Celtic Schisms

Introduction

Celtic FC has a history and a network like no other.

The Irish Republican politics, the ground-breaking Lisbon Lions, the intense support (ask Messi or Maldini), the global fanbase, the web of talented individuals who have given and still freely give their time, money and expertise to advance the club strategically...
... or, in the case of John Keane, to save the club from financial oblivion.

All of the great global football teams have this linkage with history and political purpose and a sense of community.

But the impact of the current fallout between the Celtic financial hierarchy and the real owners of the club, the fans, is a major dysfunction that must be solved immediately before it creates yet more harm for the club.

                        Unfortunately, in postmodern football, history and politics are problems

For five days in September, I had the very best job in the world - a high level consultancy with Celtic to enable passage to the 2nd Phase of the Champions League this season.

Unfortunately Peter Lawwell, in his own heroic way, pulled on the deal.

The holistic of the consultancy was to protect Celtic against corruptions that occur to undermine the strategies of the club in the Champions League.
The irony of the failure to conclude the agreement is obvious.
We are a cellular grouping of forensic analysts revealing corruptions and Celtic are a football team owned by a bookmaker, Dermot Desmond (Betdaq supremo).

We have been informed that it was deemed too risky to proceed with the consultancy in case we came across internal issues in our monitoring of the external.

As a result, the club strategy for this year's Champions League Group Stage was diabolical in the early stages (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/one-love-art-of-war.html).

And it did not improve thereafter.
The same strategic errors were repeated as last season with some new ones thrown in for good measure. No lessons have been learnt and the structure is simply one of the blind paying one another to lead one another blindly.

Nobody within the club hierarchy nor any of the agents leeching onto the club have any perception of UEFA hidden agendas and internal power-plays and linkages etc etc.
The club do not possess the template to even start planning any strategy for Champions League and future European Super League success.

As we are no longer willing to work with the club under the current regime, we are limited as to the solutions that we are able to offer in this place.
But we have found four areas worthy of discussion without impinging on any of our isolationist thresholds.

1. Club Interests Versus Private Agendas

We originally approached Celtic when we were informed via a contact within UEFA that the European governing body were going to be taking a very close look at the Champions League Qualifier between Cliftonville and Celtic in case any politics were seen in the UEFA sphere.

The UEFA Champions League, by and large, is a marketing process.
It is not feasible for Celtic to celebrate their past as this does not fit in with the UEFA brand - pony-tailed ball skills with a pirouette are preferred to anything approaching political reality.

Part of my discussions with Lawwell centred on this very point - he understands totally that the fans are the biggest asset of the club but wishes to cleanse them of their history to optimise European performance and cashflow.

One could call this a strategy (even if one views it as an inappropriate one)...
... but the club then sell short of achieving that 'optimisation' by focus on their own private agendas and connections.
When it comes to push versus shove, club versus self, enlightened self-interest wins the day.

If the club hierarchy are going to sell out on the fans, the history, the raison d'etre and grasp a share of this UEFA nirvana for the Celtic Brand, then surely they need to focus on the success of this brand absolutely rather than allowing their own private considerations to come into play.

At the moment, this is not happening.
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2. Politics

Bobby Sands MP, representing the Anti H-Block party, was elected as a member of the British parliament in 1981.

30,493 people voted for him in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.
There was an 86.9% turnout.
Sands had a public mandate to fight against inappropriate state power and terror...
... exactly the same as Nelson Mandela who was eulogised by UEFA after his death.

When the club were being punished by UEFA for displaying political imagery, why didn't the hierarchy point out the equivalence between the politics and strategies of Sands/IRA when compared with Mandela/ANC?

After all, Cameron wanted Mandela to hang, Thatcher thought him a terrorist and the US agreed by keeping him on their list of global terrorists until 2008 before he was whitewashed into someone else.

Instead the club have allowed their club brand to be demoted in the UEFA marketing pyramid without offering a stout defence.
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3. Club Ownership

As we have pointed out before (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-to-solve-match-fixing-once-and-for.html) there are potentially issues of integrity when bookmakers own football clubs.

We have NO evidence of inappropriate fixing of Celtic matches due to Desmond/Betdaq link but this is a structure that should generally be regarded as one being primed for shenanigans.

And we are always wary of bookmakers that, like Betdaq, do not allow winning accounts as, after all, if you are not allowed to win off a bookmaker then the business interaction is something else entirely!

There must be occasions when Desmond's personal financial focus is different to that of the club...
... and this must be a concern.

When board members and club agents are known to bet on Celtic matches, is it invalid to express concern that people higher up the hierarchy might conceivably share a similar inclination?

And, as a background, there is something vaguely distasteful about Desmond being £2 million in pocket, Lawwell annually heating his driveway with £700K while the club refuses to pay a Living Wage at the bottom of the pyramid.
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4. A Way Forward

The atmosphere at the recent Hearts match was truly depressing.
Things need to change.
And fast.

From our position, we might suggest a discussion based around very basic foundational areas:

Who owns the club? The financial hierarchy or the fans? How might co-ownership be achieved?  What happens when the needs of the club differ from those paid to manage it?

Decisions made in the imminent future will determine the future of Celtic for decades to come.

Time to get strategic. 
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For Celtic to be self-harming in this window of massive monopolistic competitive opportunity in Scotland is a crying shame.
To waste all this energy turning inwards rather than planning for a brighter future in the European Super League is only helping one team, Sevconians.

And Lawwell was wrong on this too...
... Sevconians are not an imitation of a reality in the sense of Rory Bremner doing Tony Blair, because the real Tony Blair (unfortunately) still exists while the comedian performs his parallel.

Sevconians are actually a posthumous tribute act - just like a Michael Jackson one or an Elvis one...
... only with weaker songs.

Rangers no longer exist and Sevconians merely allow a little nostalgia and reminiscence for those who still care.

Rangers are the past. Not the future. 
Just mock them.

Hail Hail Hogmanay!


© Football is Fixed 2006-2013 

Premier League Does Peaky Blinders

                             How Did Michael Owen Ever End Up At Stoke City? Oh! I See

Bookmaker who owns a football club strikes out at policeman who refereed a highly suspicious football match.

With the news, carefully avoided in most of the British mainstream media, that Stoke City owner Peter Coates has lodged an official complaint to the authorities over the refereeing performance of Martin Atkinson in Newcastle United's 5-1 win over Stoke, the Premier League has taken a theatrical turn.

Atkinson, with considerable ineptitude, sent off two Stoke players, sent manager Mark Hughes to the stands and allowed a fictitious goal to stand.
He acted his part manfully with a permanent smirk on his face.

Most key market makers of our acquaintance regard this match as highly suspicious with regard to the integrity of the betting markets.

Just another collection of spurious realities, of course...

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Michael Owen Issues A Statement On Behalf Of Football

Michael Owen, a horserace owning professional gambling former footballer claims match fixing "not a huge issue".
That's put that to bed then.

Michael Owen used to act as a bookies runner to the England team laying off the bets to Goldchip - a private bookmaker set up by his business partner, Stephen Smith in 2004.

Wayne Rooney ran up debts of £700K and Goldchip managed to achieve a remarkable return on turnover around ten times the industry average (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/jan/18/sport.comment5).

Additionally cash bets were taken from the England team and these are not included in the figures of visible profit for Goldchip - a sort of licit illicit activity.

Michael Owen: "It’s strong words, match fixing. When someone says match fixing to me I automatically think of 22 players fixing the result... but [it] is not necessarily people colluding at the highest levels to rig games."

Okay.

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

How To Solve Match Fixing Once And For All

Yesterday, Liberal Democrat MP Sir Bob Russell said that English professional football is "rotten to the core" and that a Royal Commission is required to clean up football with "parasitic agents" being the major problem.

If any such Royal Commission is to work then it will need to thoroughly address the six points outlined below.
Otherwise the game is up.
 
Also yesterday, UEFA announced that they are drafting an 11-point plan aimed to eradicate match-fixing, labelling it their 'top priority'.

Unfortunately, skimming over the pitch put forward by the aptly named UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino, we can only expect peripheral tinkering akin to that achieved by the British government's select committee who reported last summer.
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On Tuesday night, there was a highly suspicious match between FC Bayern and Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/was-fc-bayern-versus-manchester-city-fix.html) (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-fixing-of-champions-league-games.html).

We may be polemical but there is evidently a case to be answered here.
This is a suspicious event between the Champions League holders and the richest club in the world!
And media silence.

Instead UEFA claim only 0.7% of matches are fixed and the mainstream media in Britain focuses on Whitehawk FC and DJ Campbell.

Infantino also indicated that UEFA want to strengthen the links between sports authorities and state bodies but this is a structure that can backfire dependent on who represents the state - there are many countries where state interference would only serve to increase the corruption.

We are employed by clubs as leech consultants.
We protect clubs against systemic and particular corruptions against their interests.
We analyse the zeitgeist of corruption.

To us, the most astonishing aspect of the match fixing 'crisis' is that when we have seen that government, the mainstream media, investment banking, the police, retail banks, the utilities, many other sports are all corrupted, there is this religious belief that, somehow, top level football is not tainted.
Football has taken over from religion - everybody is 'Something FC 'til I Die'.
And we don't want our New Deity to be killed off just yet.

But if football really wants to save itself from the neohyperrealities of the present systemic corruptions, it needs to implement every single one of the points below in their entirety.

No pseudo-11 point plan but an overhaul of an entirely corrupt mechanism from top to bottom.
But starting at the top.

DJ Campbell Is Innocent!
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1. The Betting Markets and Insider Trading

The primary concern are the global betting markets.
There are three levels of market activity - the public markets, the Dark Pools and the illegal underground markets based largely but not exclusively in South East Asia.

With a global network of this type, there has to be global regulation with jail sentences and life bans for miscreants.
The global betting market turnover on football is thought to have reached £1 trillion.
£1 trillion is over 50% of the Britain's annual GDP!!

All markets must be public.
All trading by insiders must be registered with a Commitment of Traders body to prevent inside knowledge being exploited.
All players, referees, agents, managers should be banned from betting entirely.
All suspicious betting must be reported to forensic analysts to detect fraudulent behaviour - the current level of expertise exhibited by Early Warning, Interpol/ Europol etc is not professional enough (we are able to detect insider betting and match fixing in many more games than 0.7%!!).
All spot-markets should be banned.
All Dark Pool activity must be regulated and made public, the same with the Asian underground and the developing undergrounds in Dubai, the Caribbean, numerous British offshore territories, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Tbilisi, Nigeria, Australia, the US and Canada, Brazil, Mumbai etc.

2. Agents and the Markets

Every single football agent that I have ever met has been criminalised!

Agents are a lubricant in the game and, in addition to leeching money from the sport, they facilitate corruptions relating to both the betting markets and the transfer markets.

Ownership of goalkeepers, linkage with referees (see below), multiple ownership of players in a game, even more extensive multiple ownership via linkage with other agents in a fragmented cartel of illicit match fixing and betting market activity.
Accordingly agents not only distort, corrupt and profit from the betting markets that they exploit, they degenerate the sport and impact upon trophies being won and relegations/ promotions etc.
The careers of players are also affected by these corruptions and the fan is forced to watch events where the outcome is clearly visible in underground betting markets pre-match!

Agents corrupt Champions League games at the highest level and yet UEFA do nothing.

Agents also, as is their wont, exploit the transfer market via 3rd party ownership.

There is no regulation for agents.
And no regulation or self-regulation is pointless.
Agents distort every single aspect of the sport and often utilise business practices that border on the slave trade when it comes to footballers from Africa and certain South and Central American countries.
Coercion of players relating to the betting markets is a major issue.
Additionally, under the table payments are the norm and ownership networks are structured similarly to the Tor proxy server concept!

Agents must be regulated.

3. Club Owners

Surely it is asking for trouble if club owners double as bookmakers.

There will inevitably be occasions when the financial self-interest of Mr Bet 365 The Bookmaker will trump the interests of Mr Bet 365 The Football Club (Stoke City) - the only issue is whether such self-interest is implemented.
Additionally, this incentive to fix can result in club owners stopping their own teams from winning to the absolute detriment of the fans who are paying the wages and the integrity of the game.

All club ownership should be open rather than underground and opaque.
Fit and proper persons rulings should be robust and thoroughly implemented - the Championship in England is a veritable Hotch Potch of Inappropriates when it comes to club ownership...
... and the Premier League is only marginally better.

4. Referees

Referees are an issue.
Relatively underpaid in a millionaire's paradise, they are ripe for corruption.

Referees are chosen from too small a pool (only 18 for the Premier League - the most liquid betting market on the planet, for example) and have very long careers.
Market ownership of a referee is a big earner for both parties.
Referees are additionally 'owned' by other participants in the game - clubs, mafia, even UEFA chooses referees relating to its own annual marketing plan AND the importance of allegiance to the G14(18) power base of clubs.

If referees were selected meritocratically then corruption from this source would be harder to implement.
To this end, the ratings of referees need to be made public and the implementation of video technology (see next point) will enable 'under-achievers' to be rooted out and discarded.

5. Video Technology

It is more critical for football to have video technology than cricket, tennis or rugby yet the authorities refuse to introduce anything more than goalline technology. Why?

An incorrect wicket in cricket, line call in tennis or try in rugby is rarely match changing yet those sports guard against such occurrences by using technology ...
... in football a goal or a penalty or a sending off very frequently is a match changing event and yet we have virtually nothing.

Up to 40 wickets in a Test Match, 240 points in a tennis match, half a dozen tries in a game of rugby...
... and one goal.

Furthermore, because professional footballers are well aware of the corruptions taking place, once a referee signals his intent, there is a psychological deflation in the victim team.

The most striking aspect of watching cricket or rugby is how fan conversation always relates to the game itself due to the utilisation of video technology for virtually all contentious decisions.
This serves to produce the correct result, massively reduce corruption and act as a measurement of performance of referees and umpires.

The argument that it would slow down the game is fatuous.

It would add excitement if marketed correctly.
UEFA and the Premier League would be able to bombard us with messages from their media partners while we waited to see if it is a penalty or not!

6. Whistleblowing Hotline

When we have meetings with administrative bodies, chief executives, football managers, club owners, analysts, bookmakers, many fans, there is acceptance that football is corrupt but that nobody is going to do anything about it due to both financial self-interest and fear.

Remember Mike Newell? He soon disappeared from the game!

A global whistleblowing hotline needs to be set up to allow knowledge of match fixing to be made available to the various bodies that will need to be established for Points 1-5 to be achieved.
This must be anonymous and rewarded.
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People like ourselves who receive threats and menaces due to their efforts to expose football that is "riddled with corruption" need to be protected.

The sport is flooded with mafiosi interests - at the moment, I am enjoying extensive conversations with a contact over the role of Serbian mafia in Italian and Serbian football and the role of Albanian mafia in the Austrian game.

But such groups are only able to exploit the integrity of football due to an entire lack of regulation in many areas and loopholes elsewhere.
If FIFA and UEFA eliminated these distortions, we could have betting markets on a level playing field and football would not be fixed. 


We are taking serious existential risks to disclose these neohyperrealities of modern football.

THIS IS NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE.

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NB: Please note that myself or other members of our cellular body are available for media in this window. 
You can reach us via a Direct Message at Twitter (@footballisfixed) or via email (footballisfixed02@googlemail.com).


© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Football Markets Are Not The Only Markets That Are Fecked

Eugene Fama was one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics this year.

His hypothesis regarding the efficiency of financial markets is indeed elegant (which sometimes is enough for an award to be made) but it is also utterly and completely wrong.
Not particularly impressed with his Fama-French Three-Factor Model either (but more on that later).

If there were no government interferences, no psychopathies, no behavioural irrationalities, no corruptions nor criminalities and if market sectors didn't always evolve towards maturity, he would be right.
But as these inputs drive all markets, the laureate is surely wrong.

Fama's Efficient Markets Hypothesis was put forward in 1970 and formed an intellectual basis for the shock doctrine disaster neo-capitalism that the world has experienced since.
By being a part of the "intellectual" framework gathered as an neo-con edifice at the University of Chicago, Fama bears some responsibility for this sociopathic system.

So, what is Gene's hypothesis and why is it incorrect?

The Efficient Markets Hypothesis is split into three levels - strong-form, semi-strong-form and weak-form efficiency.
Strong-form suggests that market prices reflect all information, public and private, and it is not possible for anyone to earn excess returns.
In semi-stong-form, prices adjust to new information rapidly and rationally.
While in weak-form structures, prices simply follow a random walk.

Before we go any further we need to look at the architecture of markets.
The public markets are just the top of an iceberg of submerged Dark Pool markets - there are hundreds of unregulated Dark Pools where insiders trade against insiders in markets that the public only sees when an excess of over-enthusiasm occurs. It is in these markets that the big market plays are made not the public ones.

For all assessments of Fama's Hypothesis, therefore, it will need to be addressed on two levels - the public markets and the Dark Pools.

1) The most dominant input to the wrongness of Fama's Hypothesis is behaviouralism.
Work in the sixties by Daniel Kahnemann, Amos Tversky, Paul Slovic and Richard Thaler had already introduced psychology to the market and, in 1979, Kahnemann and Tversky developed Prospect Theory which represented the final psychological nail in the coffin of Efficient Markets. Investors do not behave in a rational manner in the marketplace for a whole continuum of different reasons that both exist within themselves and also interact in complex ways between themselves to produce the behaviours that we project. Market prices represent mass human psychology far more than they do unproved economic fundamentals.
So by 1979, Fama's Hypothesis should have been put to bed...
... unfortunately, it took the blinkered Chicago School until 2007 to acknowledge the impact of behaviouralism in markets, attempting to convince us in the meantime that an efficient pricing infrastructure underpinned the alleged validity of Friedmanian late capitalism..

Slavoj Žižek: "The problem is today when you have chaos or disorder, people lose their cognitive mapping."

2) All of the information is not in the market. Even if behaviouralism did not exist and we were all perfectly rational in all of our decision-making, efficient markets would be compromised on all three levels of Fama's efficiency hierarchy.
Public markets are largely inefficient being too far from the core Dark Pools to be benefiting instantaneously to the flow of real information. The public markets offer a distilled filtered form of this driving underground Dark Pool marketplace. Dark Pool trading strategies become converted into a holistic market strategy as Dark Pool liabilities are hedged in the public sphere.

What about the Dark Pools?
Are they a proof of Fama efficiencies?

No.
Behaviouralism is a "plug in" in any market, public or Dark Pool.
Additionally, the information flow in Dark Pools is, by its very nature, opaque.
Proxy trading, algorithmic distortions, hidden players away from the table, consortia strategies, disinformational trading, cornered markets etc etc.
At any given time, the market tends to inefficiency.
As mature markets might evolve into anything the primary operators desire, the price can be anything too.

Mature markets (and these are the ones most traded in the Dark Pools) are largely under the absolute control of a small grouping of operations, think OPEC. Individual members of OPEC have their own hidden agendas over and above the shared agenda with fellow members. Even when the structure is held in place with extra robustness due to government scaffolding around the market, the major player(s) is/are still able to make the market whatever they desire whenever they desire.
In effect monopolistic corruption distorts any semblance of efficiency in the market while duopolistic or cartel behaviour offers a slightly diluted version of the same.

3) Disaster capitalism undermines any efficiency in any financial market.
The Friedmanian disaster capitalism complex thrives on chaos. When a disaster strikes or, as in the case of Chile, is created, the Chicago school Hayekians move in with their shock tactics to further destabilise an already destabilised people. As US security entities move into the vacuum, the markets are utterly chaotic. Although some efficiency and robustness is added to the marketplace ironically by the strategies of these security operations (the same template being micro-adjusted from territory to territory) the holistic performance of the markets is driven by irrationalities and the efficiencies fall off the bottom of Fama's ratings chart.

4) Private information is introduced to the market in a variety of strategies that, by their very nature, imply market inefficiencies being created for the advantage of Dark Pool operations.
Knowledge within a company, governmental or central bank policies, trading disinformation for future profits, competitive market poker play all are based around the possession of the ultimate power play for the marketplace. Just think of the variety of ways in which, say, Ben Bernanke could have utilised his absolute knowledge of the variables related to quantitative easing. An individual, with evolving strategies, could make money without the full reality hitting the market by placing trades laterally and peripherally.

Noam Chomsky would call this "cogntive regulatory capture" and it is a structure typical of late capitalism.

5) The most obvious way in which financial markets are inefficient is by their refusal to accept the cost of externalities in the price of an asset.
How on earth can a price be efficient in the holistic sense if externalities are not included in the calculation? The price can only be considered in any way efficient in short time frames as, when the true costs are included, the asset value is very different indeed. The timing of this market implosion can be an unknown variable.

Friedmanism underprices risk and ignores externalities.
The eventual impact of these externalities is infrastructurally significant.

Andrew Haldane, who should have been made governor of the Bank of England, calls this "disaster myopia".

Disaster myopia in disaster capitalism complex!

Although Dark Pools are displaced up the efficiency hierarchy due to lack of time lag and the primary element in the insider trading, the market increase in efficiency is only marginal and only due to corrupting inputs being introduced to the market price.
If all corrupt inputs in a mature market could be known and assessed both singly and in association with one another, only then might a corrupt market approach strong-form efficiency and in a non-regulated marketplace this is simply not going to occur.

Which brings us to the conclusion of yet another aspect of the fake of Friedmanism.

Fama's only other claim to fame is the Fama-French Three-Factor Model.
This attempts to replace the old Capital Asset Pricing Model (which, by the way, is also inadequate).
Needless to say the Three-Factor model doesn't work as it ignores corruption and behaviouralism.

Entertainingly, Foye, Mramor and Pahor (2013) have shown an improvement in the performance of the Fama-French model if one of the terms is replaced by a term that acts as a proxy for accounting manipulation!

These papers are amongst the first tentative steps of economics crawling towards holistically analysing the hyperreality.

Benoît Mandelbrot: "Financial economics, as a discipline, is where Chemistry was in the 16th century: a messy compendium of proven know-how, misty folk wisdom, and unexamined assumptions and grandiose speculation."

As a former pupil of Mandelbrot, Fama should know better...
... grandiose models, unexamined inputs, misty economic wisdom mixed with the status quo.

And, anyway, as economics in rather dubious fashion claims to be a science, let's address it as such...

Michel Foucault: "If one recognises in science only the linear accumulation of truths or the orthogenesis of reason, and fails to recognise in it the discursive practice that has its own levels, its own thresholds, its own various ruptures, one can describe only a single historical division, which one adopts as a model to be applied at all times for all forms of knowledge."

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013  

The Fixing Of A Champions League Game

Only one winner and three finalists in the 22 year history of the Champions League have not been from the power group of G14(18) clubs.

When there appears to be systemic corruption, it is little wonder that clubs and individuals lower down the food chain also wish to feed at the trough of greed.

This is the fifth season where Manuel Pellegrini has managed a Champions League team - Villarreal (twice), Real Madrid, Malaga and Manchester City.
His 'error of judgement' in Munchen on Tuesday has been put down to a lack of knowledge regarding the rules of qualification.

Notwithstanding the fact that a meticulous mathematician of a manager would not make such an 'error of judgement', Pellegrini has been in very similar positions twice before going into the final round of Champions League group games...
... and on each occasion, he was strategic in the need for a particular result.

In 2009/10, Real Madrid had to win their final match away to Marseille, otherwise Milan could have finished above them due to their head-to-head matches (1-1 and a 3-2 win to the Italians).
If goal difference had been the issue then a draw would have been enough as Madrid had a 6 goal advantage in this department.
Real Madrid won and finished top of their group.

The previous season at Villarreal, Pellegrini was in a similar position going into the final match except that, on this occasion, although the team were level on points with Manchester United and both head-to-head games between the teams had finished 0-0, United's two goal difference advantage plus the Mancunians home advantage against Aalborg of Denmark resulted in Pellegrini resting 8 first team members with the outcome being a 2-0 defeat at Celtic.

Each of these structures would suggest that Sr Pellegrini is well aware of the rules of qualification for the Champions League 2nd Phase.

We are aware that Interpol and Europol have been informed regarding this match but don't hold your breath as corruption must only be seen to occur in eastern Europe and the Balkans.

But what exactly was going on in Munchen on Tuesday?

NB: Please note that myself or other members of our cellular body are available for media in this window. 
You can reach us via a Direct Message at Twitter (@footballisfixed) or via email (footballisfixed02@googlemail.com). 

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Was FC Bayern Versus Manchester City A Fix?

We cannot prove for certain that the Champions League match between FC Bayern and Manchester City was criminalised because we are not able to access the particular betting market where any insider trading from the Bavarian club surfaces.

But, structurally, there are numerous reasons to be fearful...

1) The holistic match structure was very similar to the two equally suspicious matches featuring Germany and Sweden in the World Cup 2014 Qualifiers (Germany threw away a four goal lead in half an hour with the first match ending 4-4 while coming back from 2-0 down to win 5-3 in the second). Eight of the players involved in this latter game emanate from FC Bayern.

2) FC Bayern threw away a 2-0 lead last night to lose 2-3. If Manchester City had scored a fourth goal, they would have been top of the group and seeded going into the 2nd Phase giving them an easier match and route.

3) FC Bayern were unbeaten for 40 games having won 37 of them prior to yesterday. They had only let three goals in in their unbeaten run of 10 Champions League games before letting in three in around 30 minutes last night. They had won 7-0 away at the weekend and Manchester City were available at up to 250/1 at 0-2 behind.

4) FC Bayern did not have one shot on target in the second half apart from a 40 yarder down the centre of the goal from Shaqiri. At 2-3 down, Guardiola substituted top scorer Mandzukic and replaced him with the Swiss player who was returning after a long injury lay off. Why would you do that thing?

5) Even at half time, suspicions were aroused both in our trading room and in the Sky studio.
Graeme Souness: "Bayern Munich are going through the motions."
Martin Tyler: "It has been a strange first half."
Niall Quinn: "... strange kind of flow to the game. Bayern took their foot off the pedal."
Glen Hoddle: "Its been a strange kind of game."

6) All market analysts that we have spoken with this morning (both in Europe and Asia) reckon that the match was fixed.

7) Why did Pellegrini not go for the 4th goal that would have given City top place (there is a vast discrepancy between the winners and 2nd place teams this season). He didn't bring on arguably the best forward in the Premier League, Sergio Aguero, and substituted Edin Dzeko later in the game, replacing him with a holding midfielder, Jack Rodwell. Why would you do these things?

8) Recently, we undertook a leech consultancy with an individual at FC Bayern and these types of match structures featured very prominently in our analyses. For it would appear that FC Bayern did not wish to equalise while Manchester City didn't want to win 4-2 and finish top of the group.

But we can't prove anything on this particular match...
... it is simply very very suspicious.

But the Germans had quite a night all in all.

In Athens, Wolfgang Stark was refereeing his last ever Champions League game with the match between Olympiacos and Anderlecht. 
Herr Stark gave three penalties to the Greeks and sent off three Belgian players.

John van den Brom, the Anderlecht manager had this to say:
"Let us start at the beginning - it was soon clear to me that we could not win this match," he said.
"Were all the decisions of this man [the referee] wrong? Yes.
"I also hear that it was the last Champions League match of the referee. Well, then I'm happy for the other teams in the Champions League. This was just outrageous."

Farcical.

NB: Please note that myself or other members of our cellular body are available for media in this window. 
You can reach us via a Direct Message at Twitter (@footballisfixed) or via email (footballisfixed02@googlemail.com).


© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

The Eff All

An FA Cup Final and numerous England internationals have been fixed yet yesterday, the FA general secretary, Alex Horne, informed us that match fixing "isn't a big issue" and denied that his body had been complacent about corruption in the past.
The man is incorrect on both counts.

The FA have lived up to their name and done fuck all about match fixing in England.

When systemic corruption is being rumbled in any sector of society, insiders are headlined across the mainstream media in desperate attempts to spread doubts over the publicly perceived narrative.

People in the game have reported both proofs and suspicions of match fixing to the FA and the FA have done precisely nothing in response.
Nobody has been questioned.
Nobody has been banned.
Perpetrators continue to fix.
The public is kept in the dark.

As we reported the other day (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/surfing-zeitgeist-of-corruption.html), when current Lincoln City manager, Gary Simpson, reported a fixed match, he was told that he was correct and that there had been irregular betting patterns on the game but no action was taken even though the referee would appear to be a part of the fix.
When Simpson went public with this reality, only European papers reported the story with all the mainstream English press staying unusually silent.

Marcus Gayle and numerous others have also reported rigged games or attempts to fix matches to the FA with the same inaction.

Meanwhile the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) have released a statement:
"The PFA is aware of the reports in yesterday's media regarding allegations of 'match fixing' and other related activity.
These allegations, if proven, unfortunately demonstrate the real issue football faces in terms of corruption and highlights the necessity of the work carried out by the PFA and other stakeholders in the game in educating players of these risks. We take the issue of integrity very seriously and will continue in our efforts to eradicate this evil from our game."

The PFA statement might have greater gravitas if PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor hadn't run up gambling debts of over £100K!

The focus by the mainstream media on spot-fixing is a further damage limitation exercise.
When a match result is corrupted, fans are outraged...
... when a player deliberately gets booked (whether for personal financial gain or for strategic reasons in the Champions League), to be honest, who cares?

But gambling addiction is identical to drug addiction.
Individuals who start off spot-fixing end up match fixing.

As an example of this,leading football agent John Colquhoun's first venture into his current raison d'etre was rigging the 'time of first throw in' markets with the spread betting firms.
From little acorns...

And while all this is going on, while our beloved sport is being denigrated to the level of greyhound racing, there is a deafening silence from Richard Scudamore and his backers at the Premier League.
Much better to leave it to the inappropriate men in suits at the FA, chosen non-meritocratically, taking their freebies and being entirely unaware of the monstrosity that is under their noses.

Until football incorporates video technology for all key decisions, until referees are appointed on ability rather than underworld reasonings, until agents are regulated globally by FIFA, until FIFA becomes representative of the game it is supposed to govern, until global regulations covering football betting are developed, until the footballing equivalent of the Commitment of Traders Reports governing insider trading is created, until tax authorities work worldwide to address tax evasion on gambling profits and until perpetrators are arrested, given lifetime bans and jailed, the game is up.

NB: Please note that myself or other members of our cellular body are available for media in this window. 
You can reach us via a Direct Message at Twitter (@footballisfixed) or via email (footballisfixed02@googlemail.com).


© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

A Fixed FA Cup Final And A Corrupted Premier League Relegation (And Stuff...)

As English football desperately attempts to be perceived as what it is not, the stories are going to keep on surfacing as a critical point has been reached where full disclosure of the extent of the corruption is now an option.

So, while the mainstream media attempt to create a narrative suggesting that relatively poorly paid lower division Black men are spot-fixing, the real issue is that the corruption and insider trading in English football are systemic.

And such corruptions and biases determine trophies, titles, relegations and careers.

In the last decade...

One FA Cup Final was fixed via a collaboration of referee, players, management and agents.  

Reading were relegated from the Premier League via a fixed match between Portsmouth and Fulham which saw input from players, other insiders and agents. The then Fulham manager, Roy Hodgson, has never looked back.


Manchester United experienced a run of 24 consecutive penalties/ sendings off in their favour in the 18 month window between losing 1-6 to City and securing the Premier League title last season.

But run-of-the-mill insider trading, match fixing and other corruptions are a regular feature of football at the highest levels in England.

The infrastructure is primed for these criminalities.

1) No video technology for the vast majority of key decisions.
2) Only 18 individuals are allowed to referee Premier League games in careers that can last two decades.
3) There are no regulations preventing football agents fixing match outcomes and transfer markets.
4) One man selects the referees for all Premier League matches.
5) Referees are legally prevented from discussions with media for life.
6) There are no binding rules of disclosure forcing bookmakers to reveal insider trading or for the authorities to act on such information even if received.
7) The mainstream media is controlled by insiders.

Take a couple of examples of the infrastructure...

This last weekend, Sky provided 4 live Premier League games.
The outcomes of three of these matches were determined by refereeing 'errors' and, in the other game, Wenger complained bitterly about Howard Webb's differential in the treatment of fouls from Arsenal and Everton.

Sunderland v Spurs - Sunderland denied a clear penalty for handball that was clearly seen by Lee Mason the referee. Sunderland lost 1-2. 4th Official was Martin Atkinson.

Fulham v Aston Villa - Mike Dean gave a ludicrous penalty to Fulham while denying Villa are markedly more obvious one. There were suspicious betting patterns on this game. 2-0 for Fulham.

Swansea v Hull City - After the PGMOB changed the referee from PC Chris Foy to PC Martin Atkinson, Swansea equalised with a handballed shot and Hull were denied an evident penalty for another handball. There were suspicious betting inputs here too. Being a policeman, Atkinson also booked four Black men and a Latino. Ended 1-1.

Arguably, all four weekend live Sky matches had their outcome altered inappropriately by the input of match officials.

And the referees for the four live Sky/BT matches next weekend are Atkinson, Dean, Foy and, for his 10th live match of the season, Jonathan Moss.

We are absolutely not saying in this place that Messrs Moss, Mason, Dean, Webb, Foy and Atkinson fix matches.
But we are saying that when £1 trillion is bet globally on football with around £200 billion of this turnover being on the Premier League, surely a more robust system of regulation, selection and assessment of the structure is needed.

And why won't football allow the technology that has cleaned up cricket, keeps Rugby Union authentic and prevents errors of human judgement in tennis?
Why doesn't football want outcomes of integrity?

And why is football focusing on lower league corruptions perpetrated allegedly by Afro-Caribbean, South and South East Asian individuals when ALL the corruption that we detect in English football has a white face attached to it?

Societal hierarchy always attempts to show corruption as a few bad apples, peripheral distortions of a system.
But the 2007 financial crash changed all that.
It is an illusion that the well-paid are not corrupt.
Everybody has a price...
... even we do!

But the very key issue is one of power.

One football agent who fixes Premier League (and other) games is petrified of a mafia grouping that controls the council of one particular British city...
... and when British (and South East Asian) mafia are competing for control of our sport, you know that the game is up.

NB: Please note that myself or other members of our cellular body are available for media in this window. 
You can reach us via a Direct Message at Twitter (@footballisfixed) or via email (footballisfixed02@googlemail.com).

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013   

Ten Fixed Matches

While the mainstream media focuses on Afro-Caribbean, South Asian and Singaporean match fixers as opposed to the largely white Caucasian expanse of managers, players, referees, owners, agents, bookmakers, administrators, commentators, media analysts and a former senior government individual who are systemically corrupting the English game, we provide you with ten matches involving English teams that were conspiratorially fixed and/or involved excessive insider trading.

We take these matches from all levels of the game in England across half a decade to demonstrate how widespread the corruption is.

• Manchester United v Real Madrid (Champions League 2012/13) - agent control/ insider betting
• Manchester United v Crystal Palace (Premier League 2013/14) - fixed match/ insider betting
• Portsmouth v Fulham (Premier League 2007/08) - fixed match/ Reading relegated
• Wigan v Tottenham (Premier League 2008/09) - insider betting
• Fulham v Wigan (Premier League 2007/08) - fixed match/ insider betting
• West Brom v Manchester United (Premier League 2012/13) - competing insider betting in 5-5 draw
• Finland U-21s v England U21s (European Championships 2013/14) - fixed match/ insider betting
• Norwich v West Ham (Premier League 2013/14) - fixed match/ insider betting
• Barnet v Macclesfield (League Two 2011/12) - fixed match/ insider betting
• Buxton v Stocksbridge Park Steels (Northern Premier League Premier Division 2013/14) - fixed match 

Marcus Gayle: “I never thought match fixing was possible. But now I have changed my mind, for obvious reasons. Now, I am convinced it’s all over the place."

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Run Those Neohyperrealities Past Me Again

Insider gamblers are still targeting English Premier League games.
We have detected SIX matches where insider trading occurred since the announcement of the "biggest scandal in decades" last week.
There have only been 11 games in this window. 

Not all insider gambles represent fixed matches, of course.
But some do. 

And, anyway, why should insiders be betting at all?

Some forms of corruption have been eliminated from the Premier League Market Profile this season.
Other forms of corruption have moved in their place as is always the case when a reality has morphed through "the phases of the image" to a neohyperreality.

Just six days ago, the Daily Telegraph announced that its investigation had revealed agent-led match-fixing in English football.
The newspaper claimed that this was the biggest scandal in decades to hit the English game.
By Saturday, all traces of this "biggest scandal in decades" had been removed from the Telegraph and all other mainstream media in England.

Meanwhile, on Saturday it was revealed that agents had taken nearly £100 million from the Premier League in the year to September 2013.
This represented an increase in take of 25%.
There were virtually no references to this in the mainstream media.

When this "biggest scandal in decades" was reported, newspapers with close links to agents didn't allow 'comments' and there were considerable column inches desperately separating this corruption from any link to the Premier League.
This despite the Premier League being the biggest betting market on the planet.

So the only questions of consequence are these...

1) At what point did this charade become a charade?
2) What the hell happened to this "biggest scandal in decades"?

Jean Baudrillard: "These would be the successive phases of the image:

1) It is the reflection of a basic reality.
2) It masks and perverts a basic reality.
3) It masks the absence of a basic reality.
4) It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum."

Football has become a fifth level of these phases of the image.

Football not only bears no relation to any reality whatever but also the constituents that determine the fake realities within this simulacrum are themselves hyperreal too.

Football is a neohyperreality. 

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
 
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

The Dirty Dozen - The Role Of Agents In The Criminalisation Of Football

How Agents Are Destroying Football


1. Many firms of agents have an interest in the global betting markets. Some firms specifically target goalkeepers, for example. A very high percentage of the sixty plus betting scandals to be currently under investigation feature agents as facilitators due to the way in which agents seemlessly lubricate the system.

2. Betting interest soon morphs into market control. preferably in-house otherwise in a fragmented cartel. There are a variety of tipping points where the critical mass of the control of a match corruption is reached. Matches are fixed via participants on behalf of their agents. Agents target both club and international matches.

3. Player loyalty to club is increasingly a rare factor in football nowadays. Players have an agent for life (pre to post career) and any number of clubs. Badge-kissing is simply marketing the brand of the self. Clubs that employ several players from the same firm of agents or from a web-like cartel of agents risk losing control of their matches although some of the better run clubs limit such exposure as a matter of strategy e.g. FC Bayern, Milan, Barcelona and Blackpool.

4. Once control of a very liquid betting market becomes the focus of agents/ cartel of agents' attention then control of those lily-livered reprobates, the referees, becomes the primary strategy. At the poker table of postmodern football, one goalkeeper + the referee is a very strong hand indeed. Referees are underpaid outliers with football envy - psychologically many referees are desperate for 'acceptance' within the game. Media silence and retirement hush money aid any shenanigans.

5. Once an agent/ cartel is seen to be influencing market outcomes, market makers and bookmakers enter stage right. Hence surface level criminalised trading migrates to the European and Asian underworlds, undergrounds and offshore financial centres. It is not surprising that a £1 trillion annual market attracts such intricate infrastructures.

6. Agents bleed the game of money that should be going to grass roots projects. For the year ending September 2013, agents took virtually £100 million from the Premier League (over £2.5 million for every round of games).This was a 25% increase and elicited no mainstream media attention in a week where the words 'agents' and 'match-fixing' kept appearing in the same sentences.

7. Due to loyalty to self/ agent rather than club, a perverse incentive means many players will perform fully only when playing in live tv matches with massively increased global exposure. Similarly, 'injuries' and choice of timing for operations etc are determined by agent not by the club.

8. Agents always boast about the black market sides of their job - the under-the-table illicit payments to drop interests in a player, the insider gamble that the bookies couldn't stop. Agents take far more than £100 million out of the English game in the grey and black market sectors.

9. Agents undertake mainstream media control for the promotion of their clients, the suppression of inappropriate news and reality leakages, the advancement of transfer strategies and, in the case of the Guardian, the 'creation' of an entirely fictitious neohyperreality in the form of the Secret Footballer. How apt that, with editorial involvement, a newspaper that robbed the secrets from Wikileaks and Snowden should create their very own imaginary secrets via a fake entity linked to a leading football agent!

10. There is no regulation of agents. Consequently, all agents eventually, if not initially, become linked to mafia - this is the only evolution feasible in Friedmanian capitalism in a sector that is entirely non-regulated. Market Maturity = Monopolistic Mafia. Although agents police themselves, a whole variety of mafia groups police the agents.

11. Third Party Agreements are not only still the norm but Fourth and Fifth Party ones exist too. Self-regulation means, in effect, no regulation as agents create the necessary infrastructure to allow them to optimise their operations.

12. Top agents have links to government in Britain (both Labour and Tory). Bizarrely, agents and (the limited) control of a hugely liquid global financial market that they bring are one of the few hyperreal growth areas in our austerity-wrecked post-imperial wasteland of a fake-service economy. Of course, government cannot boast this economic success story: "our match-fixing and market distortions are bringing jobs to Britain..."

When a former player-turned-agent Delroy Facey was named as a key operator in Invisiblegate - the English match-fixing scandal which allegedly happened last week - we expected an imminent media blackout, a separation of the Premier League from any allegations of match-fixing and a markedly legitimate weekend in the Premier League. And that is what we got. It was just like the old days. No sendings off and just one penalty (to Manchester United, of course). No controversy. We cannot find any other weekend in our databases with so little referee influence. What a remarkable fluke!

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013
 

Mediastan - Everything That Never Happens Will Never Happen Today

After three days the English match-fixing story is out of the mainstream media.

Three days ago the Telegraph were claiming the "biggest scandal to hit English football in decades".
Now they are offering us silence.
Aready.
Buried.

Additionally, the Daily Telegraph have made it quite clear that they are not willing to expose Premier League corruption. 

While The Guardian football section (under control of agents) do not allow comments on any of the match-fixing articles on their website.

No mention of the match-fixing on Match of the Day and that funny little guy with the dodgy trousers on the Football League show claims that "the week was dominated by managerial casualties"...
... as opposed to match-fixing in the Football League presumably.

Meanwhile, Premier League referees do not give one penalty or sending off on Saturday...
... in fact they seemed incapable of making any decisions in a combined display of invisibility.

Meanwhile...
... the 25% increase to £97m in earnings for agents from Premier League transfers doesn't even warrant a mainstream media headline.

But meanwhile...
...outrageous amounts of mainstream media headline space and column inches for Wenger saying that English football is 99.9% clean.

Nothing to see here.
C'mon, move on now.

BUT THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DATA FROM SATURDAY WAS THAT PREMIER LEAGUE BETTING VOLUME WAS DOWN BY 20% ON PROJECTED TURNOVER

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Surfing The Zeitgeist Of Corruption

On November 25th 2011 there was a fixed League Two match involving Barnet and Macclesfield.

Barnet won 2-1 via two penalties from Izale McLeod and the later sending off of Roy Draper just two minutes after Macclesfield had pulled a goal back.

The referee for this event was Dean Whitestone.
He is still an active official, his last refereeing spot being QPR's 1-0 victory over Charlton and he is selected as 4th Official for several Premier League games per season.

The current Lincoln City manager Gary Simpson was manager of Macclesfield at the time of this fixed match.
He reported his suspicions to the authorities.

Simpson: "I was told there had been an irregular betting pattern on it [the game] during the game and before the game... We heard from the authorities that it was correct and there had been an irregular betting pattern in the game."

So.
A fixed match.
Apparent involvement of a referee according to Simpson.
Knowledge of event by authorities.
No action.  

Yesterday the Football Conference put out a statement: "The Football Conference takes all matters relating to the integrity of the game very seriously but it cannot make any comment on today's story as it would be inappropriate to do so."

And the impact was considerable in football terms in that Macclesfield were relegated from the Football League in season 2011/12 while Barnet finished third-bottom.
__________________________________________________________________________________

On October 29th 2008 there was a fixed Premier League match involving Fulham and Wigan Athletic.

Fulham (managed by Roy Hodgson) won 2-0 with two goals by Andy Johnson who was so certain that he would score that he revealed a t-shirt boasting of such even though he hadn't scored a goal for 7 months. He boasted of his prior knowledge on the Match of the Day interview post-game.

There were irregular betting patterns on the game.

We posted a blog about this event and, two days later, received threats and menaces of the 'we know where you live' variety. 
These emails were traced to the London offices of a leading football agent who was closely associated with the Fulham/Wigan fix.
We informed this individual of our forensics and went to the police.

Later, we approached Paul Kelso of the Daily Telegraph over this fixed event when Hodgson became manager of England - Kelso was the Chief Sports Reporter of the Telegraph.
His refusal to meet despite betting patterns, testimonies, evidence was assumed to be related to previous work co-operations with the agent at a different newspaper.

Yet it is now the Telegraph that is exposing lower league and international match corruption in English, Irish and Scottish football.

To say that we are curious about Telegraph attention on the shit that rises to the top would be an understatement worthy of note!
__________________________________________________________________________________

This investigation into corruption in the English game CANNOT be allowed to continue to its fruition as figures at the very summit of British society and the game will be implicated - administrators, senior government ministers, club owners, newspaper editors, managers, referees, players, agents, lawyers, commentators, football writers, ex-players, accommodating European-based bookmakers, the entire business hierarchies of the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Jersey and Guernsey, the mafiosi groups of several British cities...

Gordon Taylor's betting millions are just the tip of the iceberg.

Oh!
And he's still in a job, isn't he? 

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Football Is Fixed!

FOOTBALL IS FIXED!

BUT ONLY LOWER LEAGUE FOOTBALL WHERE THERE IS NOT SO MUCH MONEY TO BE MADE BY THE PERPETRATORS...

... AND FOREIGN FOOTBALL BECAUSE WE ARE ALL SO SQUEAKY CLEAN IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN IT COMES TO THE RAMPANT CRIMINALISATION OF FINANCIAL MARKETS.

The Telegraph investigation into match-fixing in the lower English leagues brings the focus of the spectre of the criminalisation of our beautiful game ever closer to the Premier League.

The revealing report written by Claire Newell and Holly Watt manages to expose a world that no insider is prepared to whistleblow and expose for fear of the consequences (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/10479667/Football-match-fixing-six-arrested-by-police-investigating-betting-syndicate-as-rigging-hits-British-game.html).

It is surely of passing relevance that it takes two women non-footballers to reveal the ugly truth about the English game.

To date, at least three current players and a former player-turned-agent have been arrested (amongst others).

Before moving onto the holistics of football corruption in this country, we would like to point out that we approached Paul Kelso (the Chief Sports Reporter) for the Telegraph with fulsome evidence (including testimonies) of a fixed English Premier League match from 2008.
As he had formerly worked under one of the perpetrators of that particular match-fix, we were not surprised when he refused our offer of a meeting. But this should be born in mind when we discuss where the real match-fixing is happening in England.

For sure, corruption exists in the lower leagues - the other week the ninth most traded match in one Asian market (on a Champions League night!) was Buxton versus Stockbridge Park Steels!
But when excessive and inappropriate volume exists on a lower league match, the majority of bookmakers and market makers simply suspend the book (unless they are able to hedge or advantageously trade the 'knowledge' elsewhere).

But the primary corruption occurs where the liquidity is secure and deep - the major European leagues, the Champions League and the World Cup Finals.

There are currently active police investigations into football match-fixing in over 60 countries.
That represents more than 30% of the FIFA Family.
The estimated global turnover on football betting is projected as £650 billion.
Although illuminatingly excessive, we suggest that this figure is an understatement.

The most voluminous trading on football markets takes place in Dark Pools where the footballing equivalent of institutional investors square off their illicit controls and acquired knowledges at the poker table that eventually determines the match outcomes.
Liquidity is everything as profits are proportional and we would be astonished if the flow of money over a year didn't exceed £1 trillion.

One of the most corrupt leagues on the planet is the English Premier League.
Yet here there is no exposure.
There are no arrests.

But there are also no regulations preventing corruption. 
And inappropriate structures abound that are seemingly primed for corruption.

An example...

The biggest turnover English Premier League matches are the televised events as these matches attract far more Asian underground money.
More volume = more profit if one is in control of the market.

One of the poorest referees on the PGMOB Select Group roster is Jonathan Moss (think the matches between Man Utd/ Crystal Palace, Man City/ Everton and Norwich/ West Ham this season for starters).
There also appears an unconscious bias in the officiating of Mr Moss in favour of West Bromwich Albion and against Aston Villa...
... entirely unconscious of course.

Mr Moss is a close acquaintance of Mr John Colquhoun - former footballer, football agent, Guardian newspaper football overlord, Scottish tourism ambassador, professional gambler, those sort of jobs - and they have been entwined together since their time at Sunderland two decades ago.

Colquhoun is immensely well connected in the English game and would appear to have some influence over Keren Barratt (the man at the PGMOB responsible for the selection of match referees).

For example, look at all the appointments in the Premier League for Mr Moss this season:

Chelsea v Hull City (Sky Live)
Everton v West Brom (4th Official)
Arsenal v Spurs (4th Official) (Sky Live)
Man Utd v C Palace (BT Live)
Liverpool v Southampton (4th Official)
Man City v Everton (BT Live)
West Brom v Arsenal (4th Official) (Sky Live)
West Ham v Man City (4th Official) (Sky Live)
Liverpool v West Brom
Norwich v West Ham (BT Live)
Fulham v Swansea (4th Official)
Cardiff v Man Utd (4th Official) (Sky Live)
Spurs v Man Utd (4th Official) (BT Live)

So.
13 games.
9 major turnover live matches.
3 games involving West Brom.
Other referees of his standing and status have received between 0 and three live appointments.

This is a structure that clearly represents a potential conflict of interests if Mr Moss were criminalised (which we have to assume he is not) or if Mr Colquhoun had an interest in the global football betting markets (which, despite him being a professional gambler, we are sure he hasn't).

When one of the match-fixers states that referees across Europe can be bought for £20K per game, having one person in charge of selection of the officials for Premier League matches is a calamity waiting to happen.

This is just one example of the way that illegitimate loopholes might occur - we could offer you many others.

In football as in life, there are two forms of corruption.
That within the loop where all key power groups share an interest...
... or peripheral corruption of no benefit to those in the loop and therefore problematical as it might draw attention to the activities of those in the loop.

Interestingly, the police have made no contact with either the Premier League (under Mr Scudamore) or the Football League (under Mr Harvey) over their current investigations into match-fixing in the English game.

This could just be the biggest scandal to hit English football in decades (as the Telegraph are claiming).

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article suggests that any of the people mentioned are anything but beautiful warm-hearted individuals with the best interests of the integrity of the game at heart.
We merely point out systemic structures that could be easily utilised for corruption if ever a criminalised individual was ever to venture near the world of football. That's all, folks.

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013  

Friend Or Foe?

Robbie Savage described the decision by Kevin Friend to send off Wes Brown in the weekend match between Stoke City and Sunderland as "the worst decision I have ever seen."

Charlie Adam, the recipient of the tackle, said "I don't think it was a sending off."

But it is potentially more problematical than a very poor error of judgement.

Friend wasn't even going to blow for a foul until he was prompted over his earpiece.
This prompt could have been from the assistant referee, the 4th official or the Premier League match observer.
As Friend simply marched over and presented a red card without even consulting any of his on-field assistants, one is left with the conclusion that it was the Premier League match observer who made the decision.

This route to decision-making is illegal under Premier League, UEFA and FIFA rules although all three bodies utilise match observers in this illegitimate manner.

If television images are being utilised or hidden agendas enacted away from the pitch by faceless representatives then match outcomes are compromised by inappropriate inputs.
If video technology is being used surreptitiously then not only is this illicit but also it allows decisions on problematical decisions to be taken in secrecy as opposed to the more open manner of rugby and cricket and tennis.

Why can't the communications between match officials be on open microphone as is the case in legitimate sports? 

And why do the Premier League insist that referees do not give post-match interviews?
And why are former referees in Premier League paid £50K on retirement as 'hush money'?
And why is the name Keren Barratt never mentioned in the media when he is the individual who makes all Premier League referee selections?

Why the secrecy?
What have the Premier League got to hide?

NB Following our intervention, the Wes Brown red card has been rescinded and Mr Friend has been stood down from officiating for a fortnight. 
The full details of this case are not able to be printed in this place.

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013  

The Crime Of The Ancient Marriner?

The Professional Game Match Officials' Board (PGMOB) under Mike 'Kipper' Riley - the body that selects referees for matches - have some explaining to do.

The match referee for the Premier League match between Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion was supposed to be Lee Probert.

On Friday, Probert was replaced by Andre Marriner with no reasons provided.

During the match, Marriner booked 7 WBA players for only 15 fouls and blew for the generally derided fake penalty that gave Chelsea their 96th minute equaliser.

Mr Riley might also like to explain why Jonathan Moss who has officiated at just 6 Premier League games this season has been given 3 BT Sport Live Matches all of which have been controversial in one manner or another.

Firstly, there were the incorrect penalty and sending off in favour of Manchester United against Crystal Palace and then there were the spectrum of wrong calls that led to Manchester City defeating Everton with the triumvirate completed by Saturday's spectacle at Carrow Road.

We understand that Moss has close contacts in the BT Sports hierarchy but it still needs explaining why a referee who repeatedly underperforms is given 3 out of 11 BT Sports matches when he has only received 3 out of 99 other EPL appointments.

It is also a concern that all three BT Sports matches refereed by Moss have seen excessive insider gambling.

So Kipper...
Is there any rhyme or reason why Marriner was brought in?
And why is Moss sided with so?

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

A Massively Fixed Televised English Premier League Match

The fix involved (or was perpetrated in the knowledge of):

1) The match referee

2) Somebody at the Professional Game Match Officials' Board (PGMOB) who selects officials for EPL games

3) The managers of both teams

4) Three firms of agents

5) Players represented by these three firms of agents

6) Bookmakers who accepted the insider trading on the event and treated such corruption as primary knowledge to be traded elsewhere.

The insider gamble was landed to the benefit of all insiders...
... and the demise of the integrity of the game, the loss to fans who were expecting a competitive match when they turned up at the ground or paid for the tv coverage, bettors who were befuddled by the corruption etc etc.

The people behind this criminality all have considerable influence in the English game.

The result of the return match between the two sides involved in this scam is already decided as the two matches are a very simple and very visible version of the Italian 3 for 3 deal where two clubs agree to share the seasonal six points.

FOOTBALL IS FIXED!

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Bloom In Brighton

                                                             Lizard With Chips

Honore de Balzac: "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."

The key angle regarding Brighton and Hove Albion FC and Tony Bloom is whether the owner bets on the matches of his own club and, particularly, whether such insider trading is ever against Brighton.

But first some background...

Bloom was my broker in the mid-nineties when he moved to Bangkok to make his tax-free millions trading on the underground Asian markets.
Bloom does his 'analyses' for weekend matches on the Friday night and would frequently telephone during the evening asking for privileged data and information regarding specific matches.
Bloom needed to complete his work prior to the Asian markets opening for business on the Saturday morning when millions could be placed on matches.
Bloom is a slippery lizard-like customer so, to ensure that winnings were paid, all communications had to be recorded.

Bloom's 'analyses' of football matches are highly dependent on player 'analysis' so team selection is critical.
Bloom understood that Gus Poyet, as a man of integrity, would not allow him to influence team selection for proprietary trading purposes but he nonetheless used to phone Poyet for Brighton team information every Friday evening.
Bloom insisted on this. And it had to be the Friday evening. No later. Now why would that be?

Now insider trading on football is not illegal.
As we pointed out yesterday, the global turnover on football betting is 40% of the annual GDP of the British economy so there are any number of people who have the incentive to take advantage of inside information.
The only issue in this area is the one of integrity.
How would Brighton fans feel if Bloom, on occasion, bet against his own club in order to enhance his property empire?

The easiest insider bet is always the one against your own club, for obvious reasons of "control".
This is why Ian Black of Sevco FC and former Accrington Stanley director Robert Heys bet against their teams. And it is why many goalkeepers are targeted by corrupt agents and mafiosi.

We believe that one of the primary reasons that Bloom took his ridiculous action against Poyet was because betting routes were being denied to him despite requests. Gus thinks this also.

When we first provided Richard Bevan of the League Managers' Association with our combined knowledges of Bloom's modes of business, he wished to take action immediately but Gus Poyet's legal wrangles cut across any such strategy.

However, Bloom chases the dragon when it comes to money and Brighton fans should be aware that when push comes to shove, the Lizard will put his own needs ahead of the club. You are merely a vehicle for Bloom PLC.

And so we ask the question again - SHOULD PROFESSIONAL GAMBLERS OWN FOOTBALL CLUBS?

NB Following these disclosures Bloom and Brighton and Hove Albion reached an out-of-court settlement to the financial benefit of Gus Poyet which was what we had predicted all along.
Bloom offers pounds to stop publicity. 

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed
© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Introducing SKWBs

Some Mancunian reprobate economist (Jim O'Neill formerly of Goldman Sachs) came up with the acronym BRICs for Brazil, Russia, India and China - the emerging economies that were allegedly challenging the economic might of the G7 economies.
Of course, in reality, the monopoly of US hyperimperialism was shifting to a duopoly of China and the US disaster capitalism - CUs rather than BRICs.

For the build up to the FIFA 2014, we would like to suggest a similar acronym for the players who will be selected for Roy Hodgson's England squad - SKWBs - representing the four firms of agents that Mr Hodgson shows a bias towards - Stellar, Key Sports, Wasserman, Base.

To reiterate...
Agents operate competitively but some also form fragmented cartels to ensure mutual benefits.
So 13 members of the Euro 2012 squad came from Stellar, Key Sports, Wasserman and Base (Hodgson is himself represented by Base).
And for the recent round of England internationals and Under-21 games, over 50% of the squads came from these four agencies.

Indeed, Key Sports only have 12 players on their books who could feasibly play for England or England U-21's and every single one of them has been selected!  
John Colquhoun, a partner in Key Sports, was Fulham, West Brom and Liverpool club agent during Hodgson's time at the clubs and these two individuals go back a long way.

See http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html
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There are two primary issues with this mismanagement.

1. Meritocracy

With such a bias in who is selected for England squads, players who choose to be represented by agents other than the above risk being left out in the cold when World Cup selection occurs.
Hence careers are restricted by non-competitive bias or...
... players are "persuaded" or "coerced" into switching their representation to SKWBs to ensure valid career development.

Additionally, due to the massively distorted nature of footballing finances, there is an entirely illegal arbitrage available to Mr Hodgson and the firms of agents should they select to choose such a route.

See http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/kick-out-kickbacks-for-kick-off.html

2. Match Fixing 

The annual global underground betting turnover on football is $1.02 trillion - £650 billion.

The annual United Kingdom (sic) GDP is only $2.45 trillion - £1593 billion.

So...
... a lot of money is bet on football.

Aside from making the lack of regulation regarding insider trading glaringly apparent (there are no obstacles to fixing football matches so long as such corruption occurs within the elite loop), such financial figures also demonstrate what amounts of dirty money can be generated by control of match outcomes.

See http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/stellar-returns.html
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We are going to be monitoring Mr Hodgson and his cronies very very closely in the lead up to the FIFA World Cup 2014.

Because we think that the scum and scabs will scam to the benefit of SKWBs.

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Should Professional Gamblers Own Football Clubs?

                           When Is A Goal Not A Goal? When The Betting Market Says So!

Last night, Watford's Fernando Forestieri was denied a goal at Brighton when the ball had clearly crossed the line.
The "mistake" by referee Keith Hill and his assistant prevented Watford taking all three points from the match.

Watford manager Gianfranco Zola was not a happy man: ""Everyone has seen it apart from the referee and the officials. That is the disappointing part – the goal did not happen in a crowded area, there was only the player, the ball and the line and it has not been seen."

Forestieri also had a clear penalty decision turned down by Hill. 

The interesting part, however, is what happened next and the background to the match.

We are helping Sunderland manager Gus Poyet in his legal action for wrongful dismissal against Brighton and Hove Albion.
Poyet was dismissed for his reaction to somebody spreading excrement around the Crystal Palace dressing room in last season's Championship Play Off Semi Final between the teams.
For background see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/when-shit-hits-fans-implosion-of.html

Poyet, with the support of  Richard Bevan of the League Managers' Association, is not only claiming wrongful dismissal but is also looking into the professional gambling activities of Brighton owner, Tony Bloom.

Bloom, a former bookmaker, used to contact Poyet asking for inside information on matches where Gus had links.
So there would be phonecalls asking Poyet to contact, say, Roberto di Matteo about team selections and tactics which might impact upon Bloom's trading in the underground betting markets in Thailand. Or asking Gus to phone Diego Forlan for inside information on Inter Milan games.
Poyet to his credit always refused.

The televised match last night had a non-public background.
For Watford are owned by the Pozzo family who also take an interest in betting on the underground markets.

We have been informed this morning that some Watford players are suggesting that money changed hands.
We are not able to comment on who allegedly paid such monies nor who was in receipt but there was considerable insider betting on the match in both directions.

The Championship...
... a club owned by a gambling family and sponsored by an Asian bookmaker, 138.com, are denied a legitimate goal and a penalty against a club owned by one of the biggest European insider gamblers in a very active betting market.

We will be chatting to Mr Poyet later today!

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013

Joe Hart - Joke Head, Coke Head Or Just Crooked?

"Keeper's. Fucking keeper's" muttered Joe Hart to himself.

"Keeper. Fucking keeper" responded the Manchester City fans.

                                                       The Hart Of A Fixer?

Following the latest in the continuum of errors in high-profile games by Joe Hart at Stamford Bridge yesterday, Manuel Pellegrini is refusing to publicly back his problematical goalkeeper.
Others are less polite.
An analyst at Ligue1 Analytics suggested that Hart has "the heart of a fixer" after the almost identical error in Moscow earlier in the week.
If Hart were a horse, he would be labelled a potential non-trier and have a Timeform squiggle after his name.

We outlined the issues with Hart back in February http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-is-joe-hart-up-to.html but in this post we are going further by detailing the 5 modes of underperformance that afflict Hart's performances and the murky holistics behind Joe Hart that are poisoning the English game at both club and international level.
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Joe Hart's Methods

1) Waiting for a long through ball that will fall short of his penalty area, racing out but mis-timing run allowing attacker to lob him or slot the ball past him (eg Chelsea yesterday, Aston Villa and CSKA Moscow).
2) Letting saveable shots through weak hands, particularly on his near post (eg Scotland and FC Bayern).
3) Screaming wildly at his defensive wall on dangerous free kicks prior to misplacing the wall and, for that matter, himself (eg Aston Villa and Manchester United in 2-3 defeat last season).
4) Transferring weight onto the wrong foot so appears flat-footed and stationary as the ball enters the net (eg Southampton away last year).
5) Failing to stay on his line or to come for a cross before flailing his wrong arm at the resulting headers as they pass him (Wigan in the FA Cup Final and Eire).

Generally, these "errors" result in restorative performances in the next match.
And this is the rub with dodgy goalkeepers.
If their underperformances and mistakes are occasional and random then we are looking at one issue...
... if such errors and lack of professionalism are in very very key events then we are looking at an entirely different issue.

And then there is the issue of betting patterns.

Manchester City fans are on to Hart.
He is mockingly applauded for dealing with routine shots and back-passes and it is recognised that the man has gone from being head and shoulders above the competition to the most problematical keeper in the league in just over one year - he has made more points-losing mistakes than any other EPL goalie since beginning of 2012/13 season.
And having cost his team two Premier League title chances, an FA Cup Final and Champions League 2nd Phase qualification (last season) in that period, his days are numbered.
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The Impact of Agents

Since the beginning of last season, Charlie (Joe) Hart has shown inadequacies in matches against Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munchen, Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Norwich, Southampton (twice), CSKA Moscow, Wigan (in the FA Cup Final) and several England games (including the games versus Eire and Scotland).
In any other profession other than central banking, he would have been demoted. But he hasn't been. Why?

Joe Hart is represented by Stellar.
Stellar represent 43 EPL players.
Stellar are very influential and, like all agents, entirely non-regulated.
The two bizarre choices in Roy Hodgson's Euro 2012 squad (Jack Butland and Martin Kelly) were both represented by Stellar.
Stellar also have a propensity for goalkeepers with 9 keepers being on their books in the EPL and the Championship.

Agents operate competitively but some also form a fragmented cartel to ensure mutual benefits.
So 13 members of the Euro 2012 squad came from Stellar, Base, Key Sports and Ungeklart (Hodgson is himself represented by Base).
And for the recent round of England internationals and Under-21 games, over 50% of the squads came from these four agencies.
This also explains Hodgson's illogical support of Joe Hart.

In total, 95 EPL players and 17 goalkeepers (in EPL and Championship) are represented by this cartel.
The over-representation of keepers is a giveaway - the goalie is the jockey, he can destabilise a whole defence and his errors are result changing.
There are agencies in Italy that thrive on representing goalkeepers, say, Pastorello or Assist ( the former represent 4 of the most problematical Italian goalies while the latter promote six keepers out of just 15 players on their books)

In a non-regulated area, this is an infrastructure primed for corruption.
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The Corrupted Holistic

So why do agents and dodgy players underperform?
Surely the advancement of career and winning prizes is the career aim?
Well, no, it isn't actually.

The global underground betting markets have volumes of £650 billion per year.

Manuel Neuer, the very excellent FC Bayern keeper, is worth approximately £30 million.
Joe Hart should be worth the same amount but the recent underperformances have seen his value depreciate to £20 million.
Of course, the "real" value for a problematical keeper is less than zero - the keeper/agents should pay the club to allow the squiggler to play!

When Manchester City eventually sell Hart, both Stellar and Hart will receive £1.25 million less than they would without the "mistakes".

It is an isolated fact, but in a sector where money dominates, it is feasible to place £10 million bets on any EPL match in the Asian underground without the broker even blinking.
Do the maths!
And the people behind Stellar are known for pushing legalities in football while one of the co-owners of Key Sports is a professional gambler!

This degree of power in the hands of football agents is a succession of criminalities waiting to happen - 95 players in the EPL, 17 goalies at 44 teams in EPL and Championship.
Think about the options!!
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What Does This All Mean For Manchester City (And England)?

Having lost out on an EPL title, a FA Cup triumph, Champions League latter stages last year, being markedly off the pace in the EPL this season and having lost £10 million player value, you would think that City would learn.
Manchester City Analytics are the analysts behind the club and, by focusing on minutiae and micro-analysis, this body repeatedly fails the club by missing the really key inputs.
City had a net spend of £93 million in the summer, the second highest in Europe.
This spending will fall foul of the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations undermining City's future opportunities and, probably, preventing any chance of the club being invited to the European Super League.

Hart should have been sold last January - the club would have received the full £30 million fee, the FA Cup would have been won and City would be up there with Arsenal and Liverpool this season.
Furthermore the near one hundred million net spend could then be perceived as valid due to short-term rewards.

So now Pellegrini has to choose between the largely untried Costel Pantilimon or call up Richard Wright...
... who is represented by Stellar agents!

And meanwhile, Roy Hodgson will stay loyal.
After all, considering everything from his own perspective, why wouldn't he stick with Charlie Hart?

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2013