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.
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