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.
If Bayern were receiving kickbacks, it certainly did not show up in their summer transfer activity. ###########################################
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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...

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