Throughout yesterday, there was a one-way betting market emanating from the Asian underground supportive of FC Bayern defeating Barcelona.
Some of the largest individual trades seen this season were on such an outcome.
An ex-broker who exists on the periphery of the illegal Asian betting markets tells me that he has never seen such one-directional volume on such a competitive match (a Champions League semi final).
Before assessing the "public" data on the match, let us consider why this latter point is so key.
Two horse races - one a 3:15 at Catterick on a Tuesday afternoon with prize money for the winner of £3,000, a well backed favourite and a total betting market on and off course of £1 million. The dominant money is in the betting market not the prize money and a fixed race may be established with all connections making more money than would otherwise have been the case. The bookies are happy and the mugs have been mugged.
The favourite that has been bought off will go off at a longer price in its next race due to the underperformance and the insiders (bookies and connections) will all make money on this race too at the expense of the bewildered.
The second race is the Derby. The winner will receive £750,000 and kudos and breeding rights and a place in history - this is much harder (although not impossible) to buy off utilising the betting volume as a lubricant.
Only in these Group 1 events is racing integrity virtually assured.
So it is with football.
Champions League Second Phase events have entirely different betting patterns than a Bet365/Stoke City match or a late season agreed draw in Serie A.
The matches are truly competitive as agents and clubs insist that their players perform on the big stage for future profit in the former case and "club loyalty" in the latter.
So when a Champions League match becomes an insider betting event, it stands out like a sore thumb.
And FC Bayern v Barca was an insider betting event.
So, what was behind this Asian underground money?
The options are...
1) Match Referee Viktor Kassai - FC Bayern's second goal was offside and the third was preceded by a Thomas Muller foul but he also denied the Germans a first half penalty in a performance of considerable ineptitude. Verdict: Useless rather than corrupt although UEFA solicited complaints from Barca over the refereeing of their 1st Leg in Paris in the previous round..
2) The Decision to play Lionel Messi - Covered less yardage than any other starter. The maestro was unfit and should not have been playing. Verdict: Messi's injury was public information and not the reason for the insider trading.
3) Jordi Roura - The Barcelona assistant coach is not Tito Vilanova and Tito's fight against cancer is a severe disadvantage. Verdict: Public knowledge and historical and therefore not relevant.
4) Pep Guardiola - The future FC Bayern manager helped his new employers with a dossier on his former team which will have been a major benefit. Verdict: Will have improved FC Bayern's chances and similar structures historically have seen insider betting on manipulated outcomes eg Man Utd v Real Madrid earlier in the year. But not at this degree of volume nor with such marked dynamics.
5) Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) - As a team FC Bayern covered over 70 metres per minute more than Barcelona - an extra 6.5 km over the whole match. Verdict: Both these teams appear to have utilised PESs in the past - Barca have been linked with disgraced Spanish cycling doper Dr Eufemiano Fuentes and FC Bayern have windows where their fitness increases beyond what is achievable via legitimate means. So Barca cannot really complain about Bayern's Little Helpers.
A combination of Guardiola's input and the possible use of PESs and a UEFA-inspired inept referee cumulatively might offer some explanation for this massive and succesful insider gamble in the Asian underground.
But the sheer volume and one-sidedness of the professional trading suggests certainty rather than probability.
For reasons of libel, we'll allow you to make your own assessment of the dominant input(s) to the outcome of this fixed match.
But where is the explanation as to why UEFA, Europol, Early Warning, legitimate bookmakers etc all failed to spot a potentially fixed event when independent traders, brokers and market makers were all aware that something fishy was going on?
Were any FC Bayern players drug tested after the match?
Why was Kassai chosen when he and his team serially underperform - it was they that missed the Ukrainian "goal" against England in Euro 2012?
And why is the issue of PESs usage by major G14 clubs never on the agenda - Guardiola was banned for 4 months as a player for use of a banned substance, Guardiola/Barcelona/Fuentes is a drug-related PR disaster waiting to happen and Guardiola is, next year, to be the manager of a team that shows all the patterns that we would generally associate with the illegal use of an Erythropoietin (EPO)-type substance?
What do WADA do?
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