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.