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
