Sir Alex Ferguson - Bringing the Game into Disrepute

When we produced our series of blog posts entitled "What an Incredible Fluke", we were demonstrating that you don't have to make libellous comment to expose the corruptions within the English Premier League.

We particularly focused on the distortions in the EPL Title Race.

PGMOB Referees Webb, Foy, Marriner, Jones and Mason have exhibited a statistically significant but obviously unconscious bias in favour of Manchester United in their careers.

So shall we take a look at the selection of referees over the last few rounds of the handicap race?
Oh yes we shall...

Manchester United

Sunderland (Webb)
Swansea (Foy)
Man City (Marriner)
Everton (Jones)

Manchester City

QPR (Dean)
Newcastle (Webb)
Man Utd (Marriner)
Wolves (Mason - changed after pressure from Eastlands)
Norwich (Foy)

Dean excepted, spot any pattern?

But lets go further back on United 'matches'.

Prior to Aston Villa and Wigan, QPR (Mason), Blackburn (Webb), Fulham (Webb 4th Official to junior referee), Wolves (Webb 4th Official to junior referee), West Brom (Foy 4th Official to junior referee) - if you are a low level official making your way in the world, having PC Webb or PC Foy shouting into your ear most certainly has an influence on decisions!

In 9 of the last 11 matches of the season, United have had an official with historical bias in their favour controlling the decision-making!

In that the season began with 19 PGMOB officials, we would have to ask...
... Why?

And why has Foy got Stoke v Bolton today - the match that Bolton must win to keep QPR keen?

And why did the now-retired Peter Walton, in his last 22 matches officiating either City or United, produce NO City wins and NO United defeats?

If this was Russia, we would call it corruption.
If it was Italy, we would call it the mafia.

But it is England so it must be the Premier League Establishment!

Football is Fixed - the Arbitrageurs of the Neohyperrealities of Postmodern Football.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

Abusive Power Corrupts Absolutely

The decision has been made that, like the criminalised banks, Rangers FC are too big to fail.

As we posted yesterday, the outrage that Rangers will be allowed to continue (probably without ANY penalties) in the SPL will come to pass.

There will be no future points deductions.
There will be no continuing transfer embargo.
There will be no return of stolen trophies.
There will be no payments to creditors.
There will be no tax for the HMR&C.
There will be no convictions for fraud.

Rangers, in their omnipotence, refused to even attend the meeting of the SPL clubs yesterday to decide their future - they were in the Six Counties raising money in a friendly against fellow bigots Linfield FC...
... they did not need to attend as their negotiating position is being enacted to the letter by the SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster.

Doncaster is the equivalent of the Premier League's Richard Scudamore - the man makes up the decisions as he goes along, backing up his public stances with alleged legal opinion masquerading as legal advice.

Doncaster it was who announced firstly that the Rangers Newco entity did not have to reform in the lower leagues (the norm in such instances).
Doncaster it was who announced that the SPL has been given legal advice which says no points penalties could be imposed on a team re-entering the league in Newco form.
Doncaster it was who arbitrarily announced that there would need to be 5 objections to this reformation - as Rangers have a certain degree of control over five of the other SPL teams, this is a done deal.
Doncaster it was who persuaded the clubs to put financial well-being ahead of footballing integrity.

Doncaster: "I think that is entirely unfair on the owners who are concerned with the survival of their clubs..."

But...
... the clubs are only in financial straits because of Rangers abuse of the league, the cups, the transfer market, the betting markets and their ability to siphon off money from corruptions like throwing the Zenit St Petersburg UEFA Cup Final to continue to fund their illicit practices.

Ewing Grahame in the Telegraph: "There is, of course, some irony in a club who owe money throughout Europe for players they have signed but could not afford and who are being pursued by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs for unpaid tax in the region of £90 million postponing a vote on this issue... This may give succour to Miller, who is so excited by his potential purchase that he has never visited Scotland. His reasons for wishing to own Rangers are unclear and it is not yet known whether or not he has any connection with the club’s discredited owner, Craig Whyte, the man who holds the floating charge over Ibrox Stadium and the training complex"

That will be the same Craig Whyte who used to run commercial projects with one of the administrators, Paul Clark.
And then there are rumours of Alastair Johnson in the background and, more criminal still, "the shadowy figure of Andrew Ellis has been a mostly unseen presence but he hasn't completely vanished from the reckoning yet."

Below are quotes from two lifelong Celtic fans on this massively corrupt situation (from kerrydalestreet.co.uk).
Fans across the remainder of the SPL are against the Doncaster Scam but they matter little.
The likes of Scudamore and Doncaster wish to get rid of the true fan and replace with the gullible, the addicted consumerist, the prawn sandwich, so that they might be able to continue to prise open illicit revenue streams without anything so discomforting as public scrutiny.

"Why pay any money to go and watch what is essentially a team following the rules versus the WWE XII whilst the rest of them sit back counting their 30 pieces of silver and wiping the sweat from their brows at the realisation their gravy train nearly came off the track? You would be subsidizing theft from our own shareholders and - by acquiescence - legitimising the biggest fraud in the history of football in Scotland."

"I always knew we were being cheated -- we all did -- but a great part of the joy of following the club was to be successful in the face of the sectarian cheating bastards. Bent refs and linesmen could disallow only so many goals, after all, and we continued to win trophies, though not nearly as many as we should have done, given the quality of the players we kept on producing. But there is a difference between knowing we were being cheated in the sense of being discriminated against, and finding out that the whole sport has been weighed up and formulated to make sure one team ALWAYS wins, which is what we now know to have occurred from the day and hour David Murray took over Rangers. We now know that the football authorities wilfully turned a blind eye when Rangers borrowed unsustainable amounts of money from a compliant bank -- financial doping -- in a desperate attempt to equal our two greatest feats. They achieved one of their aims. But if the rules of the very sport itself are now changed or ignored to facilitate the re-emergence of this disgusting, dead entity then I am done. This will be beyond cheating. This will be corruption on an industrial scale. If Celtic fight to face these bastards down, as Bob Kelly did in the Fifties, Big Jock did the Sixties, and MON did in the Noughties, then I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my beloved club. But if Celtic abstain or, unthinkably, vote for commercial reasons to allow this travesty to take place, then I will walk sadly into the night. I don't have that much time left that I can afford to waste it on wasters."

But we should expect nothing from certain characters at Celtic.
Pseudo-club agent John Colquhoun liquidated his music industry company with half a million pounds worth of debts and reestablished the company on the following day under a different name...
... with no debts and no creditors.

Although Rangers are criminalised beyond reconstruction, the tactic of ripping off the masses for proprietary financial gain is the modus operandi for influential individuals across football (Colquhoun is very close contractually to new England manager Roy Hodgson, equally close to Craig Levein and gambles on match outcomes professionally, for example). 

A Sham and a Scam.
A Disgrace.

Scottish Style Justice

Below is a link to the transcript from the conversations between Neil Doncaster, Jim Spence and Jim Traynor on BBC Radio Scotland.

It is taken from the excellent blog by Paul McConville - Scots Law Thoughts (http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/neil-doncaster-of-the-spl-on-bbc-radio-scotland-transcript-30-april/).

As Paul says: "If I was a Rangers fan, what Mr Doncaster had to say would have had me jumping up and down with delight."

True.
Except that we are not convinced that Huns do delight.

More revealingly, our contacts tell us that the Celtic hierarchy do not want Rangers to be demoted as it will demolish cashflow and that, after all, is what football is about.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

The Fixing of Glasgow Rangers v Zenit St Petersburg - A Flashback

The post below was originally published on the Football is Fixed blog on October 5th 2008.

The questions remain - whereabouts did the money end up in both Glasgow and Munchen?
And, in the former case, was tax paid to the HMR&C?

Another criminal hyperreality hidden away in the corridors of power.

For security, isolationism and avoidance of libel, certain parts of this post are masked from view.
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"The Guardian economics editor, Larry Elliott, has written that the Prime Minister 'resembles a tragic hero in a Hardy novel: an essentially good man brought down by one error of judgement'. What is this one error of judgement? The bank-rolling of two murderous colonial adventures? No. The unprecedented growth of the British arms industry and the sale of weapons to the poorest countries? No. The replacement of manufacturing and public service by an arcane cult serving the ultra-rich? No. The Prime Minister's 'folly' is 'postponing the election last year'." - John Pilger.

When truth is replaced by silence," said the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "the silence is a lie."

The Guardian is similarly silent when confronted with the global menace of underground football betting markets and matches rigged by teams, players or match officials.
So, while everybody else was discussing the dreadful standard of refereeing in the Premiership last weekend, the leading left-of-centre (sic) comic gave us "We Should Treat Our Referees Like Gods" by Steven Wells, a man who is evidently celebrating life in another solar system.
Journalistic abdication at its lowest ebb...

If you were diligent and observant, you may have spotted a brief glimpse of the most major footballing story of the week in The Guardian - it was online for a few hours before the hyperreal news took over.
So, while The Guardian focused on the critical newsworthy significance of a grown man swearing at journalists in a press conference, the Real news was absent.
Silence.
Apart from repeated coverage of the swearing - firstly, the breaking news, then, the transcript, followed by the video and the whole hyperreal farce being nicely terminated by a piece discussing the "awful lot of fuss there's been about Joe Kinnear's cussing".
How far up their own backsides do these people wish to venture?

Anyway.
Real news.
It is alleged that Zenit St Petersburg bought last year's UEFA Cup via bribery, affecting both the Semi Final against Bayern Munchen and the Final in Manchester against Rangers.
While resisting the urge to utter "shame" in the latter case, this is not really the done thing.
Damn Russki's buying matches - that's Communism for you.

This story isn't just some gossipy bit of nonsense - its the Real McCoy.
Leading Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, famous for investigating Pinochet and Argentinian war criminals, Henry Kissinger and American war criminals in Guantanamo, has had 20 members of the leading and global Russian underworld gang, Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya, arrested in Spain. They have been held since June.

Garzón has phone intercepts where Gennadios Petrov, the gang leader, discussed the buying of the Semi Final 2nd Leg against FC Bayern.
Petrov is known to have links with Zenit and El Pais stated: "... that the organisation of Petrov had interests in Zenit, is manifestly clear."
Meanwhile, ABC said that Petrov boasted of spending €20-40 million buying match outcomes in the latter stages of last year's UEFA Cup. A further part of the tape reveals that "50 million" had been paid to the Bavarian side to lose the Second Leg of the Semi Final in Leningrad.

Garzón has asked German prosecutors to help with an investigation. FC Bayern are evidently shocked that this Reality has come to light - the media responses have been reactive and revealing.
Eventually, a Bavarian spokesperson settled on the statement that FC Bayern have "no knowledge of such suspicions", followed by a rather defensive conclusion that they would respond more fully once they had seen the degree of the leak.
Excellent.
Build your defence around the gaming of the potential case against you.

Meanwhile, Zenit deny dishonesty and are threatening all sorts of shenanigans in response. They would be wise to wait for the release of the conversations on the Operation Troica tapes before adding buffoonery to their alleged criminality.

UEFA plan to investigate.
UEFA spokesperson, William Gaillard, stated with resolve: "We are going to look at this closely."
What?
As closely as you looked into Dynamo Tbilisi and Panionios, or the final Albanian Euro 2008 Qualifiers, or Liverpool v Besiktas in the Champions League or etc etc etc etc etc.
The same fate awaits all such investigations - bureaucratic burial at headquarters.
Bad for the brand, you see...

Early Warning GmbH are the 'police force' that UEFA utilise to investigate suspicious betting patterns.
They might as well as have used a latter day Inspector Clouseau.
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In the Semi Final First Leg, there was a clear agenda against Zenit - the match was refereed by leading UEFA light, Ľuboš Micheľ.
He gave Bayern a penalty which they proceeded to miss, he booked Zenit players with uncanny targeting, in that three of the four bookings resulted in key players missing from the Second Leg, including Andrei Arshavin. The suspensions meant that the Russian side went into the second match with only two fit and eligible defenders.
FC Bayern received no bookings, despite 13 fouls.
Indeed, Bayern would have won had not Lucio scored an improbable own goal to level things up.

In the First Leg, Bayern were rated at 76 by our Trading Team (100 = maximum; 0 = minimum).
In the Second Leg, Bayern fell to a slightly unbelievable 33.
4-0 Zenit triumphed.
Henning Øvrebø officiated and there was nothing in his performance to suggest that he was involved with the alleged corruption. Indeed, he booked Pogrebnyak leading to the star striker missing the Final.
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So, what about the Final itself, that glorious day when half of Glasgow vomited profusely in Manchester, in order to demonstrate their evolutionary zeal?

Well, once again, there was nothing in the performance of the match referee Frojdfeldt to imply involvement in illicit activities.
This would leave the bribery of opponents as the only feasible route to ensure victory.

One of the features of the Final was the unusual linkage between the participants, represented to public perceptions by former Rangers manager, the incompetent Dick Advocaat, being manager of the victorious Russians.
Usually, when we start sousveillance for motives, we seek out financial need rather than straight greed - it is a higher threshold of need that creates the incentives to bend Realities for personal gratification.
It is a known fact that Rangers chairperson, Sir Murray, had, and still has, credit-crunchitis as his property empire crumbles away.
Surely a Loyal Team with Loyal Supporters would not act with such treachery?

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These betting patterns and the named accounts are rather revealing are they not??

So far, so believable, if still slightly fuzzy.

There are some questions that are raised by the mainstream media's lack of willingness to publicise this massive story and by UEFA's inability to eradicate the menaces of gambling and match fixing.

Firstly, if Zenit did buy the Final AND Rangers had nothing to do with the illegalities, why aren't the British press jumping up and down, and generally raising a racket?
It was a European Final.
'Gers were potentially robbed of glory.
This most certainly isn't on the level of the Panionios game!
You also might think that a rabidly anti-Russian press in Britain might just have run with this story...

Secondly, in the words of one of our readers, "The Guardian don't really like let on about fixed matches, do they?"
That's what being pally with the bookies does for your journalistic integrity...

Thirdly, where exactly are Early Warning looking for match fixing? Because, in our humble opinion, it cannot be in the right locations.
Large numbers of matches are fixed at all phases of the three flagship UEFA tournaments.
Worse still, the professionals who are rigging the matches are gaming the policing!!!
Early Warning live up to their name - they provide UEFA with early warnings of unusual betting patterns in the early market stages. #########################
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All senior trading professionals make the vast majority of their earnings out of fixed matches - primary agents do the fixing, while secondary ones #############
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Unless proper and rigorous barriers are put in place, matches will continue to be rigged both for glory and betting purposes.
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As it currently stands, we know of certain market operators who trade one way in the early phases of the market in order to engender the required response from Early Warning, before coming in with late liquidity in the opposite direction. UEFA are none the wiser.

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Of course, by Monday morning, this story will never have happened.
It is an invalid Reality. It cannot be reported.

If UEFA want to resolve the issue of integrity in football, they are going to have to team up with FIFA and go after these private markets.

There you go, Early Warning, investigate it...

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

What An Incredible Fluke LVI!

The PGMOB Select Group of referees for Premier League games features the ludicrously small number of just 18 officials.

This is a structure seemingly primed for corruption.

But the hyperreality is worse still.

Stuart Attwell has been demoted due to the poor standard of his officiating.
Peter Walton was forced to retire early following disclosures about his alleged biases - he is no longer in the country.
Martin Atkinson has been overlooked since he gave the ghost goal to Chelsea in the FA Cup Semi Final (presumably 18 Chelsea matches without refereeing any defeats has finally been noticed).
Although, hilariously, Atkinson has been given the Europa Cup Semi Final at Bilbao this evening!
Howard Webb, Mark Clattenburg together with Atkinson are away in Turkey training for Euro 2012 from next Monday.

This leaves just 13 referees for the key matches next week with Webb and Clattenburg being forced to squeeze in a match before flying out.

Serie A has 32 top flight referees, the Bundesliga has 22 and La Liga 19.

The result of such a select Select Group is that rookie referee Mike Jones, for instance, is going to be a busy man.
His diary?

Thu: Athletic Bilbao v Sp Lisbon (AAR)
Sat: WBA v Aston Villa (4th Official)
Sun: Spurs v Blackburn (Referee)
Mon: Man City v Man Utd (4th Official)

As the standard of officiating in the Premier League is truly dire, what on earth are the justifications for having such a miniscule number of match referees?

The Premier League integrity is Graphene thin...

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke LV!

Lord Redknapp of The Sandbanks or Woy The Hedge or Stuart Pearce?

A colleague has had an entertaining conversation with a senior HMR&C official and was informed that the police found copious amounts of ###### ############ ######## when the mansion of a certain individual was raided.

But.

Someone made a dog's breakfast of the paperwork on the case resulting in the pitiful Rosie 47 Spectacle.

You have to develop some level of respect for Lord Redknapp - no matter how heavy, how powerful, how underworld, how mafiosi, how taxing his associates and enemies, the man with the wobbly face holds his own.

As for the next England manager...
... makes no difference as there are enough criminalised players in the side to ensure that the English bookies will never have to pay out on anything so irritating as an English success.

But hey...
... somebody messing up on the paperwork.

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke LIV!

So.
Paul Clark of Duff Phelps, the Rangers administrators, is strongly critical of the decision to impose a transfer embargo on the club and he is absolutely beside himself that his old work colleague Craig Whyte has been fined and banned for life from Scottish football.

Firstly, Whyte should be imprisoned.

Meanwhile Ally McCoist makes assertions regarding the SFA Judicial Tribunal: "Who are these people? I want to know who these people are.”
All three members of this panel have subsequently received threats and are under high level police protection.

Interestingly, so are we.

Is this what British football has descended into?
Death threats, menaces, insider gambling, third party ownership, fixed matches, police protection - we could, if we so desired, entirely demolish the careers and reputations of some very senior individuals in both Scottish and English football...
... but we strategically elect not to do so.

Moreover, previous owners need to explain spectacles like the Zenit St Petersburg Fixed Final.

And Dick Advocaat, the man who began the financial shenanigans and who also benefited in a range of ways from the ZSP farce, should act as the threshold date-wise beyond which all unfairly won Scottish Premier League titles since 1998 are returned to the rightful owners, Celtic FC.

But.
Whyte and Clark being former project colleagues...
... and Clark putting the interests of his friend criminally high on his hidden agenda.

What a weird fluke!

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

What An Incredible Fluke LIII!

There were 13 players from the Primary Tier G14(18) power lobby teams one booking away from missing the Champions League Final.

Between them they accumulated 16 fouls and three players will miss the game in Munchen.

Chelsea had 5 players one booking away from missing the showcase.
These players committed 4 fouls.
The result being that all four miss the Final.

Put another way...
... The G14(18) teams committed 47 fouls and received 9 bookings in total, while Chelsea committed 10 fouls and were given 6 bookings and a sending off and a penalty against them.

Luiz Gustavo alone committed 9 fouls!!

Three points.

Firstly, not one Real Madrid or Barcelona player who was in danger of being banned even fouled during the 210 minutes of football.

Secondly, Roman Abramovich needs to extend his already considerable array of vory and krysha to be treated equitably by UEFA.

And, thirdly, as the Spanish season is now effectively over, the odds on a Spain Euro 2012 triumph should shorten after tonight.

Not one non-G14(18) team has won the Final since the Champions League was formed...
... we see no reasons for that sequence to be broken this season.

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke LII!

There are very strong rumours emanating from some key underground Asian market makers that John Terry was allegedly the footballing equivalent of a non-trier in horseracing last evening.

The betting turnover on the match globally was the most voluminous we have ever seen...

But surely the Club Captain, Former England Captain and Alleged Celebrity Racist would not be involved with his associates betting against his own team...
... surely!

But.
If he was.

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke L!

The solutions to the major end-of-season Champions League events are always truly holistic.

First we had Mourinho sending through Art of War strategies to help Chelsea against Barcelona.

Second we had both Barcelona and Bayern Munchen utilising their G14(18) power webs to energise the excellent refereeing performance from Cuneyt Cakir - Chelsea committed 10 fouls (just two more than Barca) had 6 bookings, a sending off, a penalty against them and the result that four of the punished players are banned from the final...
... in Munchen.
For comparison, Tuesday's three matches in Serie A and Premier League produced 82 fouls and 9 bookings!

Thirdly we finally realise what a fantastic decision it was by West Bromwich Albion to replace Roberto di Matteo with an Omerta Outfit.

And, fourthly, having disgraced themselves, the victims and football in general by their behaviours during the minute silence for the people murdered at Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police, we are now able to look forward to that same level of evolved rationale for a match in Germany against either Mourinho or, worse still, Germans.

Still 82 fouls and 9 bookings...
... or 10 fouls and 6 bookings and 1 sending off.

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke XXXVIII!

The Guardian could not have timed their spurious ill-founded and disinformational campaign in support of the referees any more poorly - three articles in one week is not balanced journalism...

Martin Atkinson with a ghost goal and a non-sending off in the biggest English match of the day.
Mark Halsey with two entirely incorrect decisions regarding penalties in the biggest Premier League game.
Euan Norris with two assymetric decisions that decided a Scottish Cup semi final.
And Chris Foy starting the weekend off with a Favour for Fergie by booking Tevez for diving rather than giving the penalty.

Quality.

With Atkinson's historical favouring of Chelsea, the PGMOB bias to Man Utd, Mr Norris and his tilt to Rangers and Foy's 14 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss on Man Utd games, the mistakes were par for the course!!!

As The Guardian told us Roy Hodgson had said, the English referees are "probably the best in Europe" - at what exactly?

Hodgson's West Brom gained a victory at the weekend with pet ref Jon Moss in control - perhaps that is good officiating in Hodgson's myopia.

Meanwhile Willie McKay's Doncaster Rovers were relegated from the Championship. Doncaster manager Dean Saunders blamed all four goals his side conceded on poor decisions and questioned whether referee Mick Russell should be allowed to officiate again.

Arsene Wenger believes it is time football embraces the assistance video replays would provide for referees, as has been done in cricket, tennis and rugby league.
"We need to assess the global situation and I think all of the football authorities need to sit together and see how we can improve it," Wenger said.
"It's time for us to help the referees and all be united and have a less conservative approach. And opt for video because video will help the referees.
It will not question their authority, it will give them more credit, more authority and less mistakes.
"(Video replays) would not stop the game. Sometimes it will give an even more flow to the game.
"We have to accept that we have the most conservative approach compared to any other sport. It can be a strength. But on the refereeing side, I think it's a weakness."

Can't see the bookmakers and the other power-brokers in the game allowing that...

Still four big televised games on Grand National Weekend altered by seemingly random decision-making - "hoping and guessing" as Mark Hughes said...

What a weird fluke!

What An Incredible Fluke XXVIII!

Hail Hail!!
Against all the early season odds, Glasgow Celtic were crowned Scottish Premier League Champions on Saturday.
A true Easter Uprising!

Without going for the Schadenfreude/Fr Ted Crilly/Bjørge Lillelien angle on hyperrealities, the Hun Boys took one hell of a beating.

But in the land of Dallasgate, there were dark forces working against the Celtic triumph as ever.

Take leading Scottish referee Willie Collum (the one who walks out for the second half actually in the midst of the Rangers team).

Since becoming a SPL official, Collum has shown a marked bias in favour of Rangers.
Looking at the key match-changing sendings off and penalties that Collum has handed out, Rangers have a 15-1 tilt in their favour while Celtic have a 2-3 tilt against.
These decisions included a remarkable penalty in one Auld Firm game that could only have been seen through Collum's extra pair of eyes in the rear of his head.
Oh! And then there was the fixed Scottish League Cup Final between Celtic and Kilmarnock.

Why is this sort of stuff not spotted and acted upon?

Collum, as we are repeatedly told in apparent justification of his bias, is a religion teacher at a Roman Catholic school.
Poor kids.

God certainly appears to move in mysterious ways in favour of the goat-bothering brotherhood north of the border.

And while we're at it...
... where did all the money go that Rangers FC received for throwing the 2007/08 UEFA/Europa Cup Final against Zenit St Petersburg?

And why aren't Celtic being given the 7 corrupted titles won by Rangers since Advocaat started the financial shenanigans?
Milan got it and they were as guilty as Juve...
... so why not Celtic?

But, Celtic managing to win the title in one of the most criminalised leagues in Europe...

What a weird fluke!

Rangers FC - Too Big To Fail? - Another Scandal

The Administrators overseeing the Rangers Calciopoli are NOT INDEPENDENT of one of the individuals under investigation.

One of my colleagues sent this little nugget of quantumness through...

"Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know ## ### #### David Whitehouse is the Administrator of Rangers, sounds like he's got his work cut out in between the banks and the agents! Glad # ### ### ## ##....

Apparently Paul Clark who is the Joint Administrator, is old mates with Whyte which was their root into their (Duff and Phelps - formerly MCR) first major football appointment I believe (I'm a bit out of touch though). I #### #### one of the other bosses in Manchester - he's a Catholic though, I believe, so nowhere near the Rangers job!"

Now.
In whose best interests are Whyte's links with the Administrators?

Glasgow Rangers FC?
Or Craig Whyte?

And, on Thursday, it is announced that two companies (Merchant Turnaround and Jerome Group Pension Fund) linked to the unfit and improper person, Whyte, have laid claim in the High Court to monies that might have kept the club alive.

Strip them of all the titles since 1998, I say.

Time for a New Reformation...
... the Reformation of Rangers FC 2012 in the Scotland Semi-Pro Leagues.

Jelly and Ice Cream when Rangers die...
... Sir David Murray must be sleeping soundly.

And lock Whyte up good and proper.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

Hail Hail The End is Nigh!! A Flashback

To keep people on their toes, we have set up a piece of software that will be automatically and randomly drip-feed all 1000+ previous posts from the legendary Football is Fixed blog in Flashback form.

All posts will be cleansed of any libellous comment.

But here's one we prepared earlier when the Rangers Tax Case Hun Drum Scenario was in an infantile stage.

Of course, John Reid ended up letting us all down, just as he always did...
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Now doesn't it feel like decades ago that we blogged about the "issues" relating to Willie Collum refereeing the first Celtic/Rangers match of the season...?

Over the 980 blog posts that have appeared on the Football Is Fixed website over the years, none have been as key as the current Caledonian Referee Scandal Series.

More than that...

This is undoubtedly the biggest British footballing spectacle to have brushed the surface of the mainstream media in my lifetime.

We are dealing with the exposure, potentially, of decades of systemic institutional corruption primarily in the favour of one team.
The Hun should be grateful that FIFA are similarly institutionally challenged in the integrity department.

And brushed the surface is the key input here.

Cyclically in the MSM, there quantums into existence stories relating to competitive bidding to buyout and take over ownership of Glasgow Rangers FC.
'Tis a Sine Wave of Propaganda.

Compare and contrast with the refusal of the self same MSM to go anywhere near the Real Reality of the Dallasgate Scandal.

And which would be the more newsworthy of these quantums of news?

Now why might that be, girls and boys?
It wouldn't be because too many people have got their grubby fingers in an incredibly corrupted pie both north of the border and, dare I say it, south?

Now when Juve had Serie A titles removed from their trophy cabinet, they also were sentenced to a penance of two years in Serie B and an equivalent period of restricted access to transfer market as a result of which the majority of their best players left, understanding that half a decade of exclusion from the Champions League together with the shame of having been involved with tainted title triumphs would reduce future revenue streams.
Buffon and his two million euro betting slip elected to stay.

With the current Hun Financial Plight, any such punishment would demolish the entity that is Rangers FC - damaged goods, bankrupt stock, a busted flush, you get the drift...
With caveat emptor in mind, who in the right mind is going to hand over cash for such a product on the cusps of a Depression.
We are talking oblivion.

And it is, as has been pointed out, all in the hands of Dr John Reid.
If you are willing to countenance Extraordinary Rendition, Mashing the Hun is surely simply a few hours of work?

These are really exciting times and 'tis a pity that the MSM are choosing not to cover them - just like Al Megrahi all over again.

But MSM or not, there must be a Public Inquiry into the Caledonian Calciopoli - Dallasgate.

A Perfect Storm

How Insider Gamblers Profited from the Deaths of the Welsh Miners

The reverse fixture of this weekend's match between West Bromwich Albion and Swansea City was fixed.

The Football is Fixed prediction of a seriously brand damaging scandal within the British game this year is coming to fruition nicely - not just with Redknapp/Mandaric, Portsmouth FC and Rangers FC but with the occurrence of both "a betting accident live on tv" and the inappropriate control over the selection of match officials as well.

As previously posted, the Premier League match between Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion also possessed both extremely suspicious micro and macro betting patterns to the benefit of two firms of bookmakers associated with one club or its representatives, together with a performance by certain players on the pitch that, at the very least, unwittingly aided the landing of a colossal co-ordinated global gamble on the match.

The match was allegedly fixed by insiders for millions of pounds of proprietary profit.

Additionally, West Bromwich Albion have a relationship with one referee, Jonathan Moss, which is problematical twice over - his 'tilt' in decisions in favour of WBA and the number of occasions that WBA are able to secure his services for their matches.

We are dealing with the Stoke versus West Bromwich game in a more taxing place and so, for the purposes of this post, we wish to focus on the mechanisms whereby control of the selection of match officials might be utilised to corrupt match outcomes for private gain...
... and we wish to focus on the match this Saturday between West Bromwich Albion and Swansea City.

The public data available on a significant percentage of the PGMOB Select Group of referees is disturbing.
The private data is criminally significant.

In recent posts we have highlighted the Peter Walton/ Manchester United issue, the Mike Dean/Chelsea one, the Jonathan Moss/ West Brom one, the role of certain interested parties in placing Kipper Riley in control of the PGMOB, links between owners and referees, the three referees (one since demoted) involved in a match fixing ring involving some of the same parties involved in our main narrative, and, most disturbingly, occurrences of the above also involving bookmakers.

All of the above individuals (including those whose presence is only intimated) are upstanding pillars of a system...
... and any peculiar combination of information and knowledge that might cast doubt on their honesty, integrity, criminality is, surely, spurious.

But the data is exceptional.

The statistical likelihood, for example, of Peter Walton refereeing 22 matches involving the Manchester teams following the takeover of Man City by Shinawatra, and those games giving City no wins and United no defeats when the teams are of comparable stature is about as likely as winning the lottery.

And West Bromwich Albion have won all seven league matches refereed by Jonathan Moss.
In those games, he has given the Albion 4 penalties and three sendings off in favour with nothing for the opposition.
In his only appearance refereeing West Brom since being promoted to the Select Group in the summer, he gave them a penalty in a Carling Cup match against Everton that is being investigated by bodies policing match fixing (this match is particularly revealing as the gamble went wrong).
But, after next Saturday, out of 27 matches played by WBA this season, Mr Moss has been referee twice and 4th Official five times - 7 matches out of 27.

This too is exceptional data - only two appearances would be the norm.

Atmospherically there are further issues.
The West Bromwich Albion club agent is John Colquhoun and he has significant control over the activities of the Throstles - his client James Morrison taking over from his client Chris Brunt as captain during the latters' injury for example.

John Colquhoun has known Jonathan Moss for over twenty years since their time together as players at both Sunderland and Millwall (and, by the way, altering your Wikipedia site to disguise such contacts are not the actions of someone with nothing to hide, ### ####. Wikipedia maintain a historical record of all inputs!).
John Colquhoun is also, alongside his other careers, a professional gambler.

Now why does the PGMOB make the ridiculous claim that their selection of match officials is random?
Why are so many EPL realities outliers and Black Swans?
Corruption within the EPL hierarchy is endemic at many levels - one club owner has some/total control over 18 match officials past and present across Europe for instance.

We have been informed, off the record, that the EPL attempts 'white corruption' in games where rogue insider gambling is known to be taking place.
But, competitive corruption is a risk for all involved in a match fix and there will always be an incentive to eradicate such risk.

So let us take a look at the holistics of the match between West Brom and Swansea City on Saturday.
This is the first occasion this season that Jonathan Moss is refereeing a West Brom league game in the EPL (as opposed to standing next to Roy Hodgson on the touchline and communicating with the ref in his role as 4th Official).

The first meeting between the two teams was allegedly fixed.

We don't have full details on this particular match but we have been shown some betting activities of interest.
The match took place in the immediate aftermath of the death of the Welsh miners.
Swansea won the match 3-0 but it surely leaves a nasty taste in the mouth to think that certain insiders decided to profit out of a match held in commemoration of working class men dying while trying to earn a living down a privatised pit.

Anyway.
That is the sort of thing that antisocials do.

A major Asian broker described the match as a typical European three-for-three affair (where two teams share two victories over the season to maximise potential points within an extended cartel of clubs - one point for a draw not being deemed as useful obviously).

But wait...
... Saturday's match could be anything!

The cast is as follows: Colquhoun (club agent/pro gambler/ several West Brom players as clients), Moss (referee/ long history with Colquhoun/ an unconscious bias in favour of West Brom), two clubs exhibiting several inputs normally seen in a 3 for 3 duality, Bodog (offshore bookmakers/ West Brom shirt sponsors) and ### ###### (an offshore bookmaker with close links to Colquhoun).

Now, obviously, all these people do good things and pay their taxes and believe in integrity...
... but if they didn't, such a grouping could make the result on Saturday anything they wish.

Literally.

Obviously, one suspects a West Brom win if one reads the astrological signs but our only public prediction is this - the result of the match will be in the market prior to kick off and may be determined by both public pricing and by betting activities in the underground.

And that is a fix!

And, if people are slick, there are no paper trails.

Still fancy buying a ticket for the game?

The rapidly expanding wave of global consciousness about the extensive corruptions built into the very fabric of the free market model has produced a secondary impact - it is now beyond any doubt in the public eye that our beloved game has been bought off by bookmakers, insider bettors and global mafiosi involved in the fixing of football.
If capitalism is corrupt...
...then football is so and then some.

It is to the detriment of all involved in the administration of the British game that it is only HMR&C who are interested in taking on this systemic corruption in football. Only the Incomparable Michel Platini is similarly concerned for the future of the game.

Before we decided against being inside the loop of the British game, we met with numerous individuals in the UK and abroad.
Platini and Wenger aside, every other person was corrupt, very corrupt, turned a blind eye to corruption, slyly profited from corruption, accommodated corruption, eased the path of corruption or stayed blinkered to corruption while accepting the trickledown largesse of their criminal masters.
In most cases they boasted about it.
It was networking currency.

The HMR&C is an arm of state that, if not regressive, is justified.
If we must have a state then the relevant finances to sustain such entity need to be collected.
We may assure all concerned in match fixing in Britain that the HMR&C wants its slice of the action.
And the HMR&C are interested in the past as well as the present.

And if we are to regard postmodern football as a version of poker then A Royal Taxman beats A Squad of Crooks.

Peter Walton is a Red Bastard

Last night Manchester City were denied two penalty shouts by Peter "Grandad" Walton.
So what? Referees are paid to make decisions.

But what is it that influences the decisions that Grandad makes?

In 21 matches refereeing Manchester United over eight seasons, the Reds have won 15, drawn 6 and lost 0.
In the same period, Walton has officiated 13 Manchester City games with only 3 ending in victory for the Citizens with 6 defeats.

But the last four years of refereeing from Mr Walton are even more revealing.

Manchester United 11 wins, 4 draws and 0 defeats (15 matches 37 points)
Manchester City 0 wins, 3 draws and 4 defeats (7 matches 3 points).

In 22 matches over four seasons, Man Utd have NEVER LOST with Walton in charge while City have NEVER WON.

Or take the last three seasons where the cumulative points difference between United and City is 27 points - fully 18 of these points are due to the supposedly unconscious biases of an old man.

It is this sort of thing that determines titles.

The fact that this knickpoint in performance by Walton coincides with the introduction of Shinawatra's stolen largesse leading onto the petro-dollars that made football in Manchester truly competitive is only a further point that requires a response from PGMOB/Walton.

Either this is just another collection of Incredible Flukes or the PGMOB and Peter Walton have some explaining to do over the bias, and it is a statistically significant bias, and over the reason the old bastard gets, on average, six games a season to 'favour' the Ferguson Reds.

Also, after United being presented with Chris Foy and Walton for the two post-crisis matches, Foy was once again 4th Official to a junior referee for the Stoke game last night .
This means, The Racism Derby aside, Ferguson has been given dominant referees of Foy (a false sending off and two penalty decisions), Walton (a penalty), Webb with five bookings of Arsenal players (remember Ryan Babel's tweet) and Foy again (two penalties) since Newcastle/Blackburn.

And so we have a Title Race...
... although it is more akin to a Handicap Hurdle with City carrying top weight.

Farcical!

Thank goodness Football isn't Fixed...
... It's Fucked.

NB There are a couple of cup matches in this list but for ease of argument in the time allowed, we totalise.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012

Redknapp's Going Down

Is it allowable under FA rules for someone to manage the England team from Ford Open Prison?

The HMR&C campaign against different aspects of football fraud, tax avoidance, money laundering and, soon, illegal insider betting activity is parallelling along on numerous fronts - Harry Redknapp and Milan Mandaric, Rangers FC, Portsmouth FC, and other potential routes of investigation still to be unearthed via Quest and the News of the World scandals etc etc.

Football needs to get real as their 'in-the-loop' focus on untouchable hyperrealities is in for a continued rude awakening - the HMR&C are on a strategic medium-term drive to clean up black and black/grey market football.

Two of these issues reached a conjunction in Southwark Crown Court yesterday.

Harry Redknapp earned £3 million per year in 2002, increasing to £4.2 million per annum when Pompey reached the Premier League.
We know of NO OTHER FOOTBALL MANAGER IN THE WORLD who was receiving this level of wage at that time...
... not Ferguson, Capello, Mourinho, Sven-Goran Useless.

And for a second tier team initially!!

He obviously deserved the award of Freeman of the City of Portsmouth for the Fixed FA Cup Final victory over Cardiff City refereed by one Mike Dean.

But did he deserve it for taking so much money out of the club (asset stripping, we would call it), for the resulting sale of half a squad, for the decline that has seen six owners of various shades of criminality and from various global mafiosi mis-run the club in the last two years, for the rampant insider gambling undertaken at the club when he was manager, for the fact that the HMR&C issued a winding-up order against Pompey yesterday?

Telegraph: "Staff and players at Portsmouth will not receive their January wages on time... the club's bank account is now frozen."

An aside are the issues of the £## million bet by one ####### ###### ####### at one bookmaker in ######### in one season or the ##### property empire in the capital as these things are not illegal.

Mandaric, Redknapp and Storrie are the primary reasons that Portsmouth FC is merely a shell of its former self.

But who needs enemies when your friends produce court narratives like the following from Mandaric:
"But I never had a relationship as I had with Harry."

We bet you didn't, sir!!!

And while we're at it, we are quite partial to $145K gifts for no reason whatsoever, if ever the money is burning a hole in your pocket...

Is it any wonder that Jamie Redknapp is looking so concerned?

When a result is needed (to put it in football parlance), the state and the judiciary work together - witness the four year jail term for the tweeting non-rioter from Northwich.
For the HMR&C to be taking on the likes of Redknapp, Murray and, in particular, Mandaric suggests that they mean business with The Business.
There is too much riding on the outcome with respect to HMR&C, Quest and the police investigation team, the EPL white corruption campaign, the pressure from the Astonishing Michel Platini and UEFA both on club debts and club illegalities, and even the BBC who aired the original Panorama programme that sparked the whole kaboodle.

"Ensuring tax is paid on time should be at the centre of a football club's business strategy just like any other business," said an HMR&C spokesperson.
"Anyone that regards paying tax as an optional extra, or that uses tax collected from employees or customers as working capital, is potentially heading for trouble."

A Tiny Tip Of An Immense Iceberg...

British Footballing Omerta Is Cracking - It Is Everyone For Themselves Amongst The Antisocials.

Truly.
Football Fans Should Be Happy.

A Wobbly Club and a Wobbly Face

Two pieces of excellent news for the lovers of integrity in football.

I spent yesterday afternoon with two very senior officials from HM Revenue & Customs.
This was a most fruitful discourse.

Aside from matters relating to the current spheres of reality, off the record we touched on two other matters, Rangers FC and the trial of Honest Harry Redknapp.

In the former, it is regarded as an absolute certainty that Rangers will go into administration.
Good.
This is because of the nature of the Employee Benefits Trust (EBTs) used by the club.
An EBT may be legal or not and in the case of the Hun it would appear most definitely that the latter is the truth.

Even the club themselves realise this is the case as the following clip from the 'Rangers Tax Case' website reveals (http://rangerstaxcase.com/).

"The problems for Rangers started with the fact that footballers and their agents would never be so daft as to trust a ‘nod and a wink’ from a football club executive. Amounts for salaries, bonuses, appearance fees- are all the subject of written contracts. These contracts (which are routinely available during tax investigations) provide the Rosetta Stone for tax investigators. I cannot discuss some of the other evidence against Rangers FC, but I understand that at least some of Rangers FC executives were aware that what they were doing was illegal."

The result is, according to my friends at the HMR&C is that the club won't even get the option of taking a points hit and a relegation (or two) but will, in fact, have to reform as Rangers King Billy 1692 or something similar in the amateur leagues.

And as icing on the cake, Murray the Former Property Baron turned up at the club on Tuesday and two potential 'Gers signings were instantly sent packing...
... no money you see.

And Jelavic is only going through the motions as he wants out.

Meanwhile in Southwark, the view of my esteemed friends is that the Cockney Rebel is also going down.

Firstly, the HMR&C are directly and significantly targeting the football industry with agents/bungs/betting being the primary focuses.
The shared view is that Redknapp/Mandaric are scapegoats.

Secondly, the Southwark 2 exist in a world where they have no idea where the boundaries of legality lie.

Thirdly, the insider HMR&C opinion is that there are many good lines of legal defence but that the following statement from Redknapp is not one of them.

"A bung don't come into it — it's a payment. A bung, that's a f*cking sick word. It's a bonus. If it was dodgy I would have gone and brought the f*cking money back in a suitcase."

Mmmm...
... "I didn't murder him, your honour, but I would have done if necessary..."

© Football is Fixed 2006-2012