Okay so...
Why are bookmakers allowed to leech onto the sport of football without offering anything financial at all in return?
Okay so, I lie...
Bookmakers do make a 'contribution' to the game both in the form of #########
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Unsurprisingly, the exact same template is used in horseracing which, of course, is where the mode of destruction of football was exported from in the first place.
But, if I own a restaurant and I wish to play a song by The Terror Trap, then I pay royalties to the Performing Rights Society (PRS).
And, if I wish to use a photographic image of a bombed wedding party in Helmand province, then I must pay a copyright fee to the owner of the image.
And, if I wish to incorporate a discovery or innovation from elsewhere into my trading model, then the patent owner must be recompensed.
But the bookmaking industry across the planet not only is making huge profits from the demise of the sport whose blood they are sucking, but they do not even make any gestures to support the Real infrastructures of that sport.
And we are in the area of gestures here...
There is no pressure from FIFA, UEFA or any of the leading domestic leagues to 'tax' the muscle.
And the manner in which New Labour turned a blind eye to the raking in of punters' money via illicit online poker platforms suggests that there will be no deceleration from that particular source.
The bookmakers, in effect, create the rules and, via the selective parcelling out of favours and influence, they maintain an efficient and highly performative grip on the game.
But this is no longer a game.
It is a market.
In Argentina, the market has ground to a halt in the midst of a row over gambling and television money.
As the excellent Marcela Mora y Araujo says: "Gambling laws in Argentina are not a federal government issue – laws vary from province to province. In the more restrictive provinces, gambling still takes place, of course. But whereas according to current law each province can assign gambling permits, the main sport betting activity in the country, Prode (sport forecasting), operates under a law which grants the monopoly of sport bets to National Lotteries.
This is now a source of tension among jurisdictions, mostly because with the advent of online betting territoriality is becoming harder to implement. Put simply, you can have a permit to run a website in the province of Misiones, for example, but people from all over the country can take part. In addition, most of the domestic gambling websites are run by foreign companies, so any income derived from the activity leaves the country altogether."
The president of the Argentine FA (AFA), Julio Grondona, is lobbying for the Prode bancado. This is a payment to the sport by those that use and abuse it for gambling markets - the carcinogenic development leading to the gambling becoming too big for the game.
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And Grondona goes much further than his European counterparts in addressing the impact of this criminalisation of the sport.
The final match to decide the winner of the 2008/09 Clausura in Argentina was a heavily rigged event which resulted in, Gabriel Brazenas, the match referee being demoted to take charge of future games in lower divisions.
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The match itself was between Velez Sarsfield and Huracan, and the dodgy decision making existed throughout the refereeing team, resulting in three key decisions going in favour of the eventual 1-0 winners, Velez.
Firstly, Huracan's Eduardo Dominguez had a goal clearly incorrectly disallowed for offside.
Then Velez were given a penalty which they proceeded to miss.
Eight minutes from full time, the winning goal resulted from Gaston Monzon, the Huracan keeper, being bundled over unfairly, an action that Brazenas could not help but see.
Grondona said: "I felt sick when I saw that goal allowed, especially as it decided the title."
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There are some signs of reaction to the destruction of the game by bookmakers within the UEFA Family, but these signs are big on doublespeak.
So, for instance, the Netherlands has entirely banned online gambling in a fit of regulatory zeal, only to enforce a state monopoly on the sector in the form of De Lotto.
As they are with people of different colours and creeds, the Dutch are serious in their fundamentalism with regard to gambling, for banks can be prosecuted for transferring money from the accounts of Dutch residents to online gambling firms abroad.
Which, considering the complete lack of prosecutions for the banks that have demolished the global financial system, means that gambling is evidently far more of a danger than untamed psychopathic capitalism.
The general European response at governmental level to online gambling has been to try and grab the turf.
Last year Germany banned online gambling and the state of North Rhein Westfalia has, according to the Financial Times "ordered Betfair... to block access to its residents."
The Greeks have booted out Stanleybet (a good move), while Estonia, Hungary, France and Sweden have also imposed bans, the latter also opting for the state monopoly route.
Governments, like bookmakers, mould monopolies.
But the bookmakers are the worse of the two options.
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Football is most unfortunate to have both bookmakers and agents disrupting its sport.
These organisations not only do not pay for their abuse of football but the vast majority of them will not accept bets from winning clients.
This makes betting a form of voluntary taxation.
Which, with the menaces and corruption sides of the business, pretty much explains the bookmaking model, really.
Bookmakers want to leech onto the game in a non-reciprocal open source manner - football is entirely open to gambling but the reverse is not true.
Still the FA in England, as ever, has its finger on the pulse: "Clubs are being advised that any media comments by managers, players or any other club officials related to appointed match officials prior to a fixture will no longer be tolerated."
Criticism will not be tolerated.
Think freely but obey.
Or as Julio Grondona puts it: "They Use Our Fixtures To Profit."
Gilles Deleuze: "Men's only hope lies in a revolutionary becoming: the only way of casting off their shame or responding to what is intolerable."
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