from his run-down home to the stadium so that he could avoid all the adulation on match-day.
Boca have a totally Real history including the tango and class warfare. The masses who support Boca have always struggled to cope with economic hardship and solace has been found in the solidarity that is Boca Juniors.
La Bombonera is the best venue to watch football and being a Boca fan is even more long-lasting than the Citeh-til-I-die type of longevity in that there is a line of coffins available for dead Boca fans (or living River Plate one's, one assumes), as well as an official Boca cemetary (once again, not to be confused with the numerous unofficial examples that litter Buenos Aires).
Proper footballers, proper fans, proper history.
Unfortunately, the remainder of this post and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Do you have any concern where on earth Dimitar Berbatov might end up?
Is it really true that Liverpool are focusing on the Premiership rather than the Champions League?
And, if it is true (we think it is), should it really have any consequence on our lives?
And, what about Ronaldo?
It doesn't matter, see...
...when you think about it.
Gary Imlach is right.
It is not possible to passionately support a PLC.
And, in that case, it is totally im-fucking-possible to support the business entity of an oligarch or a human rights abuser.
Chelsea aren't Chelsea anymore.
Manchester City aren't Citeh anymore.
And, as for Portsmouth...
The Manchester United fans got it right with the creation of FC United Of Manchester.
If the rules allow for the leveraged buyout of your club by a bunch of neo-capitalist philistines from Texas or wherever, then your leisure time is best spent elsewhere.
Like Buxton, where FCUoM won a thrilling and Real football match 1-0 at the weekend.
Anyone fancy helping set up a FC Celtic Of Glasgow?
It is not possible to passionately support chairman John Reid.
Or owner Dermot Desmond...
Or better still.
With the end of football-as-we-knew-it in Britain, why not simply pick a team off the global conveyor belt?
And rather than choosing teams for spurious reasons like "the plane stopped off at their airport for refuelling" or "their away kit looks a bit like the Arsenal shirt", lets choose a proper reason for supporting a football team.
Politics.
Below we explore the range of options for the discerning post-Marxist, postmodernist, class conscious football fan.
If you are of a more fascistic persuasion, you will probably find that the neighbours of the sides listed below will offer you your required daily dose of neo-nuttiness.
We have kept away from the major rivalries in British and Six Counties football - Celtic/Rangers, Liverpool/Everton, Villa/Birmingham, Arsenal/Spurs, Linfield/Cliftonville, United/City - as such club animosities have been historically based on religion primarily, although, in a non-meritocratic tiered society like Britain, religion usually defines class.
* Boca Juniors (Argentina) - If you are after a big team to replace ManLiverArseSki, Boca is the only option. Maradona would be reason enough, and then Carlos Tevez came along.
Living in La Boca, next to the Bombonera stadium, Tevez refused to move once he became a favourite Boca player. He simply had a tunnel built from his run-down home to the stadium so that he could avoid all the adulation on match-day.
Boca have a totally Real history including the tango and class warfare. The masses who support Boca have always struggled to cope with economic hardship and solace has been found in the solidarity that is Boca Juniors.
La Bombonera is the best venue to watch football and being a Boca fan is even more long-lasting than the Citeh-til-I-die type of longevity in that there is a line of coffins available for dead Boca fans (or living River Plate one's, one assumes), as well as an official Boca cemetary (once again, not to be confused with the numerous unofficial examples that litter Buenos Aires).
Proper footballers, proper fans, proper history.
Unfortunately, the remainder of this post and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
The Fetishism Of The English Premiership - A Flashback
The new subscription structure of Football Is Fixed includes provision for a couple of Flashback posts per month, in order that we may either demonstrate our prescience or allow for the continuation of the arguments set out in the original post.
The article below was originally printed in April 2008 and relates to the illegal machinations that were being unveiled in order that the English Premiership title race would go to the wire.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
THE FETISHISM OF THE ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP
What have Robert Mugabe and ################# in common?
They are both prone to manipulate realities for personal gratification.
The outrageously racist coverage in the northern hemispheric media regarding the situation in Zimbabwe stands in marked contrast to a dissimilar lack of coverage for the grotesque corruption underpinning the world of English football.
Okay so, Mugabe has lost the plot and needs to stand aside. But let us not forget that the man was a liberation hero and let us also not forget the fact that Rhodesia was a vicious fascistic racist monstrosity - a fact conveniently forgotten both in the current mainstream media coverage as well as in the press focus around the time of independence in 1980. Modern day Mugabe merely represents your average "absolute power corrupts absolutely" template of political psychopathy - a bit like Dick Cheney or Silvio Berlusconi, only Black. The Zimbabwean president's manipulation of the electoral results is his attempt to establish a fake reality loosely based on that other fake reality known as democracy.
################# is also autocratic. He is omnipotent within the Premier League and, as such, he is directly responsible for everything which occurs on his watch. And that would necessarily include corruption.
Integrity is crossed out in crayon in the ######### family dictionary whereas profit is underlined several times together with an adjacent asterisk.
Football is not supposed to be a handicap sport. Unlike horseracing, where talented creatures are provided with equalising weights for the benefit of the bookmaking industry, football is supposed to be about level playing fields and fair play and meritocratic glory. Of course, it has never been that thing but, historically, it always, at least, had tentacles that reached back to a purer form of the game - a recreation. Recreation, the very name, to re-create - football was a celebration, a joyous freedom from the yoke of wage slavery.
Posh people possess neither soul nor culture. To offset this palpable vacuum of an existence, they establish fake cultures that are always based on one basic premise, namely, that the culture must be entirely opaque to all "lesser" beings - think Wagner, polo, amateur dramatics, croquet, hunting or whatever.
The original takeover of football was also simply posh people buying playthings. But, what Scudamore is presiding over is the complete demolition of football as a sport and the reconstruction of the Illusion of football as a gambling and media medium. This Illusion represents a fetishistic version of the game which bears no relation to the Reality of the original sport. Lets look at a few examples which demonstrate the conveyor belt of corruption which has produced this Illusion.
Steaua Bucureşti represent the oldskool. At the mid-season break, the army team trailed league leaders CFR Cluj by 10 points. This situation was anathema to controversial weirdo, Gigi Becali, the fundamentalist orthodox christian head-the-ball who corrupts both Romanian football and wider society. He made the Divizia A title race into a matter of god and nationalism - Cluj are soft western christians run by Transylvanian Hungarians, you see, and, consequently, they must not be allowed to win the league. These two factors provide the "just" foundation for gross corruption. Becali buys games. He buys referees, assistant referees, the opponents of CFR Cluj, the opponents of Steaua - all in the name of national and religious pride. Oh, and profit... The refereeing in favour of Steaua has been astonishing by its lack of any attempt to conceal the machinations being perpetrated in their favour. Just one example was the key Bucureşti derby versus Rapid (the team of the Roma community and the railway workers and, by some distance, the only one of the Big 3 who a person of sound mind might support). Steaua trailed 1-0 with time running out when the referee, Alexandru Deaconu, imitated Hugh Dallas' headbutting the queen incident, only with a cigarette lighter. The game was abandoned and Steaua were given a 3-0 win proving, once and for all, that god does indeed move in mysterious ways. The fact that Deaconu and his assistants were photographed secretly meeting in a petrol station three days prior to the derby obviously has absolutely no significance here!
Romanian Federation Director, Ionut Lupescu, stated: "We can't tolerate it anymore as refereeing has fallen under the control of a group of club owners and presidents - an efficient way to rig matches".
Can it be long before we get to see the image of ########### and his assistants hanging around the car park at Knutsford Services waiting for the man? We don't think so - although it will probably be a golf clubhouse or a masonic hall, away from prying eyes...
Which brings us to the second type of corruption, the type that represents the complete breaking of the link between the Reality and the Illusion of football. For, although Steaua's title is flawed and invalid, it is simply the standard example of club institutional power. What we have in the Premiership is a very different beast.
Lets focus on those lovable rogues at Chelsea for this one.
We have a suggestion before we start. Branding being everything in football nowadays, the Chelsea brand is dated in many inappropriate ways by the nickname, The Pensioners. The other option, The Blues, similarly shows a typical prawn-sandwich-munching lack of ingenuity. In deference to post-match events at the weekend, we would like to suggest "The Fucking Immigrants" - this is meant, of course, as a reclamation of an abusive term in the same way that it is cool to use nigger, paddy or queer when appropriate.
Anyway, The Fucking Immigrants are the Illusion. Not content with the buying of Premiership matches à la Steaua, Chelsea are also working very closely alongside the ##############, the ############################################### and ### Television to achieve this Illusion.
The media, the advertisers but, far more influentially, the bookmakers and the Premier League all required one thing - the creation of a Premiership conclusion that is fundamentally spectaclist. More people buy the papers as the cliffhanger develops, more beer is drunk as conversations focus on the fake excitement, more people watch the games on tv giving joy to the odious and invalid world of advertising, more bums sit on Oven Chip Stadium seats, more global territories buy the visuals of the manipulated encore of a conclusion, more fortunes are made by bookmakers and their accomplices via the rigging of match outcomes. What could be finer?
It is not only match outcomes that are fixed. The Premier League and Sky have fine tuned the fixture list manipulations to maximise the possibility of the farce going down to the very last game, the very last injury time minute of the very last game if feasible. Or, perhaps, if United and The Fucking Immigrants are only separated by goal difference, we could have a global series of head-to-heads to determine the "actual" winners of the Illusion 2007/08. Why hasn't ######### come up with that one yet?
Towards the conclusion of any competition where integrity has not yet turned her head and ran, the issue of fair play and equality of opportunity is everything. The coincidence of kick off times for the last rounds of games is seen as the basic condition of late season fairness around Europe - in the relatively uncorrupt Bundesliga, the last two rounds of games are concurrent while in Serie A, which is slightly more dodgy, the last four rounds all start at the same time. In the English Premiership, by some distance the MOST corrupt of these three territories, only the last round of matches are concurrent. And, even then, advantage through kick off delay is the norm.
The final league table which results from this criminality is the conclusion to this Illusion. And it is false, doubly falsified by further falsification of an earlier fallacy.
The Premiership is not the only English league to demonstrate this imbalance as the decision to allow West Bromwich Albion and Southampton, the latter the most powerful of the relegation threatened teams, to play last Monday night when all the other results were known clearly demonstrates.
Of course, the Scottish Premier League simply extends the season to reach a suitable accommodation of the Illusion. It is worthy of note, here, that FC United of Manchester had to play their last 11 games in a 26 day period and still finished runners up in the UniBond 1st Division North although this, of course, ignores the fact that the SPL and Rangers don't do second.
Another example of postmodernist reality is provided by Portsmouth who, on top of all other illegality and criminality, have been allowed to reach Wembley for the season's culinary finale. The FA are clearly in a love triangle with the Premier League and Pompey as the south coast outfit ########################################################################################### The rewards for such criminalised machinations and the atmospheric calm-before-the-storm of Redknapp's legal travails is not only an FA Cup Final place but also a listing for Fratton Park on the roster of venues for the Über-Illusion of the 2018 World Cup bid.
How many more spectacular images of a consumerist society are to be laid at the doors of Gaydamak and Redknapp?
Our final port of call, on this voyage around footballing antisocials, is Eastlands. We posted on Sunday that Thaksin had spat out his dummy due to his prime ministerial proxy exhibiting freedom of association. A cat had to be kicked and that feline was Swedish Forest Cat, Sven Goran Eriksson. I am grateful to the citeh-citeh blog (www.citeh-citeh.blogspot.com) for pointing out to us that: "Not content with his photo on the front cover of the Fulham matchday programme, Thaksin then ordered his editors to insert a further six photos in not one, but two self-flattering articles. If this wasn't enough, he then took to the field before and after the game".
Then he lost the plot Bangkok style and sacked his one real competitive advantage. Who else is going to go to the City of Manchester under the latter day Far East version of Mussolini?
Noel Gallagher sums it right regarding Shinawatra: "He seems like a bit of a nutcase". And if Noel met Sven: "I'd give him a big kiss and tell him 'you know what, take him to the cleaners'".
Still, can't wait for the Champions League Final between Manchester's München Memories Brand and either The Fucking Immigrants (would they become The Fucking Emigrants for the Final?) or The Fucking Scousers (joke). Whichever "English" teams participate in the Champions League Final, the match will undoubtedly be ruined by the impact of Power and Illusion. There is a solution.
UEFA should select an upwardly mobile and talented young referee and three assistants from a random country and secrete them away for three weeks until the day of the event. As the teams line up on the pitch, the match officials will enter via helicopter. At half time, a platoon of Ghurkas will accompany the officials to and from the changing rooms. Additionally, all key match decisions will be determined utilising video replays. Lets see Roman or Tom buy that one!
Feuerbach: "But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence... truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness".
Unfortunately, the blocked out parts of the posts and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
The article below was originally printed in April 2008 and relates to the illegal machinations that were being unveiled in order that the English Premiership title race would go to the wire.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
THE FETISHISM OF THE ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP
What have Robert Mugabe and ################# in common?
They are both prone to manipulate realities for personal gratification.
The outrageously racist coverage in the northern hemispheric media regarding the situation in Zimbabwe stands in marked contrast to a dissimilar lack of coverage for the grotesque corruption underpinning the world of English football.
Okay so, Mugabe has lost the plot and needs to stand aside. But let us not forget that the man was a liberation hero and let us also not forget the fact that Rhodesia was a vicious fascistic racist monstrosity - a fact conveniently forgotten both in the current mainstream media coverage as well as in the press focus around the time of independence in 1980. Modern day Mugabe merely represents your average "absolute power corrupts absolutely" template of political psychopathy - a bit like Dick Cheney or Silvio Berlusconi, only Black. The Zimbabwean president's manipulation of the electoral results is his attempt to establish a fake reality loosely based on that other fake reality known as democracy.
################# is also autocratic. He is omnipotent within the Premier League and, as such, he is directly responsible for everything which occurs on his watch. And that would necessarily include corruption.
Integrity is crossed out in crayon in the ######### family dictionary whereas profit is underlined several times together with an adjacent asterisk.
Football is not supposed to be a handicap sport. Unlike horseracing, where talented creatures are provided with equalising weights for the benefit of the bookmaking industry, football is supposed to be about level playing fields and fair play and meritocratic glory. Of course, it has never been that thing but, historically, it always, at least, had tentacles that reached back to a purer form of the game - a recreation. Recreation, the very name, to re-create - football was a celebration, a joyous freedom from the yoke of wage slavery.
Posh people possess neither soul nor culture. To offset this palpable vacuum of an existence, they establish fake cultures that are always based on one basic premise, namely, that the culture must be entirely opaque to all "lesser" beings - think Wagner, polo, amateur dramatics, croquet, hunting or whatever.
The original takeover of football was also simply posh people buying playthings. But, what Scudamore is presiding over is the complete demolition of football as a sport and the reconstruction of the Illusion of football as a gambling and media medium. This Illusion represents a fetishistic version of the game which bears no relation to the Reality of the original sport. Lets look at a few examples which demonstrate the conveyor belt of corruption which has produced this Illusion.
Steaua Bucureşti represent the oldskool. At the mid-season break, the army team trailed league leaders CFR Cluj by 10 points. This situation was anathema to controversial weirdo, Gigi Becali, the fundamentalist orthodox christian head-the-ball who corrupts both Romanian football and wider society. He made the Divizia A title race into a matter of god and nationalism - Cluj are soft western christians run by Transylvanian Hungarians, you see, and, consequently, they must not be allowed to win the league. These two factors provide the "just" foundation for gross corruption. Becali buys games. He buys referees, assistant referees, the opponents of CFR Cluj, the opponents of Steaua - all in the name of national and religious pride. Oh, and profit... The refereeing in favour of Steaua has been astonishing by its lack of any attempt to conceal the machinations being perpetrated in their favour. Just one example was the key Bucureşti derby versus Rapid (the team of the Roma community and the railway workers and, by some distance, the only one of the Big 3 who a person of sound mind might support). Steaua trailed 1-0 with time running out when the referee, Alexandru Deaconu, imitated Hugh Dallas' headbutting the queen incident, only with a cigarette lighter. The game was abandoned and Steaua were given a 3-0 win proving, once and for all, that god does indeed move in mysterious ways. The fact that Deaconu and his assistants were photographed secretly meeting in a petrol station three days prior to the derby obviously has absolutely no significance here!
Romanian Federation Director, Ionut Lupescu, stated: "We can't tolerate it anymore as refereeing has fallen under the control of a group of club owners and presidents - an efficient way to rig matches".
Can it be long before we get to see the image of ########### and his assistants hanging around the car park at Knutsford Services waiting for the man? We don't think so - although it will probably be a golf clubhouse or a masonic hall, away from prying eyes...
Which brings us to the second type of corruption, the type that represents the complete breaking of the link between the Reality and the Illusion of football. For, although Steaua's title is flawed and invalid, it is simply the standard example of club institutional power. What we have in the Premiership is a very different beast.
Lets focus on those lovable rogues at Chelsea for this one.
We have a suggestion before we start. Branding being everything in football nowadays, the Chelsea brand is dated in many inappropriate ways by the nickname, The Pensioners. The other option, The Blues, similarly shows a typical prawn-sandwich-munching lack of ingenuity. In deference to post-match events at the weekend, we would like to suggest "The Fucking Immigrants" - this is meant, of course, as a reclamation of an abusive term in the same way that it is cool to use nigger, paddy or queer when appropriate.
Anyway, The Fucking Immigrants are the Illusion. Not content with the buying of Premiership matches à la Steaua, Chelsea are also working very closely alongside the ##############, the ############################################### and ### Television to achieve this Illusion.
The media, the advertisers but, far more influentially, the bookmakers and the Premier League all required one thing - the creation of a Premiership conclusion that is fundamentally spectaclist. More people buy the papers as the cliffhanger develops, more beer is drunk as conversations focus on the fake excitement, more people watch the games on tv giving joy to the odious and invalid world of advertising, more bums sit on Oven Chip Stadium seats, more global territories buy the visuals of the manipulated encore of a conclusion, more fortunes are made by bookmakers and their accomplices via the rigging of match outcomes. What could be finer?
It is not only match outcomes that are fixed. The Premier League and Sky have fine tuned the fixture list manipulations to maximise the possibility of the farce going down to the very last game, the very last injury time minute of the very last game if feasible. Or, perhaps, if United and The Fucking Immigrants are only separated by goal difference, we could have a global series of head-to-heads to determine the "actual" winners of the Illusion 2007/08. Why hasn't ######### come up with that one yet?
Towards the conclusion of any competition where integrity has not yet turned her head and ran, the issue of fair play and equality of opportunity is everything. The coincidence of kick off times for the last rounds of games is seen as the basic condition of late season fairness around Europe - in the relatively uncorrupt Bundesliga, the last two rounds of games are concurrent while in Serie A, which is slightly more dodgy, the last four rounds all start at the same time. In the English Premiership, by some distance the MOST corrupt of these three territories, only the last round of matches are concurrent. And, even then, advantage through kick off delay is the norm.
The final league table which results from this criminality is the conclusion to this Illusion. And it is false, doubly falsified by further falsification of an earlier fallacy.
The Premiership is not the only English league to demonstrate this imbalance as the decision to allow West Bromwich Albion and Southampton, the latter the most powerful of the relegation threatened teams, to play last Monday night when all the other results were known clearly demonstrates.
Of course, the Scottish Premier League simply extends the season to reach a suitable accommodation of the Illusion. It is worthy of note, here, that FC United of Manchester had to play their last 11 games in a 26 day period and still finished runners up in the UniBond 1st Division North although this, of course, ignores the fact that the SPL and Rangers don't do second.
Another example of postmodernist reality is provided by Portsmouth who, on top of all other illegality and criminality, have been allowed to reach Wembley for the season's culinary finale. The FA are clearly in a love triangle with the Premier League and Pompey as the south coast outfit ########################################################################################### The rewards for such criminalised machinations and the atmospheric calm-before-the-storm of Redknapp's legal travails is not only an FA Cup Final place but also a listing for Fratton Park on the roster of venues for the Über-Illusion of the 2018 World Cup bid.
How many more spectacular images of a consumerist society are to be laid at the doors of Gaydamak and Redknapp?
Our final port of call, on this voyage around footballing antisocials, is Eastlands. We posted on Sunday that Thaksin had spat out his dummy due to his prime ministerial proxy exhibiting freedom of association. A cat had to be kicked and that feline was Swedish Forest Cat, Sven Goran Eriksson. I am grateful to the citeh-citeh blog (www.citeh-citeh.blogspot.com) for pointing out to us that: "Not content with his photo on the front cover of the Fulham matchday programme, Thaksin then ordered his editors to insert a further six photos in not one, but two self-flattering articles. If this wasn't enough, he then took to the field before and after the game".
Then he lost the plot Bangkok style and sacked his one real competitive advantage. Who else is going to go to the City of Manchester under the latter day Far East version of Mussolini?
Noel Gallagher sums it right regarding Shinawatra: "He seems like a bit of a nutcase". And if Noel met Sven: "I'd give him a big kiss and tell him 'you know what, take him to the cleaners'".
Still, can't wait for the Champions League Final between Manchester's München Memories Brand and either The Fucking Immigrants (would they become The Fucking Emigrants for the Final?) or The Fucking Scousers (joke). Whichever "English" teams participate in the Champions League Final, the match will undoubtedly be ruined by the impact of Power and Illusion. There is a solution.
UEFA should select an upwardly mobile and talented young referee and three assistants from a random country and secrete them away for three weeks until the day of the event. As the teams line up on the pitch, the match officials will enter via helicopter. At half time, a platoon of Ghurkas will accompany the officials to and from the changing rooms. Additionally, all key match decisions will be determined utilising video replays. Lets see Roman or Tom buy that one!
Feuerbach: "But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence... truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness".
Unfortunately, the blocked out parts of the posts and all posts labelled # are available in full to subscribers only.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 20 June 2008
Abramovich Seals Semi Final Spot For Germany
All happy football clubs resemble one another, each unhappy football club is unhappy in its own way.
One gentleman and his fleet of rocket-proof helicopters, flying around the Alpine region, is proving that, in a world of global media reach, the Butterfly Effect is both omnipresent as well as being highly entertaining from a sousveillance perspective.
One of the main issues with producing Football Is Fixed is choosing the positioning of the isolationist threshold. In that we occupy an unusual position in the loop, straddling the fence between being inside and outside the closed-shop that is the football industry, we possess an array of knowledge, much of which has to remain off-limits due to our arrangements with our contacts and the industry.
Or due to our proprietary trading...
However, it may be taken as a general rule that the substance that the press reveals is usually significantly different than the hyperreality at play.
Lets look at the Chelsea/Scolari mating dance to detect some of these disinformational news feeds.
Our story begins when Mourinho walks out of Stamford Bridge, just a few days prior to the Manchester United match. The Chelsea press release influenced a compliant and unquestioning media to state that the Special One had been sacked and that the employment of Avram Grant was a long-planned strategy.
Of course, this was a nonsense. One doesn't change a top manager, replacing him with an untried rookie, just days prior to such a key game.
Also, Abramovich chooses his minions carefully. Grant stands out as a stop-gap, which is what he was.
After the illusory completion to the Premiership season and having failed to buy the match officials for the Champions League Final, Abramovich set in motion his Summer Season of Chaos Theory.
When the helicopters touched down in Geneva on June 11th, Big Phil was after a big fill of his wallet compared to the coins being offered by the Portuguese FA. Everybody has their price and Abramovich, by bringing on board Scolari, actively destabilised summer strategies across Europe.
Firstly, the Portuguese camp deteriorated into in-fighting and discord following Scolari's announcement. This was evident when the Portugal Reserve team played Switzerland in the final group match and was even more obvious in last night's termination of Lisbon's campaign. All the pre-match markets globally were with the Portuguese which, considering the internal uproar, was rather short-sighted, really. Our contacts put us right and we were on Germany 10 minutes into the match.
Secondly, the Euro 2008 tournament has been impacted upon by the actions of Abramovich. Portugal were the strongest (and shortest-priced to win) team in their side of the Draw and the removal of Scolari even further tilts the allegedly level playing field in favour of this side of the Draw - Germany/ Croatia/ Turkey or Italy/ Spain/ Netherlands/ Russia?
Any attempt to ease the path of the Russian team's progress is repeatedly being obstacled by UEFA, however, and the choice of Luboš Michĕl to referee the Netherlands v Russia game is not a selection made in the corridors of power at Gazprom.
Perhaps the multitudinous Dutch fans spend more than the few very rich Russians?
Thirdly, Mourinho's close season transfer strategy at Internazionale has been severely disrupted by Abramovich's posturing. Several of Chelsea's players were known to be dissatisfied by virtually everything that had happened at the Bridge over the season and more than a few of these players were in touch with Mourinho. Drogba, Lampard, Carvalho, Ferreira and Essien were testing the waters but the appointment of Scolari changes the incentives. To Mourinho's detriment...
Fourthly, Manchester United will suffer due to the arrival of Big Phil. There are major rumours in Portugal that Carlos Queiroz will be offered the post of Portugal manager. And, what about Ronaldo? The private books show his most likely destination for next season to be Real Madrid, but Chelsea are now nearly neck-and-neck with Man Utd in the market. The third part of the anti-Mancunian treble whammy is that, next year, United will face a Chelsea competitor not only much stronger in playing personnel but also with superior management.
Fifthly, Abramovich has caused uproar elsewhere around the G14(18) with his close-seasonal power plays. Milan were diverted from Berlusconi's attempts to buy a Champions League place for next season at the expense of CSKA Sofia, who have been banned for being Bulgarian and corrupt, as opposed to being Italian and even more corrupt. The pseudo-distractions relating to Ancelotti and Kaká, together with the offer of Shevchenko (why?) meant that Abramovich maintained his Milanese high profile.
Sixthly, Porto were also banned from next years Champions League as punishment for match-fixing in the 2003/04 domestic season but UEFA, presumably after representations from the increasingly powerful Portuguese authorities and their increasingly powerful Russian contacts, have reversed the ban so that the G14(18) team can take its wrongful place in next season's marketing package.
CSKA Sofia are banned due to their debts; Porto are not banned after admitting to buying matches (incidentally while Mourinho was manager) - debts are evidently worse than corruption in the UEFA version of meritocracy.
Seventhly, Barcelona have had virtually everyone on their staff linked with Chelsea - Deco, Eto'o, Rijkaard, Ronaldinho etc etc. Disruption or what?
Abramovich has clearly gained his revenge. In a strategy of some meticulousness, he has ably confirmed Chelsea as a real force in European football while successfully undermining a whole array of opposition outfits.
He should never be underestimated.
Any oligarch who protects his yachts and helicopters from potential rocket attack is probably more than able to deal with the arrows of misfortune flying around the European game.
Chelsea remain a rancid organisation with a virtual complete absence of any individual who might count "principles" as a core competency. Abramovich will continue to distort the markets via his psychopathic approaches to both match outcomes and the global betting markets.
He will continue in his particular role as a destroyer of the great game.
This demonstration of Roman's strategic planning must be a very major concern within the sport. The man has set the summer template across the continent and any reaction will be outbid by the range of business tactics available to a clever man with an aversion to principled behaviour.
Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect - one meeting in Geneva represents all of the above.
One refereeing decision by an English policeman in Vienna results in a traffic signal operator in Rotherham receiving death threats.
One amphetamine-induced victory in Euro 2008 results in a 10 year old girl being shot in Turkey. "Its very sad and the more I hear of this, the more sorrow I feel" - states Fatih Terim, the Emperor, the man with the ultimate responsibility for the speedy victory against the Czech Republic.
As global interconnectedness and media control create states of equilibria that link our existences across the planet, chaos becomes a driving force of our hyperrealities.
Dietrological utilise a toolbox of quantitative approaches in our analyses of the markets - neural nets, fuzzy logic, systems thinking, game theory and much algorithmic stuff - but chaos is becoming the big picture infrastructural template of choice when faced with many postmodern hyperrealities.
Somehow it is apt that chaos is proving to be the mathematics of the decay of the shareholder capitalist entity.
A system based on chaos, is destroyed by chaos.
As the helicopters circle the Romanian camp looking for Adrian Mutu, and Felipe Scolari practices his English and shadow boxing for encounters with the pliable press of albion, spare a thought for the victims of the mass-criminalisation of football.
Just as, in Britain, 96% of dole fraud is prosecuted as opposed to only 4% of tax fraud, football is similarly selective in who receives punishments - the major transgressors, or the minor ones.
CSKA Sofia deserve punishment. But the punishment must fit the crime.
Gretna deserve to be demoted to the nth Division in Scotland (where n is a very large number). But Gretna are merely a client club of Rangers... Gretna are like one of those long-term periodic comets. They pass the Sun in a blaze of glory before that self-same Sun throws them back from whence they came, with the comets having lost much of their substance via the encounter. Comet Gretna 2008...
And, don't even get us started on Luton Town...
In football, Chelsea buy referees, Turkey use amphetamines, Portsmouth bet on their own matches, Porto involve themselves in match-fixing, Real Madrid tap up players, Milan buy anything that moves, Man Utd/Sky dominate the early Premiership years, referees are linked to clubs, institutions, the underworld, oligarchs, organised crime and the illegal underground betting markets, and inappropriate leech industries, like advertising, have a major say in the hyperrealities presented to you, the audience, as Spectacle.
And which of these Realities and Hyperrealities achieve significant column inches in the media circus?
It can be frustrating not to be able to print what we really know.
Isolationism and libel are strong incentives.
As our spectrum of contacts and colleagues within the game continues to expand, this will remain an issue of the utmost importance.
We have plans.
But, guess what?
We're staying isolationist about these too.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
One gentleman and his fleet of rocket-proof helicopters, flying around the Alpine region, is proving that, in a world of global media reach, the Butterfly Effect is both omnipresent as well as being highly entertaining from a sousveillance perspective.
One of the main issues with producing Football Is Fixed is choosing the positioning of the isolationist threshold. In that we occupy an unusual position in the loop, straddling the fence between being inside and outside the closed-shop that is the football industry, we possess an array of knowledge, much of which has to remain off-limits due to our arrangements with our contacts and the industry.
Or due to our proprietary trading...
However, it may be taken as a general rule that the substance that the press reveals is usually significantly different than the hyperreality at play.
Lets look at the Chelsea/Scolari mating dance to detect some of these disinformational news feeds.
Our story begins when Mourinho walks out of Stamford Bridge, just a few days prior to the Manchester United match. The Chelsea press release influenced a compliant and unquestioning media to state that the Special One had been sacked and that the employment of Avram Grant was a long-planned strategy.
Of course, this was a nonsense. One doesn't change a top manager, replacing him with an untried rookie, just days prior to such a key game.
Also, Abramovich chooses his minions carefully. Grant stands out as a stop-gap, which is what he was.
After the illusory completion to the Premiership season and having failed to buy the match officials for the Champions League Final, Abramovich set in motion his Summer Season of Chaos Theory.
When the helicopters touched down in Geneva on June 11th, Big Phil was after a big fill of his wallet compared to the coins being offered by the Portuguese FA. Everybody has their price and Abramovich, by bringing on board Scolari, actively destabilised summer strategies across Europe.
Firstly, the Portuguese camp deteriorated into in-fighting and discord following Scolari's announcement. This was evident when the Portugal Reserve team played Switzerland in the final group match and was even more obvious in last night's termination of Lisbon's campaign. All the pre-match markets globally were with the Portuguese which, considering the internal uproar, was rather short-sighted, really. Our contacts put us right and we were on Germany 10 minutes into the match.
Secondly, the Euro 2008 tournament has been impacted upon by the actions of Abramovich. Portugal were the strongest (and shortest-priced to win) team in their side of the Draw and the removal of Scolari even further tilts the allegedly level playing field in favour of this side of the Draw - Germany/ Croatia/ Turkey or Italy/ Spain/ Netherlands/ Russia?
Any attempt to ease the path of the Russian team's progress is repeatedly being obstacled by UEFA, however, and the choice of Luboš Michĕl to referee the Netherlands v Russia game is not a selection made in the corridors of power at Gazprom.
Perhaps the multitudinous Dutch fans spend more than the few very rich Russians?
Thirdly, Mourinho's close season transfer strategy at Internazionale has been severely disrupted by Abramovich's posturing. Several of Chelsea's players were known to be dissatisfied by virtually everything that had happened at the Bridge over the season and more than a few of these players were in touch with Mourinho. Drogba, Lampard, Carvalho, Ferreira and Essien were testing the waters but the appointment of Scolari changes the incentives. To Mourinho's detriment...
Fourthly, Manchester United will suffer due to the arrival of Big Phil. There are major rumours in Portugal that Carlos Queiroz will be offered the post of Portugal manager. And, what about Ronaldo? The private books show his most likely destination for next season to be Real Madrid, but Chelsea are now nearly neck-and-neck with Man Utd in the market. The third part of the anti-Mancunian treble whammy is that, next year, United will face a Chelsea competitor not only much stronger in playing personnel but also with superior management.
Fifthly, Abramovich has caused uproar elsewhere around the G14(18) with his close-seasonal power plays. Milan were diverted from Berlusconi's attempts to buy a Champions League place for next season at the expense of CSKA Sofia, who have been banned for being Bulgarian and corrupt, as opposed to being Italian and even more corrupt. The pseudo-distractions relating to Ancelotti and Kaká, together with the offer of Shevchenko (why?) meant that Abramovich maintained his Milanese high profile.
Sixthly, Porto were also banned from next years Champions League as punishment for match-fixing in the 2003/04 domestic season but UEFA, presumably after representations from the increasingly powerful Portuguese authorities and their increasingly powerful Russian contacts, have reversed the ban so that the G14(18) team can take its wrongful place in next season's marketing package.
CSKA Sofia are banned due to their debts; Porto are not banned after admitting to buying matches (incidentally while Mourinho was manager) - debts are evidently worse than corruption in the UEFA version of meritocracy.
Seventhly, Barcelona have had virtually everyone on their staff linked with Chelsea - Deco, Eto'o, Rijkaard, Ronaldinho etc etc. Disruption or what?
Abramovich has clearly gained his revenge. In a strategy of some meticulousness, he has ably confirmed Chelsea as a real force in European football while successfully undermining a whole array of opposition outfits.
He should never be underestimated.
Any oligarch who protects his yachts and helicopters from potential rocket attack is probably more than able to deal with the arrows of misfortune flying around the European game.
Chelsea remain a rancid organisation with a virtual complete absence of any individual who might count "principles" as a core competency. Abramovich will continue to distort the markets via his psychopathic approaches to both match outcomes and the global betting markets.
He will continue in his particular role as a destroyer of the great game.
This demonstration of Roman's strategic planning must be a very major concern within the sport. The man has set the summer template across the continent and any reaction will be outbid by the range of business tactics available to a clever man with an aversion to principled behaviour.
Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect - one meeting in Geneva represents all of the above.
One refereeing decision by an English policeman in Vienna results in a traffic signal operator in Rotherham receiving death threats.
One amphetamine-induced victory in Euro 2008 results in a 10 year old girl being shot in Turkey. "Its very sad and the more I hear of this, the more sorrow I feel" - states Fatih Terim, the Emperor, the man with the ultimate responsibility for the speedy victory against the Czech Republic.
As global interconnectedness and media control create states of equilibria that link our existences across the planet, chaos becomes a driving force of our hyperrealities.
Dietrological utilise a toolbox of quantitative approaches in our analyses of the markets - neural nets, fuzzy logic, systems thinking, game theory and much algorithmic stuff - but chaos is becoming the big picture infrastructural template of choice when faced with many postmodern hyperrealities.
Somehow it is apt that chaos is proving to be the mathematics of the decay of the shareholder capitalist entity.
A system based on chaos, is destroyed by chaos.
As the helicopters circle the Romanian camp looking for Adrian Mutu, and Felipe Scolari practices his English and shadow boxing for encounters with the pliable press of albion, spare a thought for the victims of the mass-criminalisation of football.
Just as, in Britain, 96% of dole fraud is prosecuted as opposed to only 4% of tax fraud, football is similarly selective in who receives punishments - the major transgressors, or the minor ones.
CSKA Sofia deserve punishment. But the punishment must fit the crime.
Gretna deserve to be demoted to the nth Division in Scotland (where n is a very large number). But Gretna are merely a client club of Rangers... Gretna are like one of those long-term periodic comets. They pass the Sun in a blaze of glory before that self-same Sun throws them back from whence they came, with the comets having lost much of their substance via the encounter. Comet Gretna 2008...
And, don't even get us started on Luton Town...
In football, Chelsea buy referees, Turkey use amphetamines, Portsmouth bet on their own matches, Porto involve themselves in match-fixing, Real Madrid tap up players, Milan buy anything that moves, Man Utd/Sky dominate the early Premiership years, referees are linked to clubs, institutions, the underworld, oligarchs, organised crime and the illegal underground betting markets, and inappropriate leech industries, like advertising, have a major say in the hyperrealities presented to you, the audience, as Spectacle.
And which of these Realities and Hyperrealities achieve significant column inches in the media circus?
It can be frustrating not to be able to print what we really know.
Isolationism and libel are strong incentives.
As our spectrum of contacts and colleagues within the game continues to expand, this will remain an issue of the utmost importance.
We have plans.
But, guess what?
We're staying isolationist about these too.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 21 April 2008
Will Father Timothy Flotsky Marry Corinne Tate?
70's pseudo-soap, Soap, provided warped twists to reality while also treating the downright improbable as a standard daily occurrence.
In its own way, Soap was a postmodern entity in that the show paraded the interaction between two dysfunctional extended American families as a series of images precessing through the phases to a total simulation of a family's Real purpose, if any such purpose exists.
Marital infidelity has never been so enjoyable.
The media output, news, stories, economies of truth, propaganda and disinformation of the last week in the world of Premiership football brought Soap back to mind, for that is what the beautiful game has become.
Firstly, Premiership football morphed into something that looked a little bit like football but somehow wasn't. Then Premiership football spent its time hiding the fact that it was, in fact, not really much to do with 23 men on a pitch with a ball at all anymore. Now Premiership football is entering the territory of the Hyperreal - Total Simulation.
Check out the crescendo of hype being decibelled up as we approach the solution to this year's version of the Crime.
A focus on the critical importance of maintaining an hysterical level of interest to the termination of this Crime is shared in a range of boardrooms - Sky, Setanta, the Premier League, the press, advertisers, the bookmakers and the clubs themselves (financially, at least).
Because we are also conditioned to spectacular climaxes, our whole lives having become just one long series of super-spectacles of dubious Reality, we too demand that the climax is orgasmic. The sense of deflation that would result if a Premiership premature ejaculation was the final scene would stop some viewers switching back on for the next series of the soap - Season 2008/2009.
To the plot so far...
"This is a story about two oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Thaksin Shinawatra. This is Chelsea. And this is Manchester City, and this is SOAP.
"Chelsea are run by an oligarch, Roman, with close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin.
"Arsenal are being slowly taken over by an oligarch, Alisher, who also has close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin. Alisher has allegedly made money from the drug trade and is close to people who think that boiling babies is a bit of a hoot.
"Roman has upset Boris, another oligarch, who does not get on with Gazprom or the Kremlin at all but who gets on very well indeed with Alisher. Boris says Roman used 'threats and intimidation' to get his financial wont.
"Nikolai is a friend of Boris who was in jail in Russia. But Roman could get him out of jail. Boris now wants £2 billion off Roman. Meanwhile, an editor at Alisher's newspaper 'falls' to his death from a hotel window in Moscow.
"Roman's empire is managed by holocaust survivor, Avram, who is married to an Israeli tv presenter and who is very very upset with the press. In a bizarre press conference he told the journalists: 'You can write whatever you want and I can answer what I want'. Of course, the press absolutely do write whatever they want.
"'Chelsea cheat. That is how they win. Arsenal prefer integrity. That is why they lose'. These are not sentiments that might find a place in the mainstream media.
"Arsenal are managed by Arsène. He is angry with the Premier League, the referees and the media. After his team had suffered an outrageous, and highly predictable run of corruption against their interests, Arsène complained: 'This team has been punished in the last seven weeks more so than any team I have seen'.
"Arsenal are not helped by the fact that Jens hates Manuel - 'I know he hates me' - and Nicklas hates one of the Emmanuel's' too. Fans have now stopped going to watch Arsenal as the modern day fan demands spectacular prizes as a reward for spectacular corruption. Arsenal are thinking of suing the Premier League for corruption against their interests and the financial losses accruing thereof.
"Chelsea are fighting against Manchester United for the Crime's Big Prize. Or, rather, Chelsea Reserves are fighting Man Utd Reserves for the 2nd Biggest Prize. Manchester have already won but the scammers require our mock climax. Following Chelsea's failure to beat Wigan in an allegedly fixed match, it was necessary to prevent Manchester winning in Lancashire. No problem. Rob earned some more decking and garden furniture courtesy of Roman after denying the Reds two obvious penalties.
"The BBC remains the prime media for Premiership football - propaganda for the elite, as ever. Lawro works for the Premier League. Lawro reckoned that the two incorrect penalty decisions 'didn't spoil the game', presumably meaning that is suitably spoiled already. Ian and Lee work for bookmakers. Ian has left the BBC complaining that he is only allowed to tell jokes containing an innuendo about lines of coke when really he has been sacked. Meanwhile, Lee just keeps on lying but always looks guilty when he is doing it.
"The only competition that is real (in the Illusory sense) is the Champions League which, this year, sees one national champion out of the last four teams. Roman will surely attempt to buy a place in the Final in Moscow having already bought Russia a place in the Euro 2008 Finals which follow. Opponents, Liverpool, are allegedly in crisis with Tom not talking to George or Rafa, Rafa not too happy with Rick but moderately keen on George while David's moustache gets more luxuriant.
"Rafa is consulting his lawyers after Neil, from a crystal palace, suggested: 'Integrity, doing what is right for the game, comes way down Rafa's list of priorities'. Rafa continues to cultivate the inappropriate goatie.
"Birmingham, Newcastle and Portsmouth are currently under investigation by the City of London police for financial shenanigans like false accounting and money laundering. The Birmingham owners were questioned by police last week and had 'happily done so' while the Portsmouth manager, 'Arry, has launched a counterclaim against the police after he originally judged that the police had to arrest you in order to ask you questions in the first place. 'Arry remains on bail while Birmingham are being bought by a billionaire gambling tycoon who was but a barber as recently as 10 years ago.
"This background of financial impropriety has not stopped Portsmouth reaching the FA Cup Final with the considerable aid of the referees. Portsmouth are effectively owned by an arms dealer with outstanding arrest warrants in France for illegal traffiking. Portsmouth are also closely linked to bookmakers in Moscow.
"This year's FA Cup Final will be refereed by randomiser-in-chief, Mike Dean - just a couple of years after he was banned from officiating for two months for being closely linked to an online tipster service, Arbitros Racing. Thoroughly deserved then...
"Another Roman runs Hearts and Roman of Hearts reckons that Scottish football is a fix which, of course, it is and always has been. Witness Rangers, also under City of London police investigation, and their assisted passage to the Cup Final against a Queen from the South (who will the 'Gers fans support?) and their presentation with the League title by the whistles of officialdom.
"The Premiership referees made 19 incorrect major calls between them over this last window of 10 games. 4 match outcomes were affected. Martin refereed two of these 10 games (at Everton on Thursday and Fulham on Saturday) before being the 4th official at Aston Villa on Sunday. On the internal PGMOB website, a FIFA accredited match official moaned: 'Why, oh why, has Martin got 3 games in 4 days when there are 10 or 11 other officials who would have been more suitable?'. We wonder why...
"Oligarchical Roman employs Frank. Frank employs 50 scouts globally searching for grassroots talent or enacting a modern day version of the slave trade, depending upon your point of view. Frank got Roman to employ Henk to undermine Avram, just as he had previously successfully poloniumated the atmosphere between Roman and José, a Special One. Frank's slaves assembled at a cost of over £6 million reached the Final of the Youth Cup but were beaten by a team largely comprising of inner city Mancunian youth which only went to show that those fifty scouts had been looking in the wrong locations all along.
"Manchester City, the winners of this Youth Reality, are owned by Thaksin. Thaksin doesn't like anyone very much although he is rather partial to the offshore baht and power. Policeman - prime minister - oligarch - robber - murderer - thief - political 'refugee' - black marketeer - football club owner. An unusual CV. Thaksin also believes himself to be the Last King of Thailand and refers to himself as 'His Excellency'. His excellency also hates human rights in a trigger happy sort of way. Thaksin doesn't like Sven either because Sven has failed in his task of special adviser to the king. The Reality of Manchester City Youth is one of the last of its type. Thaksin is busy importing substandard Thai youngsters, for political currency, and seeking highly marketable but overpriced prima donnas whose best days are surely behind them. The new players WILL, however, look rather Thai-chic descending down the airplane steps accompanying his excellency back into his empire.
"Thaksin is inappropriately close to Richard who runs the Hyperreality of Premiership football as a personal fiefdom on behalf of the bookmakers and Rupert's hyper-organisation. Thaksin helps Richard get what Richard wants and Richard helps Thaksin get what Thaksin wants. Rupert is omnipresent but not yet omnipotent".
"Will the Premiership title and relegation races go down to the wire? Does anyone really care? Will Pompey criminalise the FA Cup Final? Will 'Arry go to jail or will the police go to jail? Will the gambler buyout the pornographer and his moll at Birmingham? Will Dubai buy the Texas Reds? Is Thaksin going to jail or will he get his hands on the illicit treasure? Will Thaksin leave Richard? Will the French police catch Arkadi? Will he be linked to the killing of Savimbi by Mossad? Will the Kremlin get Arsenal? Are more babies to be boiled? Will the Kremlin get Euro 2008? Does the Kremlin intend increasing its portfolio of London soccer franchises further? Will we ever get used to autocratic power winning everything?"
"Confused? You soon will be. But all will be revealed in the next exciting episode of SOAP".
A Coda:
BBC: "A real pivotal week for you after so much work this season".
Wenger: "Yes, but I cannot blame the players because in both games [against Liverpool and United] we turned up, we played at our level but every single thing has turned against us since March. We have got a clear, clear message as well on many decisions which went against us. We understand it. We are not stupid".
BBC: "What do you mean by that?"
Wenger: "Nothing" [awkward silence for 10 seconds].
BBC: "Indeed. Well, let other people read into that comment shall we?"
Wenger: "You do what you want".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
In its own way, Soap was a postmodern entity in that the show paraded the interaction between two dysfunctional extended American families as a series of images precessing through the phases to a total simulation of a family's Real purpose, if any such purpose exists.
Marital infidelity has never been so enjoyable.
The media output, news, stories, economies of truth, propaganda and disinformation of the last week in the world of Premiership football brought Soap back to mind, for that is what the beautiful game has become.
Firstly, Premiership football morphed into something that looked a little bit like football but somehow wasn't. Then Premiership football spent its time hiding the fact that it was, in fact, not really much to do with 23 men on a pitch with a ball at all anymore. Now Premiership football is entering the territory of the Hyperreal - Total Simulation.
Check out the crescendo of hype being decibelled up as we approach the solution to this year's version of the Crime.
A focus on the critical importance of maintaining an hysterical level of interest to the termination of this Crime is shared in a range of boardrooms - Sky, Setanta, the Premier League, the press, advertisers, the bookmakers and the clubs themselves (financially, at least).
Because we are also conditioned to spectacular climaxes, our whole lives having become just one long series of super-spectacles of dubious Reality, we too demand that the climax is orgasmic. The sense of deflation that would result if a Premiership premature ejaculation was the final scene would stop some viewers switching back on for the next series of the soap - Season 2008/2009.
To the plot so far...
"This is a story about two oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Thaksin Shinawatra. This is Chelsea. And this is Manchester City, and this is SOAP.
"Chelsea are run by an oligarch, Roman, with close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin.
"Arsenal are being slowly taken over by an oligarch, Alisher, who also has close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin. Alisher has allegedly made money from the drug trade and is close to people who think that boiling babies is a bit of a hoot.
"Roman has upset Boris, another oligarch, who does not get on with Gazprom or the Kremlin at all but who gets on very well indeed with Alisher. Boris says Roman used 'threats and intimidation' to get his financial wont.
"Nikolai is a friend of Boris who was in jail in Russia. But Roman could get him out of jail. Boris now wants £2 billion off Roman. Meanwhile, an editor at Alisher's newspaper 'falls' to his death from a hotel window in Moscow.
"Roman's empire is managed by holocaust survivor, Avram, who is married to an Israeli tv presenter and who is very very upset with the press. In a bizarre press conference he told the journalists: 'You can write whatever you want and I can answer what I want'. Of course, the press absolutely do write whatever they want.
"'Chelsea cheat. That is how they win. Arsenal prefer integrity. That is why they lose'. These are not sentiments that might find a place in the mainstream media.
"Arsenal are managed by Arsène. He is angry with the Premier League, the referees and the media. After his team had suffered an outrageous, and highly predictable run of corruption against their interests, Arsène complained: 'This team has been punished in the last seven weeks more so than any team I have seen'.
"Arsenal are not helped by the fact that Jens hates Manuel - 'I know he hates me' - and Nicklas hates one of the Emmanuel's' too. Fans have now stopped going to watch Arsenal as the modern day fan demands spectacular prizes as a reward for spectacular corruption. Arsenal are thinking of suing the Premier League for corruption against their interests and the financial losses accruing thereof.
"Chelsea are fighting against Manchester United for the Crime's Big Prize. Or, rather, Chelsea Reserves are fighting Man Utd Reserves for the 2nd Biggest Prize. Manchester have already won but the scammers require our mock climax. Following Chelsea's failure to beat Wigan in an allegedly fixed match, it was necessary to prevent Manchester winning in Lancashire. No problem. Rob earned some more decking and garden furniture courtesy of Roman after denying the Reds two obvious penalties.
"The BBC remains the prime media for Premiership football - propaganda for the elite, as ever. Lawro works for the Premier League. Lawro reckoned that the two incorrect penalty decisions 'didn't spoil the game', presumably meaning that is suitably spoiled already. Ian and Lee work for bookmakers. Ian has left the BBC complaining that he is only allowed to tell jokes containing an innuendo about lines of coke when really he has been sacked. Meanwhile, Lee just keeps on lying but always looks guilty when he is doing it.
"The only competition that is real (in the Illusory sense) is the Champions League which, this year, sees one national champion out of the last four teams. Roman will surely attempt to buy a place in the Final in Moscow having already bought Russia a place in the Euro 2008 Finals which follow. Opponents, Liverpool, are allegedly in crisis with Tom not talking to George or Rafa, Rafa not too happy with Rick but moderately keen on George while David's moustache gets more luxuriant.
"Rafa is consulting his lawyers after Neil, from a crystal palace, suggested: 'Integrity, doing what is right for the game, comes way down Rafa's list of priorities'. Rafa continues to cultivate the inappropriate goatie.
"Birmingham, Newcastle and Portsmouth are currently under investigation by the City of London police for financial shenanigans like false accounting and money laundering. The Birmingham owners were questioned by police last week and had 'happily done so' while the Portsmouth manager, 'Arry, has launched a counterclaim against the police after he originally judged that the police had to arrest you in order to ask you questions in the first place. 'Arry remains on bail while Birmingham are being bought by a billionaire gambling tycoon who was but a barber as recently as 10 years ago.
"This background of financial impropriety has not stopped Portsmouth reaching the FA Cup Final with the considerable aid of the referees. Portsmouth are effectively owned by an arms dealer with outstanding arrest warrants in France for illegal traffiking. Portsmouth are also closely linked to bookmakers in Moscow.
"This year's FA Cup Final will be refereed by randomiser-in-chief, Mike Dean - just a couple of years after he was banned from officiating for two months for being closely linked to an online tipster service, Arbitros Racing. Thoroughly deserved then...
"Another Roman runs Hearts and Roman of Hearts reckons that Scottish football is a fix which, of course, it is and always has been. Witness Rangers, also under City of London police investigation, and their assisted passage to the Cup Final against a Queen from the South (who will the 'Gers fans support?) and their presentation with the League title by the whistles of officialdom.
"The Premiership referees made 19 incorrect major calls between them over this last window of 10 games. 4 match outcomes were affected. Martin refereed two of these 10 games (at Everton on Thursday and Fulham on Saturday) before being the 4th official at Aston Villa on Sunday. On the internal PGMOB website, a FIFA accredited match official moaned: 'Why, oh why, has Martin got 3 games in 4 days when there are 10 or 11 other officials who would have been more suitable?'. We wonder why...
"Oligarchical Roman employs Frank. Frank employs 50 scouts globally searching for grassroots talent or enacting a modern day version of the slave trade, depending upon your point of view. Frank got Roman to employ Henk to undermine Avram, just as he had previously successfully poloniumated the atmosphere between Roman and José, a Special One. Frank's slaves assembled at a cost of over £6 million reached the Final of the Youth Cup but were beaten by a team largely comprising of inner city Mancunian youth which only went to show that those fifty scouts had been looking in the wrong locations all along.
"Manchester City, the winners of this Youth Reality, are owned by Thaksin. Thaksin doesn't like anyone very much although he is rather partial to the offshore baht and power. Policeman - prime minister - oligarch - robber - murderer - thief - political 'refugee' - black marketeer - football club owner. An unusual CV. Thaksin also believes himself to be the Last King of Thailand and refers to himself as 'His Excellency'. His excellency also hates human rights in a trigger happy sort of way. Thaksin doesn't like Sven either because Sven has failed in his task of special adviser to the king. The Reality of Manchester City Youth is one of the last of its type. Thaksin is busy importing substandard Thai youngsters, for political currency, and seeking highly marketable but overpriced prima donnas whose best days are surely behind them. The new players WILL, however, look rather Thai-chic descending down the airplane steps accompanying his excellency back into his empire.
"Thaksin is inappropriately close to Richard who runs the Hyperreality of Premiership football as a personal fiefdom on behalf of the bookmakers and Rupert's hyper-organisation. Thaksin helps Richard get what Richard wants and Richard helps Thaksin get what Thaksin wants. Rupert is omnipresent but not yet omnipotent".
"Will the Premiership title and relegation races go down to the wire? Does anyone really care? Will Pompey criminalise the FA Cup Final? Will 'Arry go to jail or will the police go to jail? Will the gambler buyout the pornographer and his moll at Birmingham? Will Dubai buy the Texas Reds? Is Thaksin going to jail or will he get his hands on the illicit treasure? Will Thaksin leave Richard? Will the French police catch Arkadi? Will he be linked to the killing of Savimbi by Mossad? Will the Kremlin get Arsenal? Are more babies to be boiled? Will the Kremlin get Euro 2008? Does the Kremlin intend increasing its portfolio of London soccer franchises further? Will we ever get used to autocratic power winning everything?"
"Confused? You soon will be. But all will be revealed in the next exciting episode of SOAP".
A Coda:
BBC: "A real pivotal week for you after so much work this season".
Wenger: "Yes, but I cannot blame the players because in both games [against Liverpool and United] we turned up, we played at our level but every single thing has turned against us since March. We have got a clear, clear message as well on many decisions which went against us. We understand it. We are not stupid".
BBC: "What do you mean by that?"
Wenger: "Nothing" [awkward silence for 10 seconds].
BBC: "Indeed. Well, let other people read into that comment shall we?"
Wenger: "You do what you want".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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