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.
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