The UEFA Champions League, like the English Premier League (EPL), is largely a marketing exercise where our realities are determined by the specific financial and theatrical requirements of UEFA and the EPL.
Consequently, neither competition is meritocratic although the EPL trumps the Champions League by being an insider gambling paradise as well as a fake tournament.
This post is intended to highlight the dreadful array of manipulations and inappropriate structures that have been demonstrated in the Second Phase of the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League.
Most of the ties have been controversial and the source of this controversy has always been the match officials.
Let us itemise this murk...
Undiano Mallenco attempting to do the look of innocence thing
Celtic/Juventus - The performance of Spanish referee Undiano Mallenco was both unprofessional and murky. His refusal to impose the rules of the game decided the tie on a non-meritocratic basis. Mallenco has demonstrated a pro-Italian bias throughout his career. Mallenco has refereed Italian clubs in Champions League on 7 occasions (5 wins and 2 draws... Inter 4 Bremen 0; Roma 3 Bayern 2; Fiorentina 3 Bayern 2; Bordeaux 1 Roma 3; Fiorentina 1 Bayern 1; Juve 2 Chelsea 2; Celtic 0 Juve 3).
Man Utd/Real Madrid - The controversial sending off of Nani, the links at football agent level between representatives of both clubs and the role of UEFA Match Observer, Pierluigi Collina, in the dismissal of the Portuguese player made this match a fixed event.
Round of 16 First Leg Referee Selection - A structure that is primed for corruption is when referees from countries officiate at one another's games. So, Celtic v Juventus (Spanish ref)/ Valencia v PSG (Italian ref); Real Madrid v Man Utd (German ref)/ Shakhtar Donetsk v Dortmund (English ref).
The 1st Leg match outcomes were directly related to this matrix (although Valencia lost, Tagliavento sent off Ibrahimovic).
Dortmund/Malaga - Controversial winning goal with a whole collection of offsides in the final minute of injury time saw the Germans through. Manager Mauricio Pellegrino and the owner Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani have both made complaints to UEFA over referee Craig Thomson's performance and the fact that, in the 1st Leg, Malaga committed 9 fouls, got three bookings and two bans while Dortmund fouled on 14 occasions with just one booking.
Real Madrid/Galatasaray - Fatih Terim made an official complaint to UEFA after the refereeing of the 1st Leg in Madrid by Norwegian ref Svein Moen was seemingly very biased in favour of the Madrileños.
PSG/Barcelona - The Catalans reported Wolfgang Stark to the UEFA authorities after an astonishingly inept performance in the 2-2 draw. The man also needs to do work on his body language as forensic psychology of his performances are very revealing.
Entertainingly, the UEFA website presents us with a parallel universe where none of the above ever occured.
Post-match statements are edited and doctored to focus solely on the inane rather than the potentially corrupt.
And, yet again, we are presented with four members of the G14 clubs in the semi finals with only one winner since the Champions League was formed coming from outside this select group.
Allegedly, so we have been told, the G14 has been disbanded...
The selection of the referees is the primary problem here.
All UEFA match officials for key games in the latter stages of the Champions League are from western Europe and many are regarded as problematical in their host country - for example, exactly how is Mark Clattenburg on the UEFA list when he is anybody's bitch? And Mallenco is renowned for his pro-Real Madrid bias in Spain while Craig Thomson secretly wears a Rangers shirt under his referee top and burns Celtic effigies in his garden shed.
The only reputational edge that the UEFA Champions League has over the EPL lies in the area of insider gambling - the EPL positively encourages such behaviour while Platini's men will not countenance it.
This is clearly visible in the analyses of the betting patterns.
Indeed, we are currently preparing a high level consultancy document on this very subject as the respective betting patterns when grouped together by tournament expose the degree to which the EPL is a poker table where insiders screw the gullible.
As Paul Breitner has recently stated, the EPL is "laughable" adding, for good measure, that the league "is now only the best league in Asia"!
And only in the underground illegal betting markets of Asia too...
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