Football Is Fixed was initiated on November 11th 2006 and our first post is reproduced below as August's Flashback post.
When we began, the Football Is Fixed title was envisaged as both an entrance and an exit route to the project.
By providing evidence and examples of football being 'fixed' through the externalised influence of #################################################, we naively hoped that things might improve.
And, then, at a particular point in the future, we would have been able to announce that football had indeed been 'fixed' and repaired.
And got on with something altogether more interesting.
We thought that government departments, the footballing institutions and the media would be interested in clear proof of how betting money influences match results.
This was optimistic in the extreme on our behalf.
Football undoubtedly remains fixed but the externalised presence of the bookmakers has now become internalised to a much greater extent.
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No sign of improvement, only deterioration with the few individuals who might have been willing to continue to push against the corruption eg government minister Andy Burnham or Telegraph journalist Patrick Barclay having disappeared from the stage of Reality.
The former was moved sideways in a government reshuffle when just on the verge of confronting the Murdochracy while the latter, after experiencing a dressing down from Richard Scudamore over hints about a lack of integrity in the Premier League that Barclay had disclosed in his paper, suddenly lost all interest in the subject of criminalised outcomes and became the chief football correspondent of the Murdochracy's very own The Times newspaper instead in an exalted demonstration of lily-livery.
Football Is Fixed in the original sense.
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English Football is currently reeling from the impacts of the Stevens inquiry into the bung culture, ######################################## and the revelation that Victor Chandler International #############################################
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The words “tip” and “iceberg” spring to mind.
I have traded professionally on global football betting markets for the past 15 years. In my experience, all the brokers, market makers and bookmakers that I have traded with take bets from insiders in the game. It is regarded as buying information. Undoubtedly, some of this exchange of information borders on the corrupt. The recent betting scandal in Germany and the uproar in Italy’s Serie A show that this isn’t merely a British problem.
Asian Market Makers regularly accept bets of greater than £1million without blinking (Gianluigi Buffon – the Juventus goalkeeper – was found with betting slips for several million euros in his possession during the Moggiopoli scandal). Inevitably, the liquidity of the Asian markets persuades some football people to enhance their earning capacities. To my knowledge, such individuals include players, managers, referees, bookmakers, agents and the criminal fringe. It isn’t just the Italian mafia centres of Napoli, Palermo and Reggio di Calabria that are actively involved in football markets!
To date, all attempts to clean up the game have been peripheral. In Germany, some selective sweeping under the carpet and wrist slapping went on in response to the referee Robert Hoyzer admitting that he took money to alter football match outcomes. But, I believe that there are other match officials in the Bundesliga who were merely demoted or, indeed, allowed to continue to officiate. In Italy, in the aftermath of calciocaos, two referees were suspended but the other six that were under investigation are still involved in Serie A.
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However, until football cleans up its act, corruption will persist. Falling attendances in Italy and England are partially related to deficiencies in the sport on offer. Although the prawn sandwich brigade remain oblivious to anything, the true fans know when they are being short changed. The recent assertion by Graeme Souness that British football is “the most honest in Europe” is simply laughable.
Tessa Jowell, the Minister for Culture, is aiming to make Britain a clean and well regulated gambling environment. I fully support her and her Department’s efforts but such efforts must extend beyond the protection of the vulnerable and the targeting of company directors with criminal links.
The football authorities also need to take a lead in this area and not just in the betting arena. In the lead up to the last World Cup, there was a real concern within FIFA that Uzbekistan were going to make it to the finals. This would have been politically unacceptable. In the first leg of the Asian Play Off with Bahrain, the Uzbeks won 1-0 and had a penalty denied them by the Japanese official. FIFA ludicrously ordered the game to be replayed and a 1-1 draw resulted. Bahrain won through in the Second Leg on away goals – the official for that second game (obviously by chance in the light of recent occurrences) was a certain Mr Graham Poll!
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© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
