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
