David Pleat always manages to rise to the occasion, as the above warning to any Spaniards risking a premature exaltation clearly demonstrates.
He surpassed himself during the Semi Final between Spain and Russia.
My personal favourite was when he questioned himself on the (in)validity of his own description of Sergio Ramos as either a "cultivated bull" or a "cultured bull".
Of course, the Big News from Vienna was the eclipsing of Andrei Arshavin by Cesc Fàbregas.
It is interesting to assess the holistics of Arshavin in Euro 2008.
It is also interesting to assess what such factors should mean with regard to the man's potential transfer from Zenit Leningrad to Barcelona.
We are on the verge of launching a new project.
Our initial aim was to market the entity prior to Euro 2008.
Then we thought about it.
And we changed our minds.
We chose to reconstitute the project in an innovative way to create an entirely unique business entity.
Then, we chose to utilise Euro 2008 as part of the marketing process.
Then, we decided that an agent would be necessary to sell the entity to clients on our behalf.
Then, we decided to restructure the whole business.
The working name for the new business is "Trade Markets Data". We've registered it but it will probably end up being called something else.
The business will combine three separate business services into one holistic whole.
* Trade - We have built a model to price players more efficiently and accurately in the transfer markets. Currently, these transfer markets are highly inefficient (see notes below regarding Arshavin) and equally highly subjective.
There have been no serious attempts to develop a quantitative approach to determining the real value of a player. Such efforts that have been attempted are pitiful in their degree of myopia regarding the hyperrealities that underpin the football industry.
Our assessments and evaluations encompass up to 100 variables on a fundamental level, dependent on the territory. Additionally, we take into account the impacts of the betting markets, rogue operators and other 'invisible' factors eg the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) on the assessment of a player value. Institutional biases are also built into the model as is the impact of the various regulatory regimes in the different territories.
Initially, we are covering 28 leagues in 16 countries.
Increasing the efficiency of the transfer markets...
* Markets - In many of the more mature football leagues - Serie A, the English Premiership, Primera Liga and Bundesliga - the massively liquid underground betting markets influence events on the pitch.
Disenfranchised teams need to protect themselves.
When agents of the market makers are directing events on the pitch, it is critical for clubs to defend themselves proactively and reactively in the marketplace and in the controlling of the flow of information and news on an internal level.
Both pre-match and in-play, an evaluation of the market impacts is necessary to maximise the probabilities of a favourable outcome.
Gaming the betting markets from the inside to achieve an optimised hyperreality...
* Data - Our databases are legendary. We have 15 years of fundamental data relating to football matches across the planet.
PESs, institutional biases, corrupt match officials, referee biases, power analyses, fitness databases, rogue players, psychological profiling of key individuals etc etc etc.
Data may be utilised together with Trade and Markets for real-time input to analyses and evaluations or it may be used singularly to address future opponents or match windows.
Recording and archiving the corruption in proprietary databases...
In combination with Trade and Markets, Data completes the triumvirate of services that we will be offering.
These are a unique combination of services working together to provide the complete package for the discerning club.
We intend utilising the impact of Euro 2008 on the transfer markets as part of our promotional campaign for our new business.
Every alternate year, the Summer Transfer Market may be divided into three distinct windows, as the impact of the flagship FIFA and UEFA tournaments defines the structure.
The more strategic managers, like Wenger and Hodgson, prefer to undertake their buying early in these years, particularly if the players are involved in the summer tournament.
The tournament itself represents the second window, and this is the most volatile period. The degree of focus on each and every game ensures that a target players value can vary by the minute (once again, see the Arshavin notes below). Without any control over the volatility, a manager should be gaming the timing of any transfer activity in this second window for the optimum price.
The third window is, rather obviously, post-tournament and some very inflated fees are paid for players who have "caught the eye" in the preceding extravaganza. On occasions, a transfer fee might be markedly inflated by the performances in just three matches - a whole career fades into insignificance and all evaluation is based on one three week window, as clubs and agents pursue the most gifted performers, not in totality, but in the micro-window of the spectacular that brings all of these interested parties together - a season in microcosm.
"Trade Markets Data" will price all transfers over the next month using our proprietary model and compare with the "real" market price. The differentials will be explained to our target clubs as a part of our marketing process.
Over the next season, "Trade Markets Data" intends to establish a nascent dynamic evaluation database of all players in some of the more major territories.
This database would be updated real-time as careers developed, and new information and analyses come to light.
In effect, these databases would act as the equivalent of rating agencies with regard to financial markets - player evaluations would represent all publicly available information at any given time in combination with our proprietary databases, analyses and information.
Which brings us, finally, to the issue of the evaluation of Andrei Arshavin. Are Barcelona getting a good deal for the 26 year old creative midfielder?
£20 million ($40 million) is the rumoured transfer fee.
Arshavin had a great season with Zenit, inspiring his team to the Russian Premier League title, the UEFA Cup, helping Russia to qualify for Euro 2008 at England's expense and then performing wickedly in his first two games in the tournament proper.
Zenit are massively backed by Gazprom.
Gazprom have a libertarian approach to realities.
Zenit, under Advocaat, and Russia, under fellow Dutchman, Hiddink, have left no stone unturned in their efforts at achieving the sporting impossible.
Zenit, and the Russians in general, had a major advantage of a two month break in the winter prior to the latter stages of the UEFA Cup. Despite this, by the time the Euro 2008 competition came around, Arshavin had been playing serious competitive football for 13 of the previous 15 months. And, even the winter break involved extensive training in preparation for Villarreal, Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Glasgow Rangers.
Yet Arshavin and the Russian team looked as if they were merely starting their season. Additionally, a certain oligarch was involved in trying to achieve suitable outcomes on some events in the tournament. He was even successful on one occasion. And UEFA had an agenda against the Russians on two matches. And how should one level the playing field of seasonal tiredness that effects the tournament?
How should Barcelona judge Arshavin's transfer fee in the light of this information and inference? The Russians were chemically enhanced and one of their matches was bought; Zenit were incredibly fit throughout their UEFA Cup run. Their defeat of three G14(18) teams, two of which had also benefited from a winter break, were typified by the recurrent theme of the Zenit team getting stronger as the match progressed.
Should Barcelona reckon on getting the Andrei who destroyed the Netherlands with haste, skill and speed? Or the Andrei who was leaden-footed and outplayed and out-thought by Fàbregas in the Semi Final?
Of course, glamour clubs tend to buy what they need to buy in order to attach galacticos glamour to their brand - this is a serial trait in Spain, and one which seems to oscillate between the two prime soccer locations. But buying an overpriced, overrated iconic figure is only valid on a promotional and merchandising level.
In our estimation, there is no value in buying Arshavin at £20 million.
Successful economic management at the club level involves the standard traders template of "Buy at the Bottom/Sell at the Top".
Compare the transfer policies of Barcelona with Arsenal.
Wenger sells Petit, Anelka, Overmars, Vieira, Henry, all timed to perfection.
Barcelona purchase some of these individuals, and at inflated prices with a in-built and steeply gradiented depreciation.
Arshavin would represent a significant risk of being a similar purchase.
Of course, the inefficient evaluation of footballers doesn't only happen around these Summer Spectaculars. We have created a rather different template of analysis for the domestic seasons and, although many of the same parameters and configurative techniques apply, the domination of the shadow of the bookmakers is, by far, the most overwhelming presence.
Any transfer evaluation that does not take into account the holistic picture will be unworthy of serious comment.
Any team that fails to defend themselves against the ravages of the betting marketplace will be punished for their blinkered sight.
Any manager who avoids undertaking a fundamental analysis of the hidden agendas of all opponents will be handicapping himself prior to the event.
"Trade Markets Data" - think about it.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Thursday, 26 June 2008
PESs Off
OK. Listen up.
With both Angela Merkel and Abdullah Gül present at last night's Euro 2008 semi Final between Germany and Turkey, our incredibly simple, yet startlingly profitable latter phase match determinator was unable to solve the outcome pre-match.
But, in our collective boredom, we have produced an even more efficient "model".
The entirety of Euro 2008 could virtually be "modelled" using just one parameter.
This parameter has nothing to do with the quality of the teams, the management or players, nothing to do with Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs), the refereeing standards are of no consequence, the bookmakers do not have any say, and even UEFA have to play along with the omnipotence of this one single parameter.
This powerful tool could not be more simple.
Five minutes on Google and you could have paid for a McMansion in County Kerry or a yacht in Gaios.
You want to know what this overwhelmingly influential parameter is?
Population!?
Must be something to do with advertising, viewers, media, betting turnover, travelling fanbase and spending power - that sort of thing...
If the tournament's matches had been decided solely on the basis of the sizes of the qualifying nation's domestic populations, the outcomes would have been uncannily parallel to where we find ourselves this morning. The three largest countries by population all reached the Semi's along with 6th largest Spain.
Check it.
Group A: 1. Turkey 2. Portugal
Group B: 1. Germany 2. Poland
Group C: 1. France 2. Italy
Group D: 1. Russia 2. Spain
Quarter Finals:
Turkey outsizes Poland
Germany outdemographics the Portuguese
France bigs the Spanish
Russia dwarfs Italy
Semi Finals:
Germany scrapes past Turkey by just 9.5 million people (if only the Gastarbeiter had stayed at home).
Russia hammer France by 82.7 million.
Final:
Russia take home the trophy.
And Europe can rely on Gaz supplies for next winter.
Of course, there is a certain logic in the size of a population showing a positive correlation with success in any field of endeavour. Assuming that nations are equally able in the efficient production of creative sporting individuals (a big "if"), population should determine the outcomes unless externalised forces are at play.
There have been a pool of conflicting power bases that have generated a complex fragmented infrastructure to the markets on Euro 2008.
Despite their inabilities to tackle the dominating issue of PESs, the only power locus to come out of the tournament with any level of status based on integrity, is UEFA.
Michel Platini has to take the maximum credit for this - if football has any hope at all in elevated circles, this man represents it.
Faced with an impossible array of corrupting forces, UEFA have played their limited hand expertly. As we attempt to demonstrate below, UEFA has confronted the inappropriate powers on five key levels, with the result that, despite the criminalities, we have been presented with some high quality circus skills and theatre, masquerading as football.
* Although it has made little difference, due to the proprietary usage of PESs, UEFA have chosen match officials to undermine the more coercive/ bribery based business practices of a certain oligarch from Saratov.
* Germany's psychopathic and strategic agendas were also confronted by UEFA, once again with only limited success. As it became apparent that the Germans were gaming the tournament (and the latter qualifying matches), UEFA actively worked to undermine the massive advantage bestowed to the Germans by the Draw split and the presence of their two client nations on the same side of the Draw.
* The bookmakers have not been allowed to have things all their own way. In comparison with the totally corrupt World Cup 2006, the absence of England and Barthez reduced the number of matches located in boiler rooms. All attempts by the bookmakers to control referee selection or performance have been firmly rebuffed, if one excludes a policeman-on-sabbatical from South Yorkshire.
* The "Unite Against Racism" drive, while still lip-service, was, at least, given a degree of prominence unusual in capitalism's spectaculars.
The three Black players involved in the Semi Finals must feel very comforted by this marketed support, if one ignores the German fans chanting over the UEFA announcement...
* All competitions have a bias in decision making. Sometimes these biases are indicative of power hierarchies and, sometimes, they are more randomised.
In incredibly rare circumstances, the power hierarchy is inversed.
And this is the proof of UEFA's positive discrimination against the European power bases.
The power hierarchy has been inversed in Euro 2008.
Four teams have been favoured by the match officials.
None of these teams have reached the Semi Final stage.
None of these nations are from the top tiers of the power hierarchy and nor are they populous countries with economic influence.
Germany v Turkey - Great Theatricals; Superb Drugs.
The first Semi Final was decided by one scam.
Bastien Schweinsteiger was sent off against Croatia for pushing Jerko Leko.
Turkish goalkeeper, Volkan Demirel was sent off against the Czech Republic for shoving Jan Koller.
The former received a one match ban, meaning that he could return to mastermind the Quarter Final victory over Portugal.
The latter received a two match ban, meaning that he missed both the Quarter and Semi Finals.
In the match last night, Germany had three shots on target.
They scored three goals.
Apart from our ante-post positions, we have undertaken very few pre-match trades in Euro 2008. There are a range of reasons for this, but the prime one has been the difficulty in modelling two or more conflicting but influential match inputs with so few observations to base such an analysis upon.
Its like that Japanese children's game, Janken, adapted by the Irish into Sciss-Pap-Rock.
The Scissors cut the Paper; the Rock blunts the Scissors; the Paper wraps the Rock.
EPO outruns control of the match officials; Half Time Amphetamine trumps EPO; match officials are able to invalidate the Speed Freaks.
So the Germans have got Roberto Rosetti for the Final.
Standing in front of banners reading "No To Corruption" and "Fight The Bookies", the anthems will be sung, prior to speeches from the leading players of each team declaring their opposition to the market determining the outcome in football matches.
Vladimir Putin and Roman Abramovich sit to one side of Platini, Merkel and Beckenbauer on the other.
Both teams will be running very very fast indeed.
And, while the match is in progress, in an attempt to hide away bad news, Richard Scudamore will make the announcement that Robert Mugabe has passed the fit-and-proper-person's test, and is to take over newly promoted Stoke City.
Well, you let Shinawatra and Gaydamak in, so where's the difference?
No To Racism.
In all its forms.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
With both Angela Merkel and Abdullah Gül present at last night's Euro 2008 semi Final between Germany and Turkey, our incredibly simple, yet startlingly profitable latter phase match determinator was unable to solve the outcome pre-match.
But, in our collective boredom, we have produced an even more efficient "model".
The entirety of Euro 2008 could virtually be "modelled" using just one parameter.
This parameter has nothing to do with the quality of the teams, the management or players, nothing to do with Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs), the refereeing standards are of no consequence, the bookmakers do not have any say, and even UEFA have to play along with the omnipotence of this one single parameter.
This powerful tool could not be more simple.
Five minutes on Google and you could have paid for a McMansion in County Kerry or a yacht in Gaios.
You want to know what this overwhelmingly influential parameter is?
Population!?
Must be something to do with advertising, viewers, media, betting turnover, travelling fanbase and spending power - that sort of thing...
If the tournament's matches had been decided solely on the basis of the sizes of the qualifying nation's domestic populations, the outcomes would have been uncannily parallel to where we find ourselves this morning. The three largest countries by population all reached the Semi's along with 6th largest Spain.
Check it.
Group A: 1. Turkey 2. Portugal
Group B: 1. Germany 2. Poland
Group C: 1. France 2. Italy
Group D: 1. Russia 2. Spain
Quarter Finals:
Turkey outsizes Poland
Germany outdemographics the Portuguese
France bigs the Spanish
Russia dwarfs Italy
Semi Finals:
Germany scrapes past Turkey by just 9.5 million people (if only the Gastarbeiter had stayed at home).
Russia hammer France by 82.7 million.
Final:
Russia take home the trophy.
And Europe can rely on Gaz supplies for next winter.
Of course, there is a certain logic in the size of a population showing a positive correlation with success in any field of endeavour. Assuming that nations are equally able in the efficient production of creative sporting individuals (a big "if"), population should determine the outcomes unless externalised forces are at play.
There have been a pool of conflicting power bases that have generated a complex fragmented infrastructure to the markets on Euro 2008.
Despite their inabilities to tackle the dominating issue of PESs, the only power locus to come out of the tournament with any level of status based on integrity, is UEFA.
Michel Platini has to take the maximum credit for this - if football has any hope at all in elevated circles, this man represents it.
Faced with an impossible array of corrupting forces, UEFA have played their limited hand expertly. As we attempt to demonstrate below, UEFA has confronted the inappropriate powers on five key levels, with the result that, despite the criminalities, we have been presented with some high quality circus skills and theatre, masquerading as football.
* Although it has made little difference, due to the proprietary usage of PESs, UEFA have chosen match officials to undermine the more coercive/ bribery based business practices of a certain oligarch from Saratov.
* Germany's psychopathic and strategic agendas were also confronted by UEFA, once again with only limited success. As it became apparent that the Germans were gaming the tournament (and the latter qualifying matches), UEFA actively worked to undermine the massive advantage bestowed to the Germans by the Draw split and the presence of their two client nations on the same side of the Draw.
* The bookmakers have not been allowed to have things all their own way. In comparison with the totally corrupt World Cup 2006, the absence of England and Barthez reduced the number of matches located in boiler rooms. All attempts by the bookmakers to control referee selection or performance have been firmly rebuffed, if one excludes a policeman-on-sabbatical from South Yorkshire.
* The "Unite Against Racism" drive, while still lip-service, was, at least, given a degree of prominence unusual in capitalism's spectaculars.
The three Black players involved in the Semi Finals must feel very comforted by this marketed support, if one ignores the German fans chanting over the UEFA announcement...
* All competitions have a bias in decision making. Sometimes these biases are indicative of power hierarchies and, sometimes, they are more randomised.
In incredibly rare circumstances, the power hierarchy is inversed.
And this is the proof of UEFA's positive discrimination against the European power bases.
The power hierarchy has been inversed in Euro 2008.
Four teams have been favoured by the match officials.
None of these teams have reached the Semi Final stage.
None of these nations are from the top tiers of the power hierarchy and nor are they populous countries with economic influence.
Germany v Turkey - Great Theatricals; Superb Drugs.
The first Semi Final was decided by one scam.
Bastien Schweinsteiger was sent off against Croatia for pushing Jerko Leko.
Turkish goalkeeper, Volkan Demirel was sent off against the Czech Republic for shoving Jan Koller.
The former received a one match ban, meaning that he could return to mastermind the Quarter Final victory over Portugal.
The latter received a two match ban, meaning that he missed both the Quarter and Semi Finals.
In the match last night, Germany had three shots on target.
They scored three goals.
Apart from our ante-post positions, we have undertaken very few pre-match trades in Euro 2008. There are a range of reasons for this, but the prime one has been the difficulty in modelling two or more conflicting but influential match inputs with so few observations to base such an analysis upon.
Its like that Japanese children's game, Janken, adapted by the Irish into Sciss-Pap-Rock.
The Scissors cut the Paper; the Rock blunts the Scissors; the Paper wraps the Rock.
EPO outruns control of the match officials; Half Time Amphetamine trumps EPO; match officials are able to invalidate the Speed Freaks.
So the Germans have got Roberto Rosetti for the Final.
Standing in front of banners reading "No To Corruption" and "Fight The Bookies", the anthems will be sung, prior to speeches from the leading players of each team declaring their opposition to the market determining the outcome in football matches.
Vladimir Putin and Roman Abramovich sit to one side of Platini, Merkel and Beckenbauer on the other.
Both teams will be running very very fast indeed.
And, while the match is in progress, in an attempt to hide away bad news, Richard Scudamore will make the announcement that Robert Mugabe has passed the fit-and-proper-person's test, and is to take over newly promoted Stoke City.
Well, you let Shinawatra and Gaydamak in, so where's the difference?
No To Racism.
In all its forms.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Non-Abo Aussies On The Insider Track
"All that remains is a fascination for desert-like and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us" - Baudrillard.
As our Spectacular Extravaganzas morph into scaled up versions of the "penitentiary theatre" in 'Escape From New York', it is indeed fascinating to monitor the forms of their Theatre of the Spectacle.
Euro 2008 has offered us an array of the primary reasons why football is dead.
One has been missing. Our favourite one - the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team".
Alongside the "Agreed Draw", these two match structures define a reasonable percentage of the theatrical presentations staged for our leisure.
Why do we take such a pleasure in these corrupt machinations as opposed to the ones already outlined in our coverage of Euro 2008?
There are a number of reasons, but most evident would be the profitability of such events from a trading perspective, the perverse enjoyment of the non-entertainment of determined underachievement for a cause, the disclosures of individual rogue operators and their psychologies and strategems, and comparing the hyperreality at play with the utterances of the talking heads as an indication of the status of our media educators.
These are valuable nuggets of the holistic hyperreality.
Of course, it would go without saying that one has to know what one is looking for.
Anyway, back to the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team"...
While eyes were turned to Vienna and Basel, a little insider corruption was taking place on the opposite side of the world.
In Sydney, to be more precise...
Australia 0 The Peoples Republic of China 1.
Some background. So that you might gain some perspective...
Australia had already qualified for the next stages of the Asian World Cup Qualifiers while PR China were already not welcome at the party.
An aside - PR China are becoming serially excluded from the latter stages of major international tournaments due to the rampant gambling activities that occur on the occasions when they do reach the Finals.
As the Chinese would bet on the "Time of the First Fart" if it were possible, this may be a good thing.
The gambling market takes precedence. Always.
Very much a similar template to England, in fact.
Anyway, we thought we'd share that with you.
Back to the background...
The Chinese had only scored two goals in their previous five Qualifiers and had managed to win precisely none.
Australia were undefeated at home in World Cup Qualifiers in over 27 years, although beating the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands and sublimating New Zealand is hardly indicative of a competitive superiority.
Neither team had anything to play for - apart from pride and honour, and all that sort of nonsense.
The perfect territory for the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team".
Certain manipulations are very difficult to pull off visually. The discerning eye knows when the "Agreed Draw" is taking place - think back to previous postings on France v Romania or Porto v Chelsea, for example.
The determined efforts of some Australians to play as poorly as possible to land an insider gamble was a disgrace.
There was some considerable liquidity grapevining its way into the Asian underground markets, sourced in SE Australia.
We have no idea who was involved in the trading activity but we have very clear data on the perpetrators on the pitch.
Our extensive databases allow us to spot irregular patterns in the performances of players on the pitch, much in the same way as Early Warning GmbH does for the European betting industry.
Harry Kewell had a nightmare. He was the Aussie captain for the game, so we are absolutely certain that the man had enough integrity not to deliberately underperform for his own personal financial gratification.
Or that of his associates...
Despite the history of insider betting from the Australian camp in recent years, surely a captain would not dishonour his country and his 70,054 compatriots (apart from a few Chinese who had slipped through Australia's vicious immigration system for SE Asians) by such actions.
Surely not.
And Ruben Zadkovich, who spent the entire match trying to get sent off with a series of exponentially deteriorating industrial tackles, finally achieved his aim, to an extent, when an assault and battery coupled with a grievous bodily harm, presented the Chinese with a penalty to increase their advantage to two goals with less than twenty to play.
Here, the hyperreality took a random turn.
The match official for the game was Khalil al-Ghamdi from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia don't bother with football corruption - oil, and horse and camel abuse take precedence.
Whatever.
Al-Ghamdi's officiating made it evident that he had no part in the illusion unfolding in front of his eyes.
The Chinese score the penalty and the players are almost back in position for the Kick Off, when Khalil has a brainwave - encroachment, make them take it again. The repeat failed and glances were shared among Australian players.
Fortunately, the Aussies managed to deliberately not attack until the final whistle blew and everybody went home happy.
Apart from the 70,054 minus a few who had paid for this travesty.
In among this sporting vacuum stood two signs of hope.
The Australian squad now regularly features two Indigenous Australians.
And, neither of them were involved in the scam on Sunday.
To complete this ludicrous matrix of the illusory hyperreality, Sky Television (as unsurprisingly, it was the Murdochracy which streamed this fetishistic football match around the globe) had the audacity to claim that their commentators were present at the gambling feature in Sydney, when it was quite clear from their tourism-book-knowledge of the city and their inability to see anything more than the viewer was seeing that they were merely adding the finishing touches to a particularly Spectacular Sky Scam from some shoddy little studio 17,000 kilometres away.
Oh! How we have missed these monstrosities since the termination of the English season...
This match wasn't the only insider gamble in the Asian World Cup Qualifiers.
Uzbekistan were going to be our Team of the Season until they determinedly lost 0-4 to the House of Saud in Riyadh at the weekend. I bet the Fat Freaky Baby Boiling Smack Smuggler had nothing to do with this...
And, nor was it the only hot event in the final round of games. We are grateful to Khalid Faraidooni putting us on to the manipulations against Syria qualifying for the latter stages. Syria needed to win by three clear goals away to UAE in order to leapfrog their hosts into the second qualifying position. The AFC put Australia's Mark Shield on the match, which is always suggestive of a hidden agenda.
Syria raced into a 2-0 lead before a floodlight failure led to the teams leaving the pitch. On their return, Mr Shield gave the hosts a penalty and, although the Syrians netted a third in injury time, the UAE were able to progress.
Most Syrian players refused to speak to the media post-match, although one who did stated: "I congratulate the 'Electricity Team' for their great victory".
That will teach Syria to destabilise Lebanon, unlike every other local (and global) power, who also spend a good percentage of their time doing that very same thing.
The geopoliticised nature of the targeting of nations like Uzbekistan, PR China and Syria continues apace.
Scams in Asia, scams in Europe...
What is it all coming to?
"Is international management now a young man's game?" enquired the Guardian headline, with typical prescience, prior to the Euro 2008 Quarter Finals.
Fatih Terim is 54, Luis Aragonés is 69 and Guus Hiddink, 61.
The four chemically-enhanced qualifiers have also 'ticked' another of the UEFA family's marketing boxes - that the competition should geographically maintain interest into the final week.
The selling of everything, everywhere was dependent on this structure.
It even taps into an anti-reality in other ways.
Fans from the 47 countries of Europe who no longer have any direct interest in the tournament, are now able to inverse their support into an unsupport for the local object-of-derision of choice.
The Portuguese and Italians can unsupport Spain.
The Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Moldovans and Azerbaijanis should unsupport Turkey.
The rest of the continent can choose directly between Russia and Germany - the two countries who, incidentally, were our pre-tournament tips for the title - just to prompt your memories, people.
Euro 2008, three more games prior to some considerable time working on balconies and beaches :)
Italy v Spain - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The two highest ranking FIFA nations in the tournament produced one of the worst matches of the tournament as Fandel desperately attempted to "stop" the Spanish. In one first half minute, the Spaniards were denied two stonewall penalties by the overly-expressive-one. The latter one left even PGMOB Lawrenson and Ladbrokes Motson speechless on the BBC.
"Never condemn, just say silent" - the Lawrenson mantra that he must repeat to himself prior to the addressing of any referee-based controversies of corruption.
We have a theory.
It seems foolproof.
It defines the winners of the matches in the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and Final of Euro 2008 prior to the match starting.
It is a gambling nirvana.
And, you know what?
We're going to give it to you.
For nothing.
So, when we start to charge a small subscription in the not-too-distant future, you can merely dip into your winnings to continue getting our moans, groans and rants.
Anyway, the robust and 100% successful trading model is this:
When the national anthems are being sung, or, in the case of the Dutch, grunted, check if the camera falls of the Über Power from the country in question.
Using the above match as an example. When the Spanish hummed along, they were joined by King Juan Carlos. But, when Fratelli D'Italia rang out, blabbermouth Berlusconi was nowhere to be seen.
The Berlusconi brand must not be equated with defeat.
Pick up the phone/ go online - back Spain to Qualify.
Simple.
There is only one filtration. Angela Merkel's presence is irrelevant - the Germans will always win anyway.
Oh! And Putin is omnipresent.
Still, its a model of sorts.
And, if it is true, Gordon Brown's obstructive attendance behaviour should ensure a further window of English competitive underperformance prior to the next election.
Eureka! A reason to vote New Labour!
UEFA have developed an unwritten Rule of the Game for Euro 2008. This is aside from any hidden agendas regarding the playing out of the Extravaganza.
Following the compensation package that Newcastle United lawyer's eked out of FIFA following Michael Owen's entertaining pack-of-cards collapse in the last World Cup, UEFA have instructed the match officials to alter their officiating to take this into account.
The Rule whereby play must be stopped in the case of a head injury, has now been extended, unofficially, to read as follows:
"...if, in the course of the theatre, a player from a G14(18) team falls to the ground and provides any indication that he is in pain, play MUST be halted IMMEDIATELY, and the medical support teams and UEFA lawyers called on to the pitch. Do not make any comment to the player or other representatives of that said player. The game will be restarted with a drop ball and a return of possession to the team disadvantaged by the cessation of play".
The Italians were already gaming this factor into their match performance prior to their exit - I am assured, by a higher Jamaican authority, that this is a "motherfuckin' fact".
Cool and catenaccio, but no creativity without Pirlo.
Arrivederci Donadoni.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
As our Spectacular Extravaganzas morph into scaled up versions of the "penitentiary theatre" in 'Escape From New York', it is indeed fascinating to monitor the forms of their Theatre of the Spectacle.
Euro 2008 has offered us an array of the primary reasons why football is dead.
One has been missing. Our favourite one - the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team".
Alongside the "Agreed Draw", these two match structures define a reasonable percentage of the theatrical presentations staged for our leisure.
Why do we take such a pleasure in these corrupt machinations as opposed to the ones already outlined in our coverage of Euro 2008?
There are a number of reasons, but most evident would be the profitability of such events from a trading perspective, the perverse enjoyment of the non-entertainment of determined underachievement for a cause, the disclosures of individual rogue operators and their psychologies and strategems, and comparing the hyperreality at play with the utterances of the talking heads as an indication of the status of our media educators.
These are valuable nuggets of the holistic hyperreality.
Of course, it would go without saying that one has to know what one is looking for.
Anyway, back to the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team"...
While eyes were turned to Vienna and Basel, a little insider corruption was taking place on the opposite side of the world.
In Sydney, to be more precise...
Australia 0 The Peoples Republic of China 1.
Some background. So that you might gain some perspective...
Australia had already qualified for the next stages of the Asian World Cup Qualifiers while PR China were already not welcome at the party.
An aside - PR China are becoming serially excluded from the latter stages of major international tournaments due to the rampant gambling activities that occur on the occasions when they do reach the Finals.
As the Chinese would bet on the "Time of the First Fart" if it were possible, this may be a good thing.
The gambling market takes precedence. Always.
Very much a similar template to England, in fact.
Anyway, we thought we'd share that with you.
Back to the background...
The Chinese had only scored two goals in their previous five Qualifiers and had managed to win precisely none.
Australia were undefeated at home in World Cup Qualifiers in over 27 years, although beating the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands and sublimating New Zealand is hardly indicative of a competitive superiority.
Neither team had anything to play for - apart from pride and honour, and all that sort of nonsense.
The perfect territory for the "Deliberate Underperformance by a Vastly Superior Team".
Certain manipulations are very difficult to pull off visually. The discerning eye knows when the "Agreed Draw" is taking place - think back to previous postings on France v Romania or Porto v Chelsea, for example.
The determined efforts of some Australians to play as poorly as possible to land an insider gamble was a disgrace.
There was some considerable liquidity grapevining its way into the Asian underground markets, sourced in SE Australia.
We have no idea who was involved in the trading activity but we have very clear data on the perpetrators on the pitch.
Our extensive databases allow us to spot irregular patterns in the performances of players on the pitch, much in the same way as Early Warning GmbH does for the European betting industry.
Harry Kewell had a nightmare. He was the Aussie captain for the game, so we are absolutely certain that the man had enough integrity not to deliberately underperform for his own personal financial gratification.
Or that of his associates...
Despite the history of insider betting from the Australian camp in recent years, surely a captain would not dishonour his country and his 70,054 compatriots (apart from a few Chinese who had slipped through Australia's vicious immigration system for SE Asians) by such actions.
Surely not.
And Ruben Zadkovich, who spent the entire match trying to get sent off with a series of exponentially deteriorating industrial tackles, finally achieved his aim, to an extent, when an assault and battery coupled with a grievous bodily harm, presented the Chinese with a penalty to increase their advantage to two goals with less than twenty to play.
Here, the hyperreality took a random turn.
The match official for the game was Khalil al-Ghamdi from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia don't bother with football corruption - oil, and horse and camel abuse take precedence.
Whatever.
Al-Ghamdi's officiating made it evident that he had no part in the illusion unfolding in front of his eyes.
The Chinese score the penalty and the players are almost back in position for the Kick Off, when Khalil has a brainwave - encroachment, make them take it again. The repeat failed and glances were shared among Australian players.
Fortunately, the Aussies managed to deliberately not attack until the final whistle blew and everybody went home happy.
Apart from the 70,054 minus a few who had paid for this travesty.
In among this sporting vacuum stood two signs of hope.
The Australian squad now regularly features two Indigenous Australians.
And, neither of them were involved in the scam on Sunday.
To complete this ludicrous matrix of the illusory hyperreality, Sky Television (as unsurprisingly, it was the Murdochracy which streamed this fetishistic football match around the globe) had the audacity to claim that their commentators were present at the gambling feature in Sydney, when it was quite clear from their tourism-book-knowledge of the city and their inability to see anything more than the viewer was seeing that they were merely adding the finishing touches to a particularly Spectacular Sky Scam from some shoddy little studio 17,000 kilometres away.
Oh! How we have missed these monstrosities since the termination of the English season...
This match wasn't the only insider gamble in the Asian World Cup Qualifiers.
Uzbekistan were going to be our Team of the Season until they determinedly lost 0-4 to the House of Saud in Riyadh at the weekend. I bet the Fat Freaky Baby Boiling Smack Smuggler had nothing to do with this...
And, nor was it the only hot event in the final round of games. We are grateful to Khalid Faraidooni putting us on to the manipulations against Syria qualifying for the latter stages. Syria needed to win by three clear goals away to UAE in order to leapfrog their hosts into the second qualifying position. The AFC put Australia's Mark Shield on the match, which is always suggestive of a hidden agenda.
Syria raced into a 2-0 lead before a floodlight failure led to the teams leaving the pitch. On their return, Mr Shield gave the hosts a penalty and, although the Syrians netted a third in injury time, the UAE were able to progress.
Most Syrian players refused to speak to the media post-match, although one who did stated: "I congratulate the 'Electricity Team' for their great victory".
That will teach Syria to destabilise Lebanon, unlike every other local (and global) power, who also spend a good percentage of their time doing that very same thing.
The geopoliticised nature of the targeting of nations like Uzbekistan, PR China and Syria continues apace.
Scams in Asia, scams in Europe...
What is it all coming to?
"Is international management now a young man's game?" enquired the Guardian headline, with typical prescience, prior to the Euro 2008 Quarter Finals.
Fatih Terim is 54, Luis Aragonés is 69 and Guus Hiddink, 61.
The four chemically-enhanced qualifiers have also 'ticked' another of the UEFA family's marketing boxes - that the competition should geographically maintain interest into the final week.
The selling of everything, everywhere was dependent on this structure.
It even taps into an anti-reality in other ways.
Fans from the 47 countries of Europe who no longer have any direct interest in the tournament, are now able to inverse their support into an unsupport for the local object-of-derision of choice.
The Portuguese and Italians can unsupport Spain.
The Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Moldovans and Azerbaijanis should unsupport Turkey.
The rest of the continent can choose directly between Russia and Germany - the two countries who, incidentally, were our pre-tournament tips for the title - just to prompt your memories, people.
Euro 2008, three more games prior to some considerable time working on balconies and beaches :)
Italy v Spain - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The two highest ranking FIFA nations in the tournament produced one of the worst matches of the tournament as Fandel desperately attempted to "stop" the Spanish. In one first half minute, the Spaniards were denied two stonewall penalties by the overly-expressive-one. The latter one left even PGMOB Lawrenson and Ladbrokes Motson speechless on the BBC.
"Never condemn, just say silent" - the Lawrenson mantra that he must repeat to himself prior to the addressing of any referee-based controversies of corruption.
We have a theory.
It seems foolproof.
It defines the winners of the matches in the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and Final of Euro 2008 prior to the match starting.
It is a gambling nirvana.
And, you know what?
We're going to give it to you.
For nothing.
So, when we start to charge a small subscription in the not-too-distant future, you can merely dip into your winnings to continue getting our moans, groans and rants.
Anyway, the robust and 100% successful trading model is this:
When the national anthems are being sung, or, in the case of the Dutch, grunted, check if the camera falls of the Über Power from the country in question.
Using the above match as an example. When the Spanish hummed along, they were joined by King Juan Carlos. But, when Fratelli D'Italia rang out, blabbermouth Berlusconi was nowhere to be seen.
The Berlusconi brand must not be equated with defeat.
Pick up the phone/ go online - back Spain to Qualify.
Simple.
There is only one filtration. Angela Merkel's presence is irrelevant - the Germans will always win anyway.
Oh! And Putin is omnipresent.
Still, its a model of sorts.
And, if it is true, Gordon Brown's obstructive attendance behaviour should ensure a further window of English competitive underperformance prior to the next election.
Eureka! A reason to vote New Labour!
UEFA have developed an unwritten Rule of the Game for Euro 2008. This is aside from any hidden agendas regarding the playing out of the Extravaganza.
Following the compensation package that Newcastle United lawyer's eked out of FIFA following Michael Owen's entertaining pack-of-cards collapse in the last World Cup, UEFA have instructed the match officials to alter their officiating to take this into account.
The Rule whereby play must be stopped in the case of a head injury, has now been extended, unofficially, to read as follows:
"...if, in the course of the theatre, a player from a G14(18) team falls to the ground and provides any indication that he is in pain, play MUST be halted IMMEDIATELY, and the medical support teams and UEFA lawyers called on to the pitch. Do not make any comment to the player or other representatives of that said player. The game will be restarted with a drop ball and a return of possession to the team disadvantaged by the cessation of play".
The Italians were already gaming this factor into their match performance prior to their exit - I am assured, by a higher Jamaican authority, that this is a "motherfuckin' fact".
Cool and catenaccio, but no creativity without Pirlo.
Arrivederci Donadoni.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Drug Running At Euro 2008
All five teams already in the Euro 2008 Semi Finals, or still battling to be there, have one key factor in common.
All five are utilising Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) continually or sporadically or, at the very least, they have the option of doing so.
As Mark Lawrenson said on the BBC, in the 103rd minute of the Quarter Final victory of the Turks over the Croats: "I think they've had a little sniff here".
This shocking statement by a talking head was followed by a pregnant silence before the illusion returned to normal.
And this is the crux of the matter.
The dichotomous realities inhabited by industry insiders and the general public share little common ground.
At no point in Euro 2008, apart from Lawro's slip, have we heard any talking head discuss gambling, PESs, the betting markets or the power hierarchies targeting the integrity of the tournament.
Yet, in parallel, we are in discussions with two entities regarding consultancy work for the new season. The conversations with these potential partners almost exclusively focus on the grey and black markets, and the negative externalised forces undermining the sport.
We each do this thing because it provides edge in the industry fracas and because it is the only thing of any interest remaining in the "sport".
Apart from Andrei Arshavin, that would be - much more than the sum of his parts...
"We can destroy anyone's dreams" was the proud boast of the Croatians before being undone by someone else's amphetamines.
And, we too feel that it is a necessary part of our role to achieve this self same thing.
We want to destroy your dreams, your belief in the illusion. This is for your own good. If you wish to spend your limited years of existence focusing on hyperreal irrelevancies, that is your choice.
But it does not represent a meaningful life.
There is not a lot left to believe in - Nietzsche killed god, Baudrillard killed political ideology - football is the last port of call for the serial believer. Belief mechanisms are life defining and it is not by accident that the old people used to warn us to keep off the subjects of politics and religion.
Football and, indeed, sport in general should now be added to this duo.
Whether it be god's non-existence, or the two-way mirror of production, the blinkered will cling to their delusion of the illusion.
This is an awful long way from Reality.
And this fully explains why a good percentage of "football fans" remain sceptical about our message. Fair dinkum. No problem.
Back to Reality...
The Russian national anthem refers to the "Mighty Will and Great Glory" of the country. It fails to mention the rather sophisticated recipe of PESs utilised to achieve such glory. Although the Russians are illegally using a different substance than the Turks are employing, the impacts are not only obvious to insiders and analysts.
Look at the holistics.
The Dutch looked unstoppable. The co-hosts were giddy with their spending power of the people from the lowlands.
To avoid Abramovich buying the game, UEFA put one of their top officials, Luboš Michĕl, on the match - kickbacks were never going to be an option here.
An aside...
We are able to picture Abramovich speaking with the voice of Dostoyevsky's anti-hero in 'Notes From The Underground': "Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I wanted, I wanted to ring out your tears, your humiliation, your hysteria - that is what I wanted then".
Its little wonder some referees prefer to say "yes".
Anyway.
It was Michĕl who had sent off Drogba in Moscow. Last night, he tried to send off Kolodin for an innocuous infringement, before his rouble-influenced assistant put him "right". He then denied the Russians a penalty when Zhirkov was assaulted by oranje masses in the area.
Of course, none of these factors had any relevance to the match outcome.
Guus Hiddinck knows how to make a team run. And run and run and run...
The Dutch First Team had eight days to recuperate from their last game, the Russians had just three days to recover from the Sweden encounter, which included a change in location from Switzerland to Austria.
It is not known whether the players used transport or their own energies for this journey.
Despite the various factors against the interests of the Putinocracy, for 120 minutes, it was the Dutch that looked listless. The Russian closing down of space was awesome.
Some of the Russian fitness advantage undoubtedly arises from freshness due to the summer domestic season, but the match data are suggestive of something more sinister.
A constructive argument might be to ask where the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is looking in Euro 2008. Are they, in fact, anywhere to be seen? What testing methods are being utilised? Do these tests include blood samples, urine samples, in-and-out of tournament testing, pre-match and post-match sampling, randomised and secret player selection, independent assessment, the use of cutting edge forensics etc?
Or is WADA just one of those institutional platitudes, like "No To Racism", which UEFA and FIFA like to present as some type of irrefutable proof of organisational and moral integrity?
The Germans are nothing if not meticulous - you would not catch the Germans betting against their own interests in Qualifying matches, well, not until they had safely booked their place at the Finals.
And this is what they did. But their deliberate underperformance had a more strategic element to it.
By losing 0-3 at home to the Czech Republic, and failing to beat the mighty Welsh, Germany ensured a suitable seeding, in particular avoiding the Group Of Death - no country has ever won a tournament after being placed in such a group. They also made an insider killing on the Asian markets, as we have previously posted.
Having established a template where they occupied, by some distance, the weaker side of the Draw, the Germans also had client states, Austria and Switzerland, on hand to create the desired qualification patterns.
We have a serious contact on the German staff and he has advised my colleagues that the Germans were in possession of not one but THREE different strategic plans for gaining success at Euro 2008.
McClaren couldn't manage even one in qualification.
UEFA were aware of the issue of German omnipotence via such strategies at the start of the competition and, for much of the intervening window, there has been an ongoing power battle between the most favoured nation and the UEFA machine.
UEFA has switched to a Franco-Italian vertical integration since Platini came to office, replacing the previous Germanic regime. In such matters as the selection of match officials, these things matter.
Despite these machinations, Germany stands on the verge of yet another tournament final - the Turks, rather conveniently, have their four best players banned for the Semi Final encounter.
This will teach them to score their equalising goal in illusory time - that window of hyperreality which follows normal time, injury time, illusory time following injury time, and extra time, and which is dependent on one man's largesse.
These Extravaganzas are played out to a largely pre-determined template.
There are variables.
There is uncertainty.
But the marketing dream must be visualised, augmented and occur at the prescribed real-time instance of its centrally planned fruition.
So Euro 2008 will eventually be decided by drug abuse, an oligarch's ability to buy match outcomes, the requirements of the European bookmaking industry, powerful nations buying match officials and UEFA's organisational priorities and marketing paradigm.
4-2-3-1 doesn't come into it.
Last night, ITV commentator, Peter Drury, stated that Basel, from the air, looked "like a piece of toast".
After a suitable delay, and with his producer questioning his sanity, he added "...covered in marmalade".
Euro 2008, despite some beautiful football, looks, in our estimation and from an holistic viewpoint, like "a boiler room scam covered in corruption".
Still, at least McDonalds are the "proud provider of the official player escorts"??
We assume that McDonalds make equally proud provision of mad cow disease in their exports of rotting left-over-bits-of-cow to South Korea.
47 million people eat this shit each day.
Its almost enough to make you a nihilist.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
All five are utilising Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) continually or sporadically or, at the very least, they have the option of doing so.
As Mark Lawrenson said on the BBC, in the 103rd minute of the Quarter Final victory of the Turks over the Croats: "I think they've had a little sniff here".
This shocking statement by a talking head was followed by a pregnant silence before the illusion returned to normal.
And this is the crux of the matter.
The dichotomous realities inhabited by industry insiders and the general public share little common ground.
At no point in Euro 2008, apart from Lawro's slip, have we heard any talking head discuss gambling, PESs, the betting markets or the power hierarchies targeting the integrity of the tournament.
Yet, in parallel, we are in discussions with two entities regarding consultancy work for the new season. The conversations with these potential partners almost exclusively focus on the grey and black markets, and the negative externalised forces undermining the sport.
We each do this thing because it provides edge in the industry fracas and because it is the only thing of any interest remaining in the "sport".
Apart from Andrei Arshavin, that would be - much more than the sum of his parts...
"We can destroy anyone's dreams" was the proud boast of the Croatians before being undone by someone else's amphetamines.
And, we too feel that it is a necessary part of our role to achieve this self same thing.
We want to destroy your dreams, your belief in the illusion. This is for your own good. If you wish to spend your limited years of existence focusing on hyperreal irrelevancies, that is your choice.
But it does not represent a meaningful life.
There is not a lot left to believe in - Nietzsche killed god, Baudrillard killed political ideology - football is the last port of call for the serial believer. Belief mechanisms are life defining and it is not by accident that the old people used to warn us to keep off the subjects of politics and religion.
Football and, indeed, sport in general should now be added to this duo.
Whether it be god's non-existence, or the two-way mirror of production, the blinkered will cling to their delusion of the illusion.
This is an awful long way from Reality.
And this fully explains why a good percentage of "football fans" remain sceptical about our message. Fair dinkum. No problem.
Back to Reality...
The Russian national anthem refers to the "Mighty Will and Great Glory" of the country. It fails to mention the rather sophisticated recipe of PESs utilised to achieve such glory. Although the Russians are illegally using a different substance than the Turks are employing, the impacts are not only obvious to insiders and analysts.
Look at the holistics.
The Dutch looked unstoppable. The co-hosts were giddy with their spending power of the people from the lowlands.
To avoid Abramovich buying the game, UEFA put one of their top officials, Luboš Michĕl, on the match - kickbacks were never going to be an option here.
An aside...
We are able to picture Abramovich speaking with the voice of Dostoyevsky's anti-hero in 'Notes From The Underground': "Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I wanted, I wanted to ring out your tears, your humiliation, your hysteria - that is what I wanted then".
Its little wonder some referees prefer to say "yes".
Anyway.
It was Michĕl who had sent off Drogba in Moscow. Last night, he tried to send off Kolodin for an innocuous infringement, before his rouble-influenced assistant put him "right". He then denied the Russians a penalty when Zhirkov was assaulted by oranje masses in the area.
Of course, none of these factors had any relevance to the match outcome.
Guus Hiddinck knows how to make a team run. And run and run and run...
The Dutch First Team had eight days to recuperate from their last game, the Russians had just three days to recover from the Sweden encounter, which included a change in location from Switzerland to Austria.
It is not known whether the players used transport or their own energies for this journey.
Despite the various factors against the interests of the Putinocracy, for 120 minutes, it was the Dutch that looked listless. The Russian closing down of space was awesome.
Some of the Russian fitness advantage undoubtedly arises from freshness due to the summer domestic season, but the match data are suggestive of something more sinister.
A constructive argument might be to ask where the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is looking in Euro 2008. Are they, in fact, anywhere to be seen? What testing methods are being utilised? Do these tests include blood samples, urine samples, in-and-out of tournament testing, pre-match and post-match sampling, randomised and secret player selection, independent assessment, the use of cutting edge forensics etc?
Or is WADA just one of those institutional platitudes, like "No To Racism", which UEFA and FIFA like to present as some type of irrefutable proof of organisational and moral integrity?
The Germans are nothing if not meticulous - you would not catch the Germans betting against their own interests in Qualifying matches, well, not until they had safely booked their place at the Finals.
And this is what they did. But their deliberate underperformance had a more strategic element to it.
By losing 0-3 at home to the Czech Republic, and failing to beat the mighty Welsh, Germany ensured a suitable seeding, in particular avoiding the Group Of Death - no country has ever won a tournament after being placed in such a group. They also made an insider killing on the Asian markets, as we have previously posted.
Having established a template where they occupied, by some distance, the weaker side of the Draw, the Germans also had client states, Austria and Switzerland, on hand to create the desired qualification patterns.
We have a serious contact on the German staff and he has advised my colleagues that the Germans were in possession of not one but THREE different strategic plans for gaining success at Euro 2008.
McClaren couldn't manage even one in qualification.
UEFA were aware of the issue of German omnipotence via such strategies at the start of the competition and, for much of the intervening window, there has been an ongoing power battle between the most favoured nation and the UEFA machine.
UEFA has switched to a Franco-Italian vertical integration since Platini came to office, replacing the previous Germanic regime. In such matters as the selection of match officials, these things matter.
Despite these machinations, Germany stands on the verge of yet another tournament final - the Turks, rather conveniently, have their four best players banned for the Semi Final encounter.
This will teach them to score their equalising goal in illusory time - that window of hyperreality which follows normal time, injury time, illusory time following injury time, and extra time, and which is dependent on one man's largesse.
These Extravaganzas are played out to a largely pre-determined template.
There are variables.
There is uncertainty.
But the marketing dream must be visualised, augmented and occur at the prescribed real-time instance of its centrally planned fruition.
So Euro 2008 will eventually be decided by drug abuse, an oligarch's ability to buy match outcomes, the requirements of the European bookmaking industry, powerful nations buying match officials and UEFA's organisational priorities and marketing paradigm.
4-2-3-1 doesn't come into it.
Last night, ITV commentator, Peter Drury, stated that Basel, from the air, looked "like a piece of toast".
After a suitable delay, and with his producer questioning his sanity, he added "...covered in marmalade".
Euro 2008, despite some beautiful football, looks, in our estimation and from an holistic viewpoint, like "a boiler room scam covered in corruption".
Still, at least McDonalds are the "proud provider of the official player escorts"??
We assume that McDonalds make equally proud provision of mad cow disease in their exports of rotting left-over-bits-of-cow to South Korea.
47 million people eat this shit each day.
Its almost enough to make you a nihilist.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 21 June 2008
The Self-Moving Life Of What Is Dead
"The Self-Moving Life Of What Is Dead" - was Hegel's characterisation of money.
Jean Baudrillard: "This fetish money, around which global speculation revolves - far above and beyond the reproduction of capital - has nothing to do with wealth or the production of wealth. It expresses the breakdown of meaning, the impossibility of exchanging the world for its meaning, and at the same time the need to transfigure that impossibility into a sign of some kind".
What is a free market?
Milton Friedman would have had us believe that such a market is one in which the prices of goods and services are arranged by mutual consent. The authenticity of this system is, in a neocon's view, dependent on one key proviso. Namely, in a free market economy, buyers and sellers do not mislead each other, and nor are they coerced by a third party.
The pure theoretical form of free market economics is hence translated into a pseudo-meritocratic environment.
This theoretical model is however, of course, thoroughly demeritocratised by the income inequalities already prevalent within the financial system.
The foundations are dodgy.
Unfortunately, this is only the start of it.
Theory does not convert to practice. Even the pseudo-meritocratic incentive is largely replaced by a significantly more psychopathic entity that flies in the face of the original self-justification of the free marketeers.
The prices of consumer items and services are not mutually set. The branding process, when dovetailed with the advertising paradigm, establishes invalid market prices for goods/ services, as the determination of "value" becomes a complex issue based on many parameters. This leads on to the second reason why the free market is structurally unsound - there is evidently a disinformational aspect to the marketing process. Worse still for the purists, third party non-benign influences are the norm in a world governed by monopolies, duopolies, cartels and other fiercely anti-democratic mafiosi structures.
When such invalidities are added to the more obvious real-time occurrences of illegal insider trading, illegal private markets, illegal cornering of markets, active disinformational campaigns, the psychopathic control of data, the consequences of "caveat emptor", and the tilted economic, financial and legal environments that allow such illicit contortions to be regarded as skills of the trade, one might think that there is already more than enough of an abstraction of the free market concept in place to undermine any claims to systemic validity.
The free market system is supposed to work.
It doesn't for all the reasons outlined above.
Additionally, the system is non-sustainable as it pushes against the Malthusian limits of environmental stability. The short-termism of all business strategies merely exacerbates such problems.
And whatever it was that these neocon's released, they are now returning to roost. Climate change, the credit crisis, the food crisis, the oil crisis, the housing crisis, the commodities bubble, the absence of any further levers of influence for central bankers as they juggle the twin hyperrealities of inflation and recession. Governments are having to support the financial system as lenders of the last resort in order to rescue the speculators from their self-generated moral hazards.
Just how illusory are these free markets?
Markets are functions of two primary mechanisms - the economic and the psychological. Fundamentalists incorrectly perceive the former to be the more important input. They are wrong. By some distance, it is the latter.
Behaviouralism drives the markets.
Cash is the fuel of the consumerist addiction.
Very few individuals on the planet are able to correctly determine a price.
It is little wonder.
Why should we take this cash seriously?
Remember 1929?
These notes and these coins are illusory signs, a cheque is a piece of paper with a signature. For these systemic signs to have any validity, we must believe in them.
This is where psychology makes its entrance.
Pricing an I-Pod is tricky, but pricing a stock is trickier still. As the cumulative performances of stocks and shares are the benchmarks of the overall financial system, these are very important data for the justification of the shareholder capitalist free market model.
The psychological aspect of trading creates many structural patterns that are imposed on the "economic" performance of the individual stocks and shares. Mass behavioural flaws extend bull runs, before overreacting to the depth of the resultant recession, for example. Mass psychology deals poorly with uncertainty, and market participants gravitate towards good/bad, optimistic/pessimistic, positive/negative templates to attempt to explain their perceived realities.
When we are teetering on the edge of a global recession, it is a critical factor to control the bear market from a psychological perspective. Governments, bankers, companies and institutions are able to defer bad news until later quarters, but they cannot eradicate the eventual impact of such data altogether. They can, however, create the illusions of non-recession via a tight control of the mainstream media together with the development of market inputs that distort the system of pricing.
And this is the stage that we have now reached.
The snake-oil salesmen are producing their final tricks.
At the completion of trading yesterday, the FSA introduced new rules regarding short-selling in the shares of companies undertaking rights issue in Britain. Short-selling, for the uninitiated, is the selling of a share that one does not own, in the hope of buying it back again at a later date at a cheaper price. Effectively, it represents a negative stance regarding the well-being of the stock (or the group of stocks). For example, after 9/11, once the exchanges reopened, having allowed the free markets to adjust to new hyperrealities without the inconvenience of external and speculative input, short-selling airlines, insurance companies and the tourist sector were profitable strategies.
Short-selling improves price efficiency and undermines bubbles. Short-selling is also the most vital aspect of any two-way market - if traders are limited solely to buying, then the stock market prices are going to contain a built-in inflation of value as traders with contrarian positions may only demonstrate such contrariness by avoiding a purchase of the stock altogether.
Short-selling is already a privileged activity. Hedge funds allow individuals with certain massive levels of wealth to get involved and, in recent years, the spread firms allow the smaller players to short a price. But the infrastructure is already heavily tilted towards the inflation of a share price prior to any detailed analysis and input being undertaken.
But this imbalance is not enough for the FSA.
Recession is now. And any device that is able to disguise the crisis is regarded as a valid tool of the trade.
The new FSA rules for sellers are far more stringent than the obligations that buyers are faced with - these rules will develop an upward dynamic on share price entirely unrelated to free market hyperrealities.
It is a regulated tilt of the marketplace.
After 9/11, some US congressmen tried to get short-selling banned for being "unpatriotic". These lawmakers wished for an illusory price to persuade Americans that nothing had changed. The system is solid - the prices are robust.
The FSA are aiming likewise with their little ruse.
You know what?
Financial markets are mimicked by the global football betting markets.
The parallels between the two market infrastructures are evident, although the football sector has several dimensions that delegitimise the betting markets to an even greater extent.
The traditional bookmaking industry always had an issue with short-sellers. The solution was simple. Establish a market structure unable to accommodate them. Hence were created the standard horserace betting markets, where a punter can back ie buy a horse to do well, but not lay ie sell a horse to underperform. As the whole of the horseracing industry is based on the development of creative modes of underachievement for the horses, this was a nice little earner for the bookies in a cartelised marketplace.
Along came the spread betting firms and the betting exchanges to offer dichotomous trading possibilities. Now, when a punter is aware that Paul Nicholls has a non-trier running at Haydock, he/she can oppose the poor beast in the market.
Other factors such as the omnipresence of inflated transaction costs, the buying of information from insiders, creative arbitrage and hedging strategies, the introduction of hidden and coordinated trading agendas, the existence of dark pools of trading in private markets not regulated by the system etc are also common across sectoral boundaries.
The manners in which the football betting markets differ from the international financial markets are key in any understanding of this particular market sector. We highlight just a few here:
* Winning accounts are only welcome if they represent inside information. Gaming the system, playing the probabilities, improving market efficiency and quantitative analysis are not welcome. And don't even think of arbitrage! Very few global firms accept liquid winning accounts.
Gambling is simply voluntary taxation. Unless you are a professional, with an even more professional broker.
* Stakes are frequently limited at the execution price as a form of reduction in returns.
* The private markets are much more dominant in football than in the wider financial sectors. The main pools of liquidity are in Asia and are both totally illegal and, consequently, totally non-regulated. Consequently, gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. They are also not enforceable in any other manner as the brokers repeatedly disappear into the triad underground, only to resurface in an adjacent country with a slightly different business entity.
* Football markets are truncated. We know when the Kick Off will occur and when the match will end. All inside money must appear in this window. This results in a football season existing as a multitude of different options windows of market activity.
* Maximum bet limits, the closing of winning accounts, the lack of any informational provision from brokers (although firms like Ladbrokes utilise clients to promote their disinformation via advertisements and the media talking heads) etc etc etc.
One could go on.
There is, however, one feature that cuts across every allegedly free market.
The desire for psychopathic and absolute control of the market outcome.
Whether you are Hank Paulson and Goldman Sachs gaming the US subprime market or you are an England international and a bookmaker gaming an English Premiership match, the result is the same.
Total profit to the psychopaths.
Total losses to the uninitiated.
Market efficiency has a problem dealing with such absolutes.
This is the fundamental reason why some market favourites in the Russian Premier Liga, as an instance, open up at 1.80 (4/5) before shortening to 1.01 (1/100) by the off. It is also why trading in shares has to be frequently suspended due to suspicious insider dealing or other illegitimate trading practices.
Obviously, all forms of social living are preferable to the free market, but even a truly free market would be markedly better than the boiler room scams that we now have across the board.
"...[money] functions as a universal substitute of finality, just as the fetish serves as a substitute sex object" - Baudrillard.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Jean Baudrillard: "This fetish money, around which global speculation revolves - far above and beyond the reproduction of capital - has nothing to do with wealth or the production of wealth. It expresses the breakdown of meaning, the impossibility of exchanging the world for its meaning, and at the same time the need to transfigure that impossibility into a sign of some kind".
What is a free market?
Milton Friedman would have had us believe that such a market is one in which the prices of goods and services are arranged by mutual consent. The authenticity of this system is, in a neocon's view, dependent on one key proviso. Namely, in a free market economy, buyers and sellers do not mislead each other, and nor are they coerced by a third party.
The pure theoretical form of free market economics is hence translated into a pseudo-meritocratic environment.
This theoretical model is however, of course, thoroughly demeritocratised by the income inequalities already prevalent within the financial system.
The foundations are dodgy.
Unfortunately, this is only the start of it.
Theory does not convert to practice. Even the pseudo-meritocratic incentive is largely replaced by a significantly more psychopathic entity that flies in the face of the original self-justification of the free marketeers.
The prices of consumer items and services are not mutually set. The branding process, when dovetailed with the advertising paradigm, establishes invalid market prices for goods/ services, as the determination of "value" becomes a complex issue based on many parameters. This leads on to the second reason why the free market is structurally unsound - there is evidently a disinformational aspect to the marketing process. Worse still for the purists, third party non-benign influences are the norm in a world governed by monopolies, duopolies, cartels and other fiercely anti-democratic mafiosi structures.
When such invalidities are added to the more obvious real-time occurrences of illegal insider trading, illegal private markets, illegal cornering of markets, active disinformational campaigns, the psychopathic control of data, the consequences of "caveat emptor", and the tilted economic, financial and legal environments that allow such illicit contortions to be regarded as skills of the trade, one might think that there is already more than enough of an abstraction of the free market concept in place to undermine any claims to systemic validity.
The free market system is supposed to work.
It doesn't for all the reasons outlined above.
Additionally, the system is non-sustainable as it pushes against the Malthusian limits of environmental stability. The short-termism of all business strategies merely exacerbates such problems.
And whatever it was that these neocon's released, they are now returning to roost. Climate change, the credit crisis, the food crisis, the oil crisis, the housing crisis, the commodities bubble, the absence of any further levers of influence for central bankers as they juggle the twin hyperrealities of inflation and recession. Governments are having to support the financial system as lenders of the last resort in order to rescue the speculators from their self-generated moral hazards.
Just how illusory are these free markets?
Markets are functions of two primary mechanisms - the economic and the psychological. Fundamentalists incorrectly perceive the former to be the more important input. They are wrong. By some distance, it is the latter.
Behaviouralism drives the markets.
Cash is the fuel of the consumerist addiction.
Very few individuals on the planet are able to correctly determine a price.
It is little wonder.
Why should we take this cash seriously?
Remember 1929?
These notes and these coins are illusory signs, a cheque is a piece of paper with a signature. For these systemic signs to have any validity, we must believe in them.
This is where psychology makes its entrance.
Pricing an I-Pod is tricky, but pricing a stock is trickier still. As the cumulative performances of stocks and shares are the benchmarks of the overall financial system, these are very important data for the justification of the shareholder capitalist free market model.
The psychological aspect of trading creates many structural patterns that are imposed on the "economic" performance of the individual stocks and shares. Mass behavioural flaws extend bull runs, before overreacting to the depth of the resultant recession, for example. Mass psychology deals poorly with uncertainty, and market participants gravitate towards good/bad, optimistic/pessimistic, positive/negative templates to attempt to explain their perceived realities.
When we are teetering on the edge of a global recession, it is a critical factor to control the bear market from a psychological perspective. Governments, bankers, companies and institutions are able to defer bad news until later quarters, but they cannot eradicate the eventual impact of such data altogether. They can, however, create the illusions of non-recession via a tight control of the mainstream media together with the development of market inputs that distort the system of pricing.
And this is the stage that we have now reached.
The snake-oil salesmen are producing their final tricks.
At the completion of trading yesterday, the FSA introduced new rules regarding short-selling in the shares of companies undertaking rights issue in Britain. Short-selling, for the uninitiated, is the selling of a share that one does not own, in the hope of buying it back again at a later date at a cheaper price. Effectively, it represents a negative stance regarding the well-being of the stock (or the group of stocks). For example, after 9/11, once the exchanges reopened, having allowed the free markets to adjust to new hyperrealities without the inconvenience of external and speculative input, short-selling airlines, insurance companies and the tourist sector were profitable strategies.
Short-selling improves price efficiency and undermines bubbles. Short-selling is also the most vital aspect of any two-way market - if traders are limited solely to buying, then the stock market prices are going to contain a built-in inflation of value as traders with contrarian positions may only demonstrate such contrariness by avoiding a purchase of the stock altogether.
Short-selling is already a privileged activity. Hedge funds allow individuals with certain massive levels of wealth to get involved and, in recent years, the spread firms allow the smaller players to short a price. But the infrastructure is already heavily tilted towards the inflation of a share price prior to any detailed analysis and input being undertaken.
But this imbalance is not enough for the FSA.
Recession is now. And any device that is able to disguise the crisis is regarded as a valid tool of the trade.
The new FSA rules for sellers are far more stringent than the obligations that buyers are faced with - these rules will develop an upward dynamic on share price entirely unrelated to free market hyperrealities.
It is a regulated tilt of the marketplace.
After 9/11, some US congressmen tried to get short-selling banned for being "unpatriotic". These lawmakers wished for an illusory price to persuade Americans that nothing had changed. The system is solid - the prices are robust.
The FSA are aiming likewise with their little ruse.
You know what?
Financial markets are mimicked by the global football betting markets.
The parallels between the two market infrastructures are evident, although the football sector has several dimensions that delegitimise the betting markets to an even greater extent.
The traditional bookmaking industry always had an issue with short-sellers. The solution was simple. Establish a market structure unable to accommodate them. Hence were created the standard horserace betting markets, where a punter can back ie buy a horse to do well, but not lay ie sell a horse to underperform. As the whole of the horseracing industry is based on the development of creative modes of underachievement for the horses, this was a nice little earner for the bookies in a cartelised marketplace.
Along came the spread betting firms and the betting exchanges to offer dichotomous trading possibilities. Now, when a punter is aware that Paul Nicholls has a non-trier running at Haydock, he/she can oppose the poor beast in the market.
Other factors such as the omnipresence of inflated transaction costs, the buying of information from insiders, creative arbitrage and hedging strategies, the introduction of hidden and coordinated trading agendas, the existence of dark pools of trading in private markets not regulated by the system etc are also common across sectoral boundaries.
The manners in which the football betting markets differ from the international financial markets are key in any understanding of this particular market sector. We highlight just a few here:
* Winning accounts are only welcome if they represent inside information. Gaming the system, playing the probabilities, improving market efficiency and quantitative analysis are not welcome. And don't even think of arbitrage! Very few global firms accept liquid winning accounts.
Gambling is simply voluntary taxation. Unless you are a professional, with an even more professional broker.
* Stakes are frequently limited at the execution price as a form of reduction in returns.
* The private markets are much more dominant in football than in the wider financial sectors. The main pools of liquidity are in Asia and are both totally illegal and, consequently, totally non-regulated. Consequently, gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. They are also not enforceable in any other manner as the brokers repeatedly disappear into the triad underground, only to resurface in an adjacent country with a slightly different business entity.
* Football markets are truncated. We know when the Kick Off will occur and when the match will end. All inside money must appear in this window. This results in a football season existing as a multitude of different options windows of market activity.
* Maximum bet limits, the closing of winning accounts, the lack of any informational provision from brokers (although firms like Ladbrokes utilise clients to promote their disinformation via advertisements and the media talking heads) etc etc etc.
One could go on.
There is, however, one feature that cuts across every allegedly free market.
The desire for psychopathic and absolute control of the market outcome.
Whether you are Hank Paulson and Goldman Sachs gaming the US subprime market or you are an England international and a bookmaker gaming an English Premiership match, the result is the same.
Total profit to the psychopaths.
Total losses to the uninitiated.
Market efficiency has a problem dealing with such absolutes.
This is the fundamental reason why some market favourites in the Russian Premier Liga, as an instance, open up at 1.80 (4/5) before shortening to 1.01 (1/100) by the off. It is also why trading in shares has to be frequently suspended due to suspicious insider dealing or other illegitimate trading practices.
Obviously, all forms of social living are preferable to the free market, but even a truly free market would be markedly better than the boiler room scams that we now have across the board.
"...[money] functions as a universal substitute of finality, just as the fetish serves as a substitute sex object" - Baudrillard.
© 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
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Cupid's Arrow, Agent Oranje And Fascism
The Group of Death became the Group of Love.
Only football is able to achieve this as the Euro 2008 tournament refreshes the hearts other competitions cannot reach.
When asked about his future on French television, following France's exit from Euro 2008, Raymond Domenech went into Mystic Meg Mode: "I have only one plan at the moment, it is to marry Estelle, and it is only this evening that I ask for her hand in marriage".
Strewth!
Was the offer of marriage for one night only?
Take it or leave it?
Are the astrological signs so restrictive in their benevolence?
Why didn't McClaren develop a similar strategy after the Croatia debacle? Dancing around the touchline puddles, he could have swung around the halfway flag, thrown away the umbrella and launched into a touching rendition (not of extraordinary proportions) of 'Singing in the Rain', dedicated, perhaps, to a secretarial dalliance while he was at Middlesbrough.
Why are the French always more romantic?
Equally importantly, was Domenech thinking of Estelle when he decided to move Abidal to a position in which he has never played before? And Boumsong? You're having un joke...
Still, Domenech's slide from prominence is ample proof of the idiocy of basing key life decisions on such hocus pocus - a thought that he should take with him to the job exchange is this: a bus passing the end of the road has a greater gravitational impact on your life than any planet in our solar system. Comprendez?
And, anyway. Have they rewritten the rules of astrology to accommodate the deplanetisation of Pluto?
Domenech completed his unusual pre-resignation speech with: "I need her".
But does Estelle Denis need him?
And, why does Domenech look like a cross-clone between Martin O'Neill and Arsène Wenger?
Mr I-Ching does the self-destructive thing...
The decision was a tough one.
Do we monitor the Dutch/Romanian entity, the Franco/Italian one or trade in-running on Metallurg-Kuzbass Novokuznetsk against Sportakademklub Moscow?
We opted for the match in Berne that demonstrated, once and for all, that Marco van Basten does not have what it takes to be a great manager.
Or even a competent one...
The Dutch effectively eroded their chances of reaching the Euro 2008 Final by their lack of a strategy last night.
Now, it is always critical for analysts to assume the omnipresence of truncated thinking when dealing with the majority of individuals in the football industry - planning ahead is not a core competency. But, it is not too taxing to think two matches into the future. Surely?
Victor Piţurcă and van Basten should have had a little pre-match discussion.
Romania were exhausted having played France and Italy in the previous week. If the Dutch rested their first team (8 players were eventually allowed a night off), the fitness advantage would more than offset the motivational needs of the Romanians, as, indeed, was the case. The two coaches should have reached an arrangement whereby both teams put out their reserve squads and the Romanians scrape a one goal victory.
Both teams would qualify.
And why would this have been in van Basten's interests? Because, the option of playing either Spain or Romania in the Semi Final is markedly preferable to playing Spain or Italy.
The new Draw structure used for the first time in Euro 2008 allows great power to a team which qualifies from its group AND has control over who finishes in second place.
By allowing the Italians to qualify, the Dutch have sown the seeds of their own demise, in a self-harming strategy of some magnitude.
Van Basten is also several sandwiches short of a picnic for antagonising Clarence Seedorf to the extent that the great man left the squad. He might have been just a touch useful in the Semi Final.
Pre-match, the Italian press had been full of conspiracy theories - dietrologia was present at every dinner table. Dietrologia - the study of what is behind something - is instinctive in Italian society and a trump suit for all Italian governments. While van Basten concentrates on his haircut, Berlusconi will be making strategies and enforcing/implementing them.
Romania are not powerful.
Neither, at international levels, are Spain - where are the Spanish officials in FIFA and UEFA?
Italy, however, are very powerful.
And very creative in the depths to which they are willing to regress to in order to achieve suitable outcomes to hyperrealities.
Powerful, corrupt and with a major grudge following the 3-0 defeat last week.
Good thinking, Marco...
He should check out what is happening in Italy in the two months since the far-right regime of Berlusconi regained power.
Fausto Bertinotti's view is that Italian society has been "de-ideologised" by modernisation, resulting in "a new kind of crisis" for the Italian institutions. Ably exploiting this crisis, the New Right is "not fascist, even as it uses elements of that culture and its vestiges, while exploiting an aggressive aversion to every kind of diversity when insecurity is transformed into fear - and then the figure of the scapegoat re-emerges from the shadows as a shield from fear".
See Judy Harris's 'Is Italy Going Fascist? A Letter From Rome' (http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/17913) for a full analysis.
This developing fascism of the deep state spills over into other areas that Berlusconi might wish to identify himself with. As calciocaos and numerous court cases timed-out through statute of limitations regulations clearly demonstrate, Berlusconi likes to pull levers.
Particularly populist levers.
Italy is economically well fucked at the moment - Poland, Romania, Czech Republic and Croatia all 'scored' higher on our pre-Euro 2008 assessment of the participant's economic well-being. Berlusconi is using nationalist agendas across the board in an attempt to tap into a reactionary xenophobic feelgood factor, in order to disguise these economic ills. So, even if it costs a small offshore fortune, Alitalia must be preserved as an Italian institution, for example.
We think that Berlusconi might be quite partial to Euro 2008 - the perfect pick-me-up for a country on its knees.
Fascism is one of those words that, in the shareholder capitalist lexicon, may not be uttered in the media.
If the masses were to look up fascism in their dictionaries, more than a few of them might put two and two together, and realise, begorra, that we are actually already living in a system that is, effectively, fascist.
As Italy slides towards fascism, it is important to maintain an overview of the New Right.
The Netherlands, once a land of multiculturalism, if not ethnic mixing, has become a reactionary right wing territory, where it is regarded as politically valid and mainstream to hold fascist and racist opinions. Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Britain... We could go on.
The only reason Le Pen has been sidelined in France is that all his supporters are now safely housed in Sarkozy's nasty little enterprise.
Yesterday, Steven Wells, on the Guardian blog, wrote a scathing piece on the media apologists for fascism. Unfortunately, Steven decided to name Russell Brand and James Richardson, two Grauniad luvvies, as two such apologists.
Brand chose to overlook Paolo di Canio's fascism in a fawning piece of irrelevant journalism while the increasingly-smarmy-slaphead described Slaven Bilic as "a lovely chap" despite his defence of the human swastika forming, Nazi flag waving and racist chant yellers among his country's support at Euro 2008.
Revealingly, this journalistic friendly fire incident had been removed from the Guardian Football online page by this morning.
The inability to take criticism is a primary foundation of a fascist state of mind.
When UEFA are not busy marketing their Extravaganza as being "for the fans by the fans", they are advertorially appealing to us to "expect emotions".
Well, we have to thank them for their marketing prescience.
Domenech is nothing if not emotional.
But, there are a few questions relating to the fans.
Firstly, is it to be a feature of all future competitions that a determinant in achieving a degree of success in such tournaments will be the size of the fanbase following the nation around?
Both at World Cup 2006 and Euro 2008, this has become a major factor - if there are 3.7 million Dutch people trawling around the Alps, dressed up like idiots, but spending raucously, the organisers are hardly likely to wish for them an early elimination.
For the fans.
Buy the fans.
Secondly, why are certain north and west European countries allowed personalised tannoy musical motifs after scoring goals while the paupers from the south and east have to manufacture their own atmosphere? The stadium presenters are not cheerleaders and all this "Danke, Bitte" type of pseudo-conversation between a faceless manipulator and a nationalistic mass is nothing if not crypto-fascist.
Thirdly, why are the few really Social developments ignored in favour of the Spectacular? Poland's fans applauded the Austrian national anthem, and the Romanians acted likewise with the Dutch. Listen and learn...
Fourthly, which is more amazing? 3.7 million Dutch fans in mobile homes or the 15% of the supporters in the stadium in Berne who were Romanian, who were outsinging the oranje hordes even when it became obvious that their tournament was over?
Still, the failure to qualify for Euro 2008 has not stopped one league table being topped by the English.
This morning, the Financial Times has announced that Britain is now the biggest weapons exporter in the world, surpassing even America.
When England takes the 3/10ths of its population to South Africa, as such a migration will be necessary to ensure progress to the latter stages of World Cup in 2010, they will have a choice.
To either applaud the jingoistic songs of other lands, while spending effervescently but with good humour, and demonstrating a deep desire to share cultural differences.
Or, to ensure an early demise despite the spending power, do the usual bulldog-abroad type of social interaction together with a few adjusted chants to clearly demonstrate that the missing link might have been here, right under our noses, all the time.
"Top of the league for cluster bombs. England, top of the league".
"We make all the wars, say we make all the wars".
"Land of napalm and shrapnel".
"Darfur. We've gone and caused Darfur...".
"Cruel Britannia".
"God save our war machine".
"No surrender to the mercenary".
We could go on...
Oh, come on. We're working 16 hour days.
And you expect humour?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Only football is able to achieve this as the Euro 2008 tournament refreshes the hearts other competitions cannot reach.
When asked about his future on French television, following France's exit from Euro 2008, Raymond Domenech went into Mystic Meg Mode: "I have only one plan at the moment, it is to marry Estelle, and it is only this evening that I ask for her hand in marriage".
Strewth!
Was the offer of marriage for one night only?
Take it or leave it?
Are the astrological signs so restrictive in their benevolence?
Why didn't McClaren develop a similar strategy after the Croatia debacle? Dancing around the touchline puddles, he could have swung around the halfway flag, thrown away the umbrella and launched into a touching rendition (not of extraordinary proportions) of 'Singing in the Rain', dedicated, perhaps, to a secretarial dalliance while he was at Middlesbrough.
Why are the French always more romantic?
Equally importantly, was Domenech thinking of Estelle when he decided to move Abidal to a position in which he has never played before? And Boumsong? You're having un joke...
Still, Domenech's slide from prominence is ample proof of the idiocy of basing key life decisions on such hocus pocus - a thought that he should take with him to the job exchange is this: a bus passing the end of the road has a greater gravitational impact on your life than any planet in our solar system. Comprendez?
And, anyway. Have they rewritten the rules of astrology to accommodate the deplanetisation of Pluto?
Domenech completed his unusual pre-resignation speech with: "I need her".
But does Estelle Denis need him?
And, why does Domenech look like a cross-clone between Martin O'Neill and Arsène Wenger?
Mr I-Ching does the self-destructive thing...
The decision was a tough one.
Do we monitor the Dutch/Romanian entity, the Franco/Italian one or trade in-running on Metallurg-Kuzbass Novokuznetsk against Sportakademklub Moscow?
We opted for the match in Berne that demonstrated, once and for all, that Marco van Basten does not have what it takes to be a great manager.
Or even a competent one...
The Dutch effectively eroded their chances of reaching the Euro 2008 Final by their lack of a strategy last night.
Now, it is always critical for analysts to assume the omnipresence of truncated thinking when dealing with the majority of individuals in the football industry - planning ahead is not a core competency. But, it is not too taxing to think two matches into the future. Surely?
Victor Piţurcă and van Basten should have had a little pre-match discussion.
Romania were exhausted having played France and Italy in the previous week. If the Dutch rested their first team (8 players were eventually allowed a night off), the fitness advantage would more than offset the motivational needs of the Romanians, as, indeed, was the case. The two coaches should have reached an arrangement whereby both teams put out their reserve squads and the Romanians scrape a one goal victory.
Both teams would qualify.
And why would this have been in van Basten's interests? Because, the option of playing either Spain or Romania in the Semi Final is markedly preferable to playing Spain or Italy.
The new Draw structure used for the first time in Euro 2008 allows great power to a team which qualifies from its group AND has control over who finishes in second place.
By allowing the Italians to qualify, the Dutch have sown the seeds of their own demise, in a self-harming strategy of some magnitude.
Van Basten is also several sandwiches short of a picnic for antagonising Clarence Seedorf to the extent that the great man left the squad. He might have been just a touch useful in the Semi Final.
Pre-match, the Italian press had been full of conspiracy theories - dietrologia was present at every dinner table. Dietrologia - the study of what is behind something - is instinctive in Italian society and a trump suit for all Italian governments. While van Basten concentrates on his haircut, Berlusconi will be making strategies and enforcing/implementing them.
Romania are not powerful.
Neither, at international levels, are Spain - where are the Spanish officials in FIFA and UEFA?
Italy, however, are very powerful.
And very creative in the depths to which they are willing to regress to in order to achieve suitable outcomes to hyperrealities.
Powerful, corrupt and with a major grudge following the 3-0 defeat last week.
Good thinking, Marco...
He should check out what is happening in Italy in the two months since the far-right regime of Berlusconi regained power.
Fausto Bertinotti's view is that Italian society has been "de-ideologised" by modernisation, resulting in "a new kind of crisis" for the Italian institutions. Ably exploiting this crisis, the New Right is "not fascist, even as it uses elements of that culture and its vestiges, while exploiting an aggressive aversion to every kind of diversity when insecurity is transformed into fear - and then the figure of the scapegoat re-emerges from the shadows as a shield from fear".
See Judy Harris's 'Is Italy Going Fascist? A Letter From Rome' (http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/17913) for a full analysis.
This developing fascism of the deep state spills over into other areas that Berlusconi might wish to identify himself with. As calciocaos and numerous court cases timed-out through statute of limitations regulations clearly demonstrate, Berlusconi likes to pull levers.
Particularly populist levers.
Italy is economically well fucked at the moment - Poland, Romania, Czech Republic and Croatia all 'scored' higher on our pre-Euro 2008 assessment of the participant's economic well-being. Berlusconi is using nationalist agendas across the board in an attempt to tap into a reactionary xenophobic feelgood factor, in order to disguise these economic ills. So, even if it costs a small offshore fortune, Alitalia must be preserved as an Italian institution, for example.
We think that Berlusconi might be quite partial to Euro 2008 - the perfect pick-me-up for a country on its knees.
Fascism is one of those words that, in the shareholder capitalist lexicon, may not be uttered in the media.
If the masses were to look up fascism in their dictionaries, more than a few of them might put two and two together, and realise, begorra, that we are actually already living in a system that is, effectively, fascist.
As Italy slides towards fascism, it is important to maintain an overview of the New Right.
The Netherlands, once a land of multiculturalism, if not ethnic mixing, has become a reactionary right wing territory, where it is regarded as politically valid and mainstream to hold fascist and racist opinions. Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Britain... We could go on.
The only reason Le Pen has been sidelined in France is that all his supporters are now safely housed in Sarkozy's nasty little enterprise.
Yesterday, Steven Wells, on the Guardian blog, wrote a scathing piece on the media apologists for fascism. Unfortunately, Steven decided to name Russell Brand and James Richardson, two Grauniad luvvies, as two such apologists.
Brand chose to overlook Paolo di Canio's fascism in a fawning piece of irrelevant journalism while the increasingly-smarmy-slaphead described Slaven Bilic as "a lovely chap" despite his defence of the human swastika forming, Nazi flag waving and racist chant yellers among his country's support at Euro 2008.
Revealingly, this journalistic friendly fire incident had been removed from the Guardian Football online page by this morning.
The inability to take criticism is a primary foundation of a fascist state of mind.
When UEFA are not busy marketing their Extravaganza as being "for the fans by the fans", they are advertorially appealing to us to "expect emotions".
Well, we have to thank them for their marketing prescience.
Domenech is nothing if not emotional.
But, there are a few questions relating to the fans.
Firstly, is it to be a feature of all future competitions that a determinant in achieving a degree of success in such tournaments will be the size of the fanbase following the nation around?
Both at World Cup 2006 and Euro 2008, this has become a major factor - if there are 3.7 million Dutch people trawling around the Alps, dressed up like idiots, but spending raucously, the organisers are hardly likely to wish for them an early elimination.
For the fans.
Buy the fans.
Secondly, why are certain north and west European countries allowed personalised tannoy musical motifs after scoring goals while the paupers from the south and east have to manufacture their own atmosphere? The stadium presenters are not cheerleaders and all this "Danke, Bitte" type of pseudo-conversation between a faceless manipulator and a nationalistic mass is nothing if not crypto-fascist.
Thirdly, why are the few really Social developments ignored in favour of the Spectacular? Poland's fans applauded the Austrian national anthem, and the Romanians acted likewise with the Dutch. Listen and learn...
Fourthly, which is more amazing? 3.7 million Dutch fans in mobile homes or the 15% of the supporters in the stadium in Berne who were Romanian, who were outsinging the oranje hordes even when it became obvious that their tournament was over?
Still, the failure to qualify for Euro 2008 has not stopped one league table being topped by the English.
This morning, the Financial Times has announced that Britain is now the biggest weapons exporter in the world, surpassing even America.
When England takes the 3/10ths of its population to South Africa, as such a migration will be necessary to ensure progress to the latter stages of World Cup in 2010, they will have a choice.
To either applaud the jingoistic songs of other lands, while spending effervescently but with good humour, and demonstrating a deep desire to share cultural differences.
Or, to ensure an early demise despite the spending power, do the usual bulldog-abroad type of social interaction together with a few adjusted chants to clearly demonstrate that the missing link might have been here, right under our noses, all the time.
"Top of the league for cluster bombs. England, top of the league".
"We make all the wars, say we make all the wars".
"Land of napalm and shrapnel".
"Darfur. We've gone and caused Darfur...".
"Cruel Britannia".
"God save our war machine".
"No surrender to the mercenary".
We could go on...
Oh, come on. We're working 16 hour days.
And you expect humour?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 14 June 2008
A Fallen Hero, A Racist Copper, A Gypsy And An Oligarch
"To bet or not to bet, there is no question" - states Eric Cantona in Hemisphere Droit's £2.5 million ($5 million) advertising campaign for Partouche Casinos.
In his selling out to the inappropriate euro, Cantona leaves the question unanswered, although his fee from Partouche allows a reading of the Great Man's body language to show where his real sensibilities and financial sensitivities lie.
Like he needs the money? Cantona is in Manchester currently, filming for the new Ken Loach film "Looking for Eric" at a secret location otherwise known as Keppel Road in Chorlton, I might cycle over and ask the Great Man - "Do you wish for us to bet? Or not?".
And, "What is the basis for this advice?".
The only point to be made in favour of the Great Man is his mocking of England's failure to qualify during his marketing performance.
Interesting angle from Hemisphere here. Pay out money to insult the most xenophobic nation in Europe via an assault on their nationhood while trying to persuade them to believe in your product.
But, because Cantona is a Great Man, the people will buy into Partouche as an entirely voluntary form of taxation.
Profit through Insult. We tried something similar with E-buzzers. This firm pays blogs to place "buzz" names within the blog posts. Such buzzes are linked to a required website. The idea is that advertisers approach E-buzzers looking for blogs featuring, say, football. E-buzzers do the-middle-man-thing and, whenever Football Is Fixed mentions Sky Television approvingly, we get paid some cash. Simple.
Our response was to show interest in the concept. But from a postmodern perspective.
We wished for the likes of Sky to pay us a fee for insulting them. Our logic?
Firstly, '...there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.
Secondly, being bad-mouthed is cool. Straight from the fridge... Pay us for our communication. We irritate you, we confront you. Don't ignore the conversation. Respond. Performance related pay dependent on a scale of negative impact and annoyance. £'s for Libel, that's the deal...
Thirdly, and most importantly for organisations whose main focus is profit, we sharpen up your corruptions by acting as a monitor - an external beacon representing the cutting edge of current trading perceptions and knowledge. We help you to hide your future machinations.
Whether we like it, or not.
E-buzzers, unfortunately, became one of the 95% of potential linkages that we chose to by-pass.
They were unable to get it.
A 62 year old engineer from Rotherham is receiving police protection, following death threats from a few members of the Polish immigrant community. Howard Webb works on traffic lights and signals at the council, where his email has been shut down after being inundated with hate-mail.
Butterfly Wings.
Chaos Theory.
A potential corruption is perpetrated in Vienna, which led to a national leader feeling murderous, and caused a traffic light engineer to receive death threats from Poles in and around Rotherham.
Chaos Theory is Postmodern. The final occurrence bears no resemblance to the initial occurrence that caused-and-effected the final occurrence's existence.
Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, was livid at the decision of Howard Webb, admitting he wanted to "kill" the bald-headed English Premier League referee for depriving coach Leo Beenhakker's team of a vital win. "As the prime minister, I have to be balanced and collected..." he stated the following day.
Wouldn't want to come across the man when his equilibrium is disturbed then...
So, Howard Webb is England's brand of Hugh Dallas. It is critical that we not mention the word 'corruption' in any paragraph including these people.
But we are delighted to report that PC Webb will be safe on his return - "Our boys... will be in touch with Howard. We are ready to do everything necessary to provide security for him and his family" - said a spokesperson for the South Yorkshire constabulary.
We can see The Sun campaign developing here.
A whole summer with no xenophobia extravaganza on which to vent your anger and resentment.
Webb returns from Euro 2008 after being given the Final, for one reason and another.
There is an incident.
Suddenly, its Poles versus The Proles and The Police. The Good Fight.
How dare another country insult Our Ref. Polish communities will be attacked. Rich children will stop growing up speaking English with Polish accents. The Commercial Property Market will Collapse. No builders. No plumbers. "Wot? No invasion?".
That sort of thing...
Yesterday saw, by some distance, the best match of the competition so far - Romania v Italy. Proper football, and then some... Two fighters toe-to-toe, kicking four-shades-of-shit out of each other, before the referee calls it a Tie.
It was Postmodern Football masquerading as Fight Club.
And, it mattered.
Big Style.
If you want to really understand the vicious racism being undertaken in Italy against Romanians, read Cristina Arion's totally excellent piece entitled "The Italian Government's Plans for Romanians: the Return of Collective Expulsions?" at World Politics Review (see: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articlePrint.aspx?ID=1357).
Coincidentally, it was also the first match yet at Euro 2008 to feature no players earning their living in the English Premiership.
Absolutely vital football though. And Drama. Real Drama.
Adrian Mutu is a Hero. Having spent the season being racially taunted wherever he travels in Italy, due to the complete breakdown of anything resembling society in the country, he scores a Heroic Goal before missing a Heroic Penalty and crying a Heroic Tear.
"Shitty Gypsy" - squealed the right-wing Lazio fans in November.
"A crafty little Gypsy" - reasoned Maurizio Zamporini, the Palermo president.
Meanwhile, a Very Rich Oligarch, a Very Rich Oligarch with many enemies in the world, is determinedly pursuing a claim for £12 million damages against Mutu in punishment for his addiction issues while playing at the West London Autocracy.
Why only Mutu?
The man did the white line in the aftermath of his separation from his wife and, presumably, under the yoke of the ever-present racism.
Some facts just define a Man. Even a Very Rich Oligarch Man...
Hai Hai Hai Romania...
Finally, a Table.
People like tables.
As part of the excruciatingly boring task of having to watch every minute of every game of the Spectacle, we have to collate statistics and databases relating to our particular areas of expertise.
We mention above that the Romania/Italy event was the most exciting game so far. This is based on our databases.
So, its true.
Excitement is nothing to do with gambling or corruption.
Excitement relates to the moments in a match that send the pulses racing.
And totalising (with no weighting) the relevant parameters, we have the following (where 100 = The Perfect Game and 0 = A Postponement):
1. Romania v Italy 69
2. Austria v Croatia 62
3. Germany v Croatia 53
The worst match to date has been Sweden v Greece.
Nearly halfway there now.
The halfway point will be reached during the Greece versus Russia event this evening.
Rosetti referees.
Abramovich is in town.
The Halfway Hyperreality of Euro 2008.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
In his selling out to the inappropriate euro, Cantona leaves the question unanswered, although his fee from Partouche allows a reading of the Great Man's body language to show where his real sensibilities and financial sensitivities lie.
Like he needs the money? Cantona is in Manchester currently, filming for the new Ken Loach film "Looking for Eric" at a secret location otherwise known as Keppel Road in Chorlton, I might cycle over and ask the Great Man - "Do you wish for us to bet? Or not?".
And, "What is the basis for this advice?".
The only point to be made in favour of the Great Man is his mocking of England's failure to qualify during his marketing performance.
Interesting angle from Hemisphere here. Pay out money to insult the most xenophobic nation in Europe via an assault on their nationhood while trying to persuade them to believe in your product.
But, because Cantona is a Great Man, the people will buy into Partouche as an entirely voluntary form of taxation.
Profit through Insult. We tried something similar with E-buzzers. This firm pays blogs to place "buzz" names within the blog posts. Such buzzes are linked to a required website. The idea is that advertisers approach E-buzzers looking for blogs featuring, say, football. E-buzzers do the-middle-man-thing and, whenever Football Is Fixed mentions Sky Television approvingly, we get paid some cash. Simple.
Our response was to show interest in the concept. But from a postmodern perspective.
We wished for the likes of Sky to pay us a fee for insulting them. Our logic?
Firstly, '...there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.
Secondly, being bad-mouthed is cool. Straight from the fridge... Pay us for our communication. We irritate you, we confront you. Don't ignore the conversation. Respond. Performance related pay dependent on a scale of negative impact and annoyance. £'s for Libel, that's the deal...
Thirdly, and most importantly for organisations whose main focus is profit, we sharpen up your corruptions by acting as a monitor - an external beacon representing the cutting edge of current trading perceptions and knowledge. We help you to hide your future machinations.
Whether we like it, or not.
E-buzzers, unfortunately, became one of the 95% of potential linkages that we chose to by-pass.
They were unable to get it.
A 62 year old engineer from Rotherham is receiving police protection, following death threats from a few members of the Polish immigrant community. Howard Webb works on traffic lights and signals at the council, where his email has been shut down after being inundated with hate-mail.
Butterfly Wings.
Chaos Theory.
A potential corruption is perpetrated in Vienna, which led to a national leader feeling murderous, and caused a traffic light engineer to receive death threats from Poles in and around Rotherham.
Chaos Theory is Postmodern. The final occurrence bears no resemblance to the initial occurrence that caused-and-effected the final occurrence's existence.
Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, was livid at the decision of Howard Webb, admitting he wanted to "kill" the bald-headed English Premier League referee for depriving coach Leo Beenhakker's team of a vital win. "As the prime minister, I have to be balanced and collected..." he stated the following day.
Wouldn't want to come across the man when his equilibrium is disturbed then...
So, Howard Webb is England's brand of Hugh Dallas. It is critical that we not mention the word 'corruption' in any paragraph including these people.
But we are delighted to report that PC Webb will be safe on his return - "Our boys... will be in touch with Howard. We are ready to do everything necessary to provide security for him and his family" - said a spokesperson for the South Yorkshire constabulary.
We can see The Sun campaign developing here.
A whole summer with no xenophobia extravaganza on which to vent your anger and resentment.
Webb returns from Euro 2008 after being given the Final, for one reason and another.
There is an incident.
Suddenly, its Poles versus The Proles and The Police. The Good Fight.
How dare another country insult Our Ref. Polish communities will be attacked. Rich children will stop growing up speaking English with Polish accents. The Commercial Property Market will Collapse. No builders. No plumbers. "Wot? No invasion?".
That sort of thing...
Yesterday saw, by some distance, the best match of the competition so far - Romania v Italy. Proper football, and then some... Two fighters toe-to-toe, kicking four-shades-of-shit out of each other, before the referee calls it a Tie.
It was Postmodern Football masquerading as Fight Club.
And, it mattered.
Big Style.
If you want to really understand the vicious racism being undertaken in Italy against Romanians, read Cristina Arion's totally excellent piece entitled "The Italian Government's Plans for Romanians: the Return of Collective Expulsions?" at World Politics Review (see: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articlePrint.aspx?ID=1357).
Coincidentally, it was also the first match yet at Euro 2008 to feature no players earning their living in the English Premiership.
Absolutely vital football though. And Drama. Real Drama.
Adrian Mutu is a Hero. Having spent the season being racially taunted wherever he travels in Italy, due to the complete breakdown of anything resembling society in the country, he scores a Heroic Goal before missing a Heroic Penalty and crying a Heroic Tear.
"Shitty Gypsy" - squealed the right-wing Lazio fans in November.
"A crafty little Gypsy" - reasoned Maurizio Zamporini, the Palermo president.
Meanwhile, a Very Rich Oligarch, a Very Rich Oligarch with many enemies in the world, is determinedly pursuing a claim for £12 million damages against Mutu in punishment for his addiction issues while playing at the West London Autocracy.
Why only Mutu?
The man did the white line in the aftermath of his separation from his wife and, presumably, under the yoke of the ever-present racism.
Some facts just define a Man. Even a Very Rich Oligarch Man...
Hai Hai Hai Romania...
Finally, a Table.
People like tables.
As part of the excruciatingly boring task of having to watch every minute of every game of the Spectacle, we have to collate statistics and databases relating to our particular areas of expertise.
We mention above that the Romania/Italy event was the most exciting game so far. This is based on our databases.
So, its true.
Excitement is nothing to do with gambling or corruption.
Excitement relates to the moments in a match that send the pulses racing.
And totalising (with no weighting) the relevant parameters, we have the following (where 100 = The Perfect Game and 0 = A Postponement):
1. Romania v Italy 69
2. Austria v Croatia 62
3. Germany v Croatia 53
The worst match to date has been Sweden v Greece.
Nearly halfway there now.
The halfway point will be reached during the Greece versus Russia event this evening.
Rosetti referees.
Abramovich is in town.
The Halfway Hyperreality of Euro 2008.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Respect The Passion - Its A Zero Sum Game
"Respect The Passion" screamed the Half Time advertisement for a particularly shoddy make of vehicle.
And Passion must be respected.
No carefree acknowledgement of a passing Passion, but a firm recognition of the emanation of a Spectacular Passion - the Passion of a Polluting Force.
Passion is no longer a "linking of souls", but merely a part of an inappropriate narrative imposed on the consumer - a linking of a product with an emotion.
Advertising "... has no depth, it is instantaneous and instantaneously forgotten" - Baudrillard.
The Passion thinks us.
Welcome to the Passion of Euro 2008.
Euro 2008, the tournament with Light-Reflecting-Booster-Technology.
Because, You're Worth It.
And, We're Lovin' It...
No moving advertisements around the pitches in Euro 2008. Oh no. The globalised entities have purchased their locational slots and no amount of technology will lead to these promotional resources being mobile, in any manner. Still Life.
Adidas, Canon, Carlsberg, Castrol, Coca Cola, Continental, Hyundai, JVC, Mastercard...
The Passion demands that UEFA link with Mastercard while FIFA do Visa.
Mastercard are to be conspicuous by their promo-absence from the World Cup, although they are £45 million ($90 million) better off after FIFA was forced to pay this very amount in compensation for illegally throwing in their lot with Visa. Typical FIFA mismanagement is this. Annual profits for 2007 were £25 million and the operative who oversaw the Mastercard debacle was promoted for his efforts. Dysfunctional or what?
"Mastercard, Visa, American Express... the cash is the best".
"All war is based on deception" - Sun Tzu.
The Man With The Key Is Not Here.
60% of the Football Is Fixed readership is based in South East Asia.
Our prime business relationship is with a Far Eastern Entity.
In the west, all business is based on deception.
In the east, all business is based on a lack of trust.
The European bookmakers puppet the sector in the most cack-handed way imaginable.
The Asian operators are something else.
The Asians successfully monitor and analyse the economic and financial systems of other cultures. They build their own business projects into this holistic whole. They proceed to game the system in order to profit, even when they appear to have no official power bases from which to impose outcomes.
The Asians model Europe. They understand the mass psychologies that underpin the markets. They play fast and free.
The Asians mock Europe.
The bookmakers in Europe are not enjoying Euro 2008 - a situation partially of their own making. There are three major reasons for the wallets to be wallowing in misery.
* Unlike the 2006 World Cup, Euro 2008 is, by and large, a meritocratic tournament. Well, that is a lie actually. But, comparatively so. UEFA appear as a beacon of integrity in comparison with the murky men at FIFA. And, UEFA tournaments are more legit too. Meritocracy is anathema to bookmaking organisations. Such operations desire hidden agendas, corruption, coercion and kickbacks for a competition to be hyperreally profitable.
* Platini is proving a bit of a hero. It is our understanding from our contact within the organisation that Our Hero is enforcing a template on the tournament that is very difficult for the bookmakers to undermine. Platini appears expert at the utilisation of incentives as a negotiating tool...
* England's Staying Home... By developing a strategy for the Euro 2008 Qualifiers based on brinkmanship in the face of idiocy, the bookmakers are getting that comeuppance thing.
Right now...
Pissing about with the markets and landing a few insider corruptions doesn't seem like such a good idea now, does it? England 0 The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 0. Remember. The bookies rely on England (and a few other "developed" nations) to fill their coffers in Tournament Finals. They can afford to pay out on well-backed favourites knowing that the boys will be able to ensure that the Little Islander Illusion plays out on the pitch.
No England. No Illusion.
No Barthez either.
Little wonder that the bookies worked so hard to lengthen the Premiership Extravaganza...
Alongside Scudamore and the Premier League (PL).
Scudamore cannot abide his brand being eclipsed.
Everybody is at the Party. Except him. Scudamore is not welcome.
Off shoots the oligarch to Asia to try and persuade one of his most outspoken critics, AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam, of the validity of the 39th Game. He has, evidently, not yet given up...
When an organisation is so bizarrely structured that, effectively, it is a duopolistic but hierarchical partnership, checks and balances tend to be non-existent.
Welcome to PL World - "Where in the World? PL World".
Hence Game 39. And, hence, Sir Richards demonstrating the invalidity of working for both the PL and the FA.
The Sir has done the Bad Thing. He has tarnished the brand. By linking the PL Trademark to the unsuccessful qualification campaign of the national team, the Sir has equated failure with the brand. Inversed guerrilla marketing.
Only 34% of Premiership players are English (they should improve then) and, by attracting damned foreigners into your hallowed lands, the Sir believes that you are negatively impacting upon Engerland.
Unfortunately for the Sir, performing his job at the FA, in this instance, is diametrically opposed to his role at the PL.
Historically, the Sir has always veered towards the option of power when faced with a choice of career moves. By hitting one of his own brands with friendly fire, this lack of judgement is the sort of thing that the English sack each other for.
Not human rights abuses, underworld murders, money laundering, offshore bank accounts, kickbacks, arms dealing, torture or anything like that... A clean up by the English establishment generally means a selective punishment for not following the rules of the game - the "Its Not Cricket" form of a judiciary based on some Etonic code of honour...
Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan: "I don't think he's fit to be chairman of the Premier League".
Anonymous Premiership chairman: "Richards is only the guy that says 'order, order, order'".
The Sir: "The Premier League has cost McClaren his job".
First things first... The Sir is certainly not fit to hold down two conflicting posts. As to the decision on whether he deserves to keep either one of them, lets do some history. The Sir is an opportunist, a bottom buyer. The Sir bought into Sheffield Wednesday when the brand was at an all-time low, six months after the Hillsborough Disaster. He departed, leaving with the club in dire financial straits. In that he also helped to run his engineering firm into administration, any reasoned assessment would have to conclude that the Sir is punching well above his weight on the employment front.
Sack the Sir. But only expect another ennobled one in replacement.
Lord This, Sir That - the English (Sporting) Elite.
Secondly, Richards is more than the Speaker of the House. He is Scudamore's rottweiler, to be unleashed on those more gentle souls down at the FA. The problem is that, since Lord Triesman was appointed by New Labour to oversee the FA, Richards has seen his illusory power dissipate. Lord trumps Sir in the chosen 100,000's rankings. The Sir is not taken seriously by either of his superiors. He is surplus to requirements. Sack the Sir.
Thirdly, McClaren lost his job due to a witches brew combining the malicious impact of English bookmakers with a significant lack of anything resembling innate ability. Together with a bit of Scudamore's brand thrown in...
Anyway. Back to the Passion. Advertising took another hit last night with the departure, in the fastest achievable time, of one of the co-hosts, Switzerland. "You need a neutral referee, of course..." stated Kobi Kuhn prior to the match that will allow him to spend more time at his wife's side in hospital. Indeed the bookmakers did land the opening match of the competition against Switzerland's interests and such Hyperrealities only serve to show the negative competitive feedback loops that exist between the power bases battling over the carcass of football.
Its a Zero Sum Game.
The framing of an argument is driven by the mainstream media. Take the transfer market. As we learn more and more about this market sector via our Holistic Sabermetrics business wing, we detect the viral linkages that create inappropriate structures and dynamics.
So, the clubs, at all levels from hyper-owners down to the humble manager, object vociferously to their well-paid-but-bonded labour playing international qualifying matches in far flung footballing outposts. A licensing fee must be paid, a compensation for the risk taken on by the club regarding their product, the player. The media circus joins in the uproar.
Along comes Euro 2008 or whatever, and there is no question of these self same clubs paying the national associations or the ruling bodies any slice of the inflated transfer evaluations that occur during and post these Spectacular Passions. UEFA provide the Spectacle. Where's their slice of the transfer action? The selling club should pay a fee to UEFA and the national association of the player if the transfer value is related to the Spectacle. Unfortunately, to be workable, this would require effective regulation, which is conspicuous by its absolute absence from the transfer market sector.
Monday saw record short-selling against Lehman Brothers.
On Wednesday, Sir Richards' star was also on the wane.
But the real reason for the Sir being a persona non gratis at the Premier League is this.
Richard Scudamore, referring to the Sir's comments about Engerland, stated: "These comments do not represent the collective view of the FA". The Collective View? There are only two of them. They either do unanimity or hierarchically-concluded disagreement. Collective View!!!
But, the Prescient One always chooses his words carefully. We like that.
When Scudamore mentions the Collective View, he is referentially focusing on a Hyperreality - the core at the heart of the corruption.
To these people, Sir Richards is not "one of them". He is old skool.
We would like to suggest that the Sir be replaced by the Excellency.
There are many benefits to such a structure.
* The PL remains an internal duopoly controlling a monopolistic entity.
* The Excellency, the Doctor is surely equally elite-ranked with the Lord.
* Bringing an aspect of the Far East Asian betting markets on board is a vital strategy.
* Expert knowledge of sovereign wealth funds and offshore financial centres are brought in house.
* The 39th Game will be fronted in Asia by the Excellency from his castle in Bangkok.
* And last, but absolutely not least, Manchester City might actually win something...
By taking a Malthusian perspective on our current realities, we are guaranteed to be proved correct.
Eventually.
This basic placebo of optimism in pessimistic perspective is the foundation of our work.
The global financial system is not sustainable.
The economic system is not sustainable.
The Premier League is not sustainable.
Climate change, recession/depression, football becoming solely a betting medium...
The shareholder capitalist optimist-delusionals reckon that innovation will solve these micro-issues, but, by focusing on the instant gratification of immediate profit, they ignore the systemic frailties in their pseudo-brands.
As Adam Signatur states in a letter to the Economist: "Do you not risk a similar fate [incorrectly predicting the future based on the past] when you go on to extol the limitlessness of human ingenuity, even though we are starting to witness Malthusian limits? Such optimism, which itself is based on past experience, seems to risk a more dangerous heresy, which does not bode well for future generations".
Negative growth will be needed to tackle Climate Change.
The markets will become the impossible exchanges of illusions that, in hyperreality, they have always been. Cap-and-trade? You're having a laugh...
And the Premier League? Five years maximum before the European Super League takes over, yet further devaluing Scudamore's depreciating brand.
If the PL was a stock, we'd short-sell it.
We like short-selling, there is something vaguely anarchic about shorting the system. Its the same in football. Winning on the underdogs is the trade of choice, even if the bookmakers are sharing our perspectives...
We'd short-sell everything if we could :)
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
And Passion must be respected.
No carefree acknowledgement of a passing Passion, but a firm recognition of the emanation of a Spectacular Passion - the Passion of a Polluting Force.
Passion is no longer a "linking of souls", but merely a part of an inappropriate narrative imposed on the consumer - a linking of a product with an emotion.
Advertising "... has no depth, it is instantaneous and instantaneously forgotten" - Baudrillard.
The Passion thinks us.
Welcome to the Passion of Euro 2008.
Euro 2008, the tournament with Light-Reflecting-Booster-Technology.
Because, You're Worth It.
And, We're Lovin' It...
No moving advertisements around the pitches in Euro 2008. Oh no. The globalised entities have purchased their locational slots and no amount of technology will lead to these promotional resources being mobile, in any manner. Still Life.
Adidas, Canon, Carlsberg, Castrol, Coca Cola, Continental, Hyundai, JVC, Mastercard...
The Passion demands that UEFA link with Mastercard while FIFA do Visa.
Mastercard are to be conspicuous by their promo-absence from the World Cup, although they are £45 million ($90 million) better off after FIFA was forced to pay this very amount in compensation for illegally throwing in their lot with Visa. Typical FIFA mismanagement is this. Annual profits for 2007 were £25 million and the operative who oversaw the Mastercard debacle was promoted for his efforts. Dysfunctional or what?
"Mastercard, Visa, American Express... the cash is the best".
"All war is based on deception" - Sun Tzu.
The Man With The Key Is Not Here.
60% of the Football Is Fixed readership is based in South East Asia.
Our prime business relationship is with a Far Eastern Entity.
In the west, all business is based on deception.
In the east, all business is based on a lack of trust.
The European bookmakers puppet the sector in the most cack-handed way imaginable.
The Asian operators are something else.
The Asians successfully monitor and analyse the economic and financial systems of other cultures. They build their own business projects into this holistic whole. They proceed to game the system in order to profit, even when they appear to have no official power bases from which to impose outcomes.
The Asians model Europe. They understand the mass psychologies that underpin the markets. They play fast and free.
The Asians mock Europe.
The bookmakers in Europe are not enjoying Euro 2008 - a situation partially of their own making. There are three major reasons for the wallets to be wallowing in misery.
* Unlike the 2006 World Cup, Euro 2008 is, by and large, a meritocratic tournament. Well, that is a lie actually. But, comparatively so. UEFA appear as a beacon of integrity in comparison with the murky men at FIFA. And, UEFA tournaments are more legit too. Meritocracy is anathema to bookmaking organisations. Such operations desire hidden agendas, corruption, coercion and kickbacks for a competition to be hyperreally profitable.
* Platini is proving a bit of a hero. It is our understanding from our contact within the organisation that Our Hero is enforcing a template on the tournament that is very difficult for the bookmakers to undermine. Platini appears expert at the utilisation of incentives as a negotiating tool...
* England's Staying Home... By developing a strategy for the Euro 2008 Qualifiers based on brinkmanship in the face of idiocy, the bookmakers are getting that comeuppance thing.
Right now...
Pissing about with the markets and landing a few insider corruptions doesn't seem like such a good idea now, does it? England 0 The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 0. Remember. The bookies rely on England (and a few other "developed" nations) to fill their coffers in Tournament Finals. They can afford to pay out on well-backed favourites knowing that the boys will be able to ensure that the Little Islander Illusion plays out on the pitch.
No England. No Illusion.
No Barthez either.
Little wonder that the bookies worked so hard to lengthen the Premiership Extravaganza...
Alongside Scudamore and the Premier League (PL).
Scudamore cannot abide his brand being eclipsed.
Everybody is at the Party. Except him. Scudamore is not welcome.
Off shoots the oligarch to Asia to try and persuade one of his most outspoken critics, AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam, of the validity of the 39th Game. He has, evidently, not yet given up...
When an organisation is so bizarrely structured that, effectively, it is a duopolistic but hierarchical partnership, checks and balances tend to be non-existent.
Welcome to PL World - "Where in the World? PL World".
Hence Game 39. And, hence, Sir Richards demonstrating the invalidity of working for both the PL and the FA.
The Sir has done the Bad Thing. He has tarnished the brand. By linking the PL Trademark to the unsuccessful qualification campaign of the national team, the Sir has equated failure with the brand. Inversed guerrilla marketing.
Only 34% of Premiership players are English (they should improve then) and, by attracting damned foreigners into your hallowed lands, the Sir believes that you are negatively impacting upon Engerland.
Unfortunately for the Sir, performing his job at the FA, in this instance, is diametrically opposed to his role at the PL.
Historically, the Sir has always veered towards the option of power when faced with a choice of career moves. By hitting one of his own brands with friendly fire, this lack of judgement is the sort of thing that the English sack each other for.
Not human rights abuses, underworld murders, money laundering, offshore bank accounts, kickbacks, arms dealing, torture or anything like that... A clean up by the English establishment generally means a selective punishment for not following the rules of the game - the "Its Not Cricket" form of a judiciary based on some Etonic code of honour...
Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan: "I don't think he's fit to be chairman of the Premier League".
Anonymous Premiership chairman: "Richards is only the guy that says 'order, order, order'".
The Sir: "The Premier League has cost McClaren his job".
First things first... The Sir is certainly not fit to hold down two conflicting posts. As to the decision on whether he deserves to keep either one of them, lets do some history. The Sir is an opportunist, a bottom buyer. The Sir bought into Sheffield Wednesday when the brand was at an all-time low, six months after the Hillsborough Disaster. He departed, leaving with the club in dire financial straits. In that he also helped to run his engineering firm into administration, any reasoned assessment would have to conclude that the Sir is punching well above his weight on the employment front.
Sack the Sir. But only expect another ennobled one in replacement.
Lord This, Sir That - the English (Sporting) Elite.
Secondly, Richards is more than the Speaker of the House. He is Scudamore's rottweiler, to be unleashed on those more gentle souls down at the FA. The problem is that, since Lord Triesman was appointed by New Labour to oversee the FA, Richards has seen his illusory power dissipate. Lord trumps Sir in the chosen 100,000's rankings. The Sir is not taken seriously by either of his superiors. He is surplus to requirements. Sack the Sir.
Thirdly, McClaren lost his job due to a witches brew combining the malicious impact of English bookmakers with a significant lack of anything resembling innate ability. Together with a bit of Scudamore's brand thrown in...
Anyway. Back to the Passion. Advertising took another hit last night with the departure, in the fastest achievable time, of one of the co-hosts, Switzerland. "You need a neutral referee, of course..." stated Kobi Kuhn prior to the match that will allow him to spend more time at his wife's side in hospital. Indeed the bookmakers did land the opening match of the competition against Switzerland's interests and such Hyperrealities only serve to show the negative competitive feedback loops that exist between the power bases battling over the carcass of football.
Its a Zero Sum Game.
The framing of an argument is driven by the mainstream media. Take the transfer market. As we learn more and more about this market sector via our Holistic Sabermetrics business wing, we detect the viral linkages that create inappropriate structures and dynamics.
So, the clubs, at all levels from hyper-owners down to the humble manager, object vociferously to their well-paid-but-bonded labour playing international qualifying matches in far flung footballing outposts. A licensing fee must be paid, a compensation for the risk taken on by the club regarding their product, the player. The media circus joins in the uproar.
Along comes Euro 2008 or whatever, and there is no question of these self same clubs paying the national associations or the ruling bodies any slice of the inflated transfer evaluations that occur during and post these Spectacular Passions. UEFA provide the Spectacle. Where's their slice of the transfer action? The selling club should pay a fee to UEFA and the national association of the player if the transfer value is related to the Spectacle. Unfortunately, to be workable, this would require effective regulation, which is conspicuous by its absolute absence from the transfer market sector.
Monday saw record short-selling against Lehman Brothers.
On Wednesday, Sir Richards' star was also on the wane.
But the real reason for the Sir being a persona non gratis at the Premier League is this.
Richard Scudamore, referring to the Sir's comments about Engerland, stated: "These comments do not represent the collective view of the FA". The Collective View? There are only two of them. They either do unanimity or hierarchically-concluded disagreement. Collective View!!!
But, the Prescient One always chooses his words carefully. We like that.
When Scudamore mentions the Collective View, he is referentially focusing on a Hyperreality - the core at the heart of the corruption.
To these people, Sir Richards is not "one of them". He is old skool.
We would like to suggest that the Sir be replaced by the Excellency.
There are many benefits to such a structure.
* The PL remains an internal duopoly controlling a monopolistic entity.
* The Excellency, the Doctor is surely equally elite-ranked with the Lord.
* Bringing an aspect of the Far East Asian betting markets on board is a vital strategy.
* Expert knowledge of sovereign wealth funds and offshore financial centres are brought in house.
* The 39th Game will be fronted in Asia by the Excellency from his castle in Bangkok.
* And last, but absolutely not least, Manchester City might actually win something...
By taking a Malthusian perspective on our current realities, we are guaranteed to be proved correct.
Eventually.
This basic placebo of optimism in pessimistic perspective is the foundation of our work.
The global financial system is not sustainable.
The economic system is not sustainable.
The Premier League is not sustainable.
Climate change, recession/depression, football becoming solely a betting medium...
The shareholder capitalist optimist-delusionals reckon that innovation will solve these micro-issues, but, by focusing on the instant gratification of immediate profit, they ignore the systemic frailties in their pseudo-brands.
As Adam Signatur states in a letter to the Economist: "Do you not risk a similar fate [incorrectly predicting the future based on the past] when you go on to extol the limitlessness of human ingenuity, even though we are starting to witness Malthusian limits? Such optimism, which itself is based on past experience, seems to risk a more dangerous heresy, which does not bode well for future generations".
Negative growth will be needed to tackle Climate Change.
The markets will become the impossible exchanges of illusions that, in hyperreality, they have always been. Cap-and-trade? You're having a laugh...
And the Premier League? Five years maximum before the European Super League takes over, yet further devaluing Scudamore's depreciating brand.
If the PL was a stock, we'd short-sell it.
We like short-selling, there is something vaguely anarchic about shorting the system. Its the same in football. Winning on the underdogs is the trade of choice, even if the bookmakers are sharing our perspectives...
We'd short-sell everything if we could :)
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
From Bucureşti To Baghdad
Hai Romania...
As we predicted, the only lesser nation capable of producing A Shock in Euro 2008 is Romania.
Although, whether an Agreed Draw may be correctly termed A Shock is another matter.
Whatever.
Close historical ties (check out the statues in praise of the French military in Grădina Cişmigiu in Bucureşti) are a valuable commodity in a Group Of Death. As are economic ones. If one match may be set aside as an Agreed Draw then a clear advantage is created due to the lack of physical exertion required to achieve this Illusion.
Unfortunately, for the French, in particular, the Netherlands had only to compete for half an hour, prior to a kindly intervention by Match Officialdom.
Competitive Advantage morphs into Short-Termist Strategy.
Perhaps, Domenech fucked up on Jupiter Rising.
Still. we're sure that the Italians are pleased that they have spent the majority of this year abusing any Romanians in their midst.
The weird thing is this, right...
The Roma, who are the ones who have been so appallingly treated in Italy, are also equally appallingly treated in Romania. Three million strong (in a population of 23 million), the Roma are extremely limited in the choice of career route - musician, road-ice-clearer, mafia man, drug dealer, footballer - Bucureşti seemingly shares a racist agenda with Brixton. What the mainstream media projects as "Italians hating Romanians" is, more accurately, "Italians and Romanians hating Roma".
Mutu and Nicolita should be up for it anyway...
Nationalism tends to destroy these Summer Spectaculars.
The Nationalism of Football takes on three forms.
The first is opaque, even invisible to the average observer. These are the national machinations that take place "behind the scenes" at FIFA and UEFA, the battles between the major European powers and the power loci developed by other self-elective entities globally. UEFA oscillates between France/Italy and Germany/Scandinavia at many levels of its hierarchy, for example.
The second is joyous. The Romanians celebrating the complete lack of sporting event unfolding in front of their eyes, or the Dutch making restrained, but presumably joyous, grunting noises in pseudo-harmony, or Croatia's fans turning an away game against the hosts into a home match, both numerically and on a decibel level (which is a first ever feat of some proportion!).
The third nationalism is xenophobic nonsense. Germany v Poland - 157 arrested, of which 143 were from Germany.
Media nonsense, thug nonsense, political nonsense (check out the cultural atmosphere developed by the totally nutty Kaczynski twins, for example).
Sounds like Iraq. Cue...
Football and Politics Mix. In Iraq, and then some... Some history.
On May 26th, Blatter banned Iraq from all competitions due to the present government disbanding the Olympic Committee. Present government - Shia dominated/ Olympic Committee - Sunni dominated. On May 29, FIFA backtracked allowing the World Cup Qualifiers against Australia to go ahead.
Blatter doesn't do resolve on matters of principle.
Only matters of money...
In July 2006, Ahmed al-Hijiya, the President of the Olympic Committee, was captured during a Committee meeting by militiamen operating under the watchful eye of the Iraqi government. He hasn't been seen since or his whereabouts remain unknown or he is dead. How Hyperreal do you want it?
Ahmed Habib writes, on Z Net: "Systematic theft and corruption have characterised the new Iraqi government, and logically the Iraqi Football Association would fit into this debacle as well".
"They are all thieves," says Fatah Insayef, Iraqi footballing legend, speaking angrily about the infighting between the Iraqi FA and the Iraqi government which led to the FIFA mini-ban. "I would never work under occupation. If I work for the Iraqi FA, or if I work for any sector of the Iraqi government, I would be serving the occupation".
Evidently, Fatah Insayef is slightly more politically aware than Jamie Redknapp.
Iraq's footballers have markedly overachieved despite the impacts of the occupation, a coalition-of-the-willing initiated civil war, being paid only £10 ($20) per day while playing for their country, having to play home games in Dubai, suffering the inevitable defections as players seek a better life abroad. And yet, Iraq still won the Asian Cup and finished fourth in the Olympics. After the latter triumph, a sneering George Bush claimed the success was due to the American-led occupation. He was soon put right by yet more politically aware players - Ahmed Manajid, Salih Sadir and others responded by denouncing the occupation and saying that if they were not fighting for Iraq on the pitch, they would be doing so in cities like Baghdad or Fallujah.
Hearts And Minds...
FIFA has allowed the Iraqi government, puppets of the illegal American occupation, to politicise the sport to unheard of levels of corruption. Blatter firstly used inflammatory language in threatening the government minister, prior to being pressurised into a u-turn as soon as FIFA had summoned the guts to act.
Bizarrely, something beautiful has come out of this affair. Proper football...
Check out Emad Mohammed's 27th minute stunner for Iraq against the Aussies (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=KKnefCZ6z0U).
Total respect to Iraqi footballers.
Total disrespect to everybody else.
Euro 2008 is dull beyond comprehension. My colleague who is attending the matches in Switzerland informs us that the place is teeming with "inappropriate middle-men seeking their percentage of a wage-slavery-trade" which is, presumably, not so unusual in the Land of the Private Banks.
There are agendas at large and at play.
Advertisers in Britain are taking no interest in the event and all of their greedy little eyes are focused on the Olympics. It is therefore most unfortunate that National Disasters have prevented the mainstream media from continuing their virulent campaign of China Hate leading up to the Pollution Games. Don't remember too much focus on American atrocities prior to Atlanta...
Of course, the marketeers are staying out of the market because the punters are too.
The football is poor quality. The teams do not play together frequently enough to evolve in the same manner that a club side does. If you can't generate some interest based on the historical wars and disputes of your country, these events are a bit like darts. Only without the cheering...
"We're so close to the touchline that we can almost reach out and touch these volunteers" - dribbled John Motson at the Opening Ceremony.
Instead of all the cows and milk-maids (who Motson also salivated over rather too eagerly), instead of this Spectacular Illusion, give us the Reality.
The Opening Ceremony should have featured lots of investment bankers and hedge fund managers, their clients with their suitcases of ill-gotten gains based on some buried crime, the Davos ensemble of global leaders and a graphic to display a belief in the power of referenda - "you can vote for whatever you want, just let us get along with our business".
FIFA and UEFA suits in Corridors of Power - one in each penalty area.
The words N-E-U-T-R-A-L-I-T-Y and D-I-S-C-R-E-T-I-O-N would alternate on cards held up by derivatives traders.
The overall choreography should be based on the random walk of unfettered trade before everybody sails off into the sunset on hyper-yachts...
Or cows and milk-maids...
Our favourite moment, by some distance, so far features neither the Opening Ceremony, nor the football, nor John Motson.
As yesterday's Romania/France match deteriorated into farce, Raymond Domenech kicked a suitably placed bucket.
The astrological stars let the man down again as his foot lodged in the pale in a manner suggestive of extensive training at one of those amazing Parisien Circus Schools.
In the Clown Section.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
As we predicted, the only lesser nation capable of producing A Shock in Euro 2008 is Romania.
Although, whether an Agreed Draw may be correctly termed A Shock is another matter.
Whatever.
Close historical ties (check out the statues in praise of the French military in Grădina Cişmigiu in Bucureşti) are a valuable commodity in a Group Of Death. As are economic ones. If one match may be set aside as an Agreed Draw then a clear advantage is created due to the lack of physical exertion required to achieve this Illusion.
Unfortunately, for the French, in particular, the Netherlands had only to compete for half an hour, prior to a kindly intervention by Match Officialdom.
Competitive Advantage morphs into Short-Termist Strategy.
Perhaps, Domenech fucked up on Jupiter Rising.
Still. we're sure that the Italians are pleased that they have spent the majority of this year abusing any Romanians in their midst.
The weird thing is this, right...
The Roma, who are the ones who have been so appallingly treated in Italy, are also equally appallingly treated in Romania. Three million strong (in a population of 23 million), the Roma are extremely limited in the choice of career route - musician, road-ice-clearer, mafia man, drug dealer, footballer - Bucureşti seemingly shares a racist agenda with Brixton. What the mainstream media projects as "Italians hating Romanians" is, more accurately, "Italians and Romanians hating Roma".
Mutu and Nicolita should be up for it anyway...
Nationalism tends to destroy these Summer Spectaculars.
The Nationalism of Football takes on three forms.
The first is opaque, even invisible to the average observer. These are the national machinations that take place "behind the scenes" at FIFA and UEFA, the battles between the major European powers and the power loci developed by other self-elective entities globally. UEFA oscillates between France/Italy and Germany/Scandinavia at many levels of its hierarchy, for example.
The second is joyous. The Romanians celebrating the complete lack of sporting event unfolding in front of their eyes, or the Dutch making restrained, but presumably joyous, grunting noises in pseudo-harmony, or Croatia's fans turning an away game against the hosts into a home match, both numerically and on a decibel level (which is a first ever feat of some proportion!).
The third nationalism is xenophobic nonsense. Germany v Poland - 157 arrested, of which 143 were from Germany.
Media nonsense, thug nonsense, political nonsense (check out the cultural atmosphere developed by the totally nutty Kaczynski twins, for example).
Sounds like Iraq. Cue...
Football and Politics Mix. In Iraq, and then some... Some history.
On May 26th, Blatter banned Iraq from all competitions due to the present government disbanding the Olympic Committee. Present government - Shia dominated/ Olympic Committee - Sunni dominated. On May 29, FIFA backtracked allowing the World Cup Qualifiers against Australia to go ahead.
Blatter doesn't do resolve on matters of principle.
Only matters of money...
In July 2006, Ahmed al-Hijiya, the President of the Olympic Committee, was captured during a Committee meeting by militiamen operating under the watchful eye of the Iraqi government. He hasn't been seen since or his whereabouts remain unknown or he is dead. How Hyperreal do you want it?
Ahmed Habib writes, on Z Net: "Systematic theft and corruption have characterised the new Iraqi government, and logically the Iraqi Football Association would fit into this debacle as well".
"They are all thieves," says Fatah Insayef, Iraqi footballing legend, speaking angrily about the infighting between the Iraqi FA and the Iraqi government which led to the FIFA mini-ban. "I would never work under occupation. If I work for the Iraqi FA, or if I work for any sector of the Iraqi government, I would be serving the occupation".
Evidently, Fatah Insayef is slightly more politically aware than Jamie Redknapp.
Iraq's footballers have markedly overachieved despite the impacts of the occupation, a coalition-of-the-willing initiated civil war, being paid only £10 ($20) per day while playing for their country, having to play home games in Dubai, suffering the inevitable defections as players seek a better life abroad. And yet, Iraq still won the Asian Cup and finished fourth in the Olympics. After the latter triumph, a sneering George Bush claimed the success was due to the American-led occupation. He was soon put right by yet more politically aware players - Ahmed Manajid, Salih Sadir and others responded by denouncing the occupation and saying that if they were not fighting for Iraq on the pitch, they would be doing so in cities like Baghdad or Fallujah.
Hearts And Minds...
FIFA has allowed the Iraqi government, puppets of the illegal American occupation, to politicise the sport to unheard of levels of corruption. Blatter firstly used inflammatory language in threatening the government minister, prior to being pressurised into a u-turn as soon as FIFA had summoned the guts to act.
Bizarrely, something beautiful has come out of this affair. Proper football...
Check out Emad Mohammed's 27th minute stunner for Iraq against the Aussies (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=KKnefCZ6z0U).
Total respect to Iraqi footballers.
Total disrespect to everybody else.
Euro 2008 is dull beyond comprehension. My colleague who is attending the matches in Switzerland informs us that the place is teeming with "inappropriate middle-men seeking their percentage of a wage-slavery-trade" which is, presumably, not so unusual in the Land of the Private Banks.
There are agendas at large and at play.
Advertisers in Britain are taking no interest in the event and all of their greedy little eyes are focused on the Olympics. It is therefore most unfortunate that National Disasters have prevented the mainstream media from continuing their virulent campaign of China Hate leading up to the Pollution Games. Don't remember too much focus on American atrocities prior to Atlanta...
Of course, the marketeers are staying out of the market because the punters are too.
The football is poor quality. The teams do not play together frequently enough to evolve in the same manner that a club side does. If you can't generate some interest based on the historical wars and disputes of your country, these events are a bit like darts. Only without the cheering...
"We're so close to the touchline that we can almost reach out and touch these volunteers" - dribbled John Motson at the Opening Ceremony.
Instead of all the cows and milk-maids (who Motson also salivated over rather too eagerly), instead of this Spectacular Illusion, give us the Reality.
The Opening Ceremony should have featured lots of investment bankers and hedge fund managers, their clients with their suitcases of ill-gotten gains based on some buried crime, the Davos ensemble of global leaders and a graphic to display a belief in the power of referenda - "you can vote for whatever you want, just let us get along with our business".
FIFA and UEFA suits in Corridors of Power - one in each penalty area.
The words N-E-U-T-R-A-L-I-T-Y and D-I-S-C-R-E-T-I-O-N would alternate on cards held up by derivatives traders.
The overall choreography should be based on the random walk of unfettered trade before everybody sails off into the sunset on hyper-yachts...
Or cows and milk-maids...
Our favourite moment, by some distance, so far features neither the Opening Ceremony, nor the football, nor John Motson.
As yesterday's Romania/France match deteriorated into farce, Raymond Domenech kicked a suitably placed bucket.
The astrological stars let the man down again as his foot lodged in the pale in a manner suggestive of extensive training at one of those amazing Parisien Circus Schools.
In the Clown Section.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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