Insider Trading Is Not Necessarily Match Fixing

Last night was an incredibly depressing defeat.
It was a humiliating and, most likely, an immensely costly loss.
But it wasn't match fixing and it wasn't corruption and it wasn't illegal.

Anyone watching the match could see that things weren't right - a woeful defence, some astonishingly poor performances, a total lack of fitness, a referee with a liking for our friends from Ajax, key players absolutely drained after World Cup exertions, Scott Brown's absence, the negative impact of playing a meaningless friendly against St Pauli instead of resting up for a match that might define Celtic's season...

These are not conspiracies or criminalities, they are real fundamental facts affecting the outcome of a football match.

An insider might choose to bet and profit from a combination of this public and private knowledge plus any extra nuggets he might possess.
This isn't illegal.
It doesn't even mean that the insider isn't professionally focused on the club.
It simply means that he wishes to benefit financially from his privileged position.
And it does not mean the match is bent...
... but it does mean that the game is.

Some stuff...

• Some English Premier League matches have global betting turnover in the billions of pounds. You can get millions of pounds accepted by brokers in Asia on such games without them even blinking. Referees earn less than £2K per week. Referees are a major feature in virtually all corruption episodes around the world. Match fixing results.
• Players have lifelong allegiances to their agents that surpasses any club loyalty (with some honourable exceptions).Some agents also bet professionally. In some games, all of a defence will be represented by one or two agents or more than 50% of the players on the pitch will be represented by four agents, for example. Some agents work very closely together in a cartel fashion. Match fixing results.
• The brands demand certain outcomes. Brazil winning the opening match of the World Cup, say, or the existence of certain referees past and present in the SPL, or UEFA wishing for G14 powerhouse Juventus to be eased past Celtic in the Champions League courtesy of Undiano Mallenco. This results in match fixing.
• It would be easier to list the teams in the English Premier League and Championship that don't have very active betting activities associated with them than those that are legitimate. Imagine the scenario where a team is playing an end of season match of no consequence and the owner of the club is a bookmaker who has significant (and ethically awkward) betting market liabilities on the game. For the bottom line of the club, the less ethical route is much more financially rewarding. This is match fixing and it isn't illegal.
• Bookmakers, brokers, market makers, dark pool traders, market professionals, regulators, the police, UEFA and FIFA all recognise that match fixing is massively widespread. But there is no global regulation against insider trading (whether match fixing or just taking profit from insider knowledge). Market platforms seek the trades of insiders as it improves their market knowledge and hence their financial returns. They actively trade this 'knowledge' elsewhere in the market. This isn't illegal. It is just high stakes poker. No bookie wants to be left with the liability when the game kicks off.
• In horseracing, there is no incentive to throw the Derby or the Grand National due to the kudos and cash that results. However, the 3:15 at Catterick on a Tuesday afternoon when a leading bookmaker has massive liabilities on the 4/7 favourite is a different affair. This is fixing in another sport but the structure is identical to modern football. Except that the rewards in football are far far greater.
• In financial markets, insider trading used to be legal in Britain until around 50 years ago. A broker could have lunch with an executive and short sell the executive's company based on private information from this encounter. This was market fixing and it wasn't illegal. But it is now. Football needs global regulation to tackle match fixing, corruption, money laundering and the tax avoidance associated with these practices. FIFA should be taking on this role rather than awarding World Cups to countries who (allegedly) shoot down passenger planes and those who murder their immigrant workforce via medieval employment practices in tropical heat.

We form part of a global cellular grouping of individuals from all areas of the game who are not satisfied with the manner in which money people are taking over the game.
We have developed proprietary software for monitoring and analysing financial and betting markets.
We explore the dark net for underground and dark pool operations.
We are frequently appalled by what we find but, historically, there have been few global bodies willing to stand up to the rampant corruption.
We also undertake consultancies - last season I worked for a German team and I'm now working with a body monitoring match fixing in football.
We do nothing illegal.
We just try to undermine corruption in football.

There is a much more determined effort by the likes of Interpol to address match fixing (see last blog post).
But match fixing is not just a problem in the Asian underground.
It is everywhere.

Of course, whether you accept that the above structures are demolishing the game is up to you.
We merely put some stuff in front of you and you can make up your own minds - Glaswegians (both Celtic and Sevco) have enough nous to understand match fixing and corruption when they see it.

But remember.
Nobody did anything illegal prior to the defeat in Warszawa.
Nothing to see there...
... apart from an inept performance, poorly planned, strategically stunted, financially disastrous and interestingly refereed.

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-to-solve-match-fixing-once-and-for.html

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/football-markets-are-not-only-markets.html

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

© Football is Fixed 2006-2014

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed  

SOGA, So Good

                               Hooded Hoodlums of Global Matchfixing on the Perp Walk

The Interpol SOGA V (SOccer GAmbling Five) operation against illegal gambling during the FIFA World Cup 2014 netted 1400 arrests, $2.2bn in wagers and $12m in cash plus the arrest of leading triad operator Paul Phua.
Over 1000 raids were carried out across 6 South East Asian countries.
Additionally, as the World Cup was winding down, the FBI and Nevada Gaming Control Board agents raided an illegal sports betting operation working out of a suite in Caesars Palace.
In this case, 4 Malaysians and 4 Chinese were arrested.

This is impressive but only represents the tip of the iceberg.

One is able to place bets of $10m on Premier League games in the Far East without the broker blinking over the bet.

Additionally, a majority of underground trading on global football matches now takes place in opaque, offshore and non-regulated dark pools.

SOGA's five operations in the last 7 years have yielded $5.7bn in illegal bets - this is less than the Asian underground turnover on one Manchester United v Chelsea match! 

Considering the size and relative success of this Interpol operation, it is quite astonishing that no coverage whatsoever has been given to the arrests and the issues of World Cup matchfixing in the English press.
As in Asian operations, match corruptions in England are orchestrated by cabals of referees, bookmakers, players and agents but extensive efforts are made by the English matchfixers and their accomplices in the mainstream media to avoid scrutiny of such loci of corruption - two World Cup co-commentators with knowledge and/or experience of matchfixing (one BBC and the other ITV) were under strict instructions never to question any refereeing decision or playing performance of dubious integrity!

When will Interpol address matchfixing in England?
Is it an issue that some perpetrators are policemen?

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

© Football is Fixed 2006-2014

How The FIFA World Cup 2014 Was Fixed

With our partners, we have produced a consultancy document indicating the various ways in which the FIFA World Cup failed to be a tournament of integrity both in the particular and in the holistic.

We share the 16 section titles of this document with you.
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Matchfixing and Corruption linked to Roy Hodgson and England

The Role of English Media in Corruptions orchestrated within the England set up

Matchfixing linked to British Agents and English Bookmakers

The Role of Proxies to disguise Insider Trading - the inability or unwillingness of Europol, Federbet and Early Warning to detect Insider Trading

An Assessment of German Strategies in comparison with England 

Matchfixing orchestrated by the FIFA Family  

Cabals of FIFA Referees working to achieve agreed outcomes via specific networks of Corruption

Insider Gambling by certain Referees

Issues with the selection of Referees being in the hands of Massimo Busacca

Exposing the Five Teams that utilised Performance Enhancing Substances

20% of FIFA World Cup Matches were Fixed - We reveal the full list

The Role of Offshore Dark Pool Markets in Matchfixing

A Thorough Analysis of Betting Patterns on all 64 matches

Areas of Impact of the South East Asian Markets and comparisons of control exerted by other Dark Pool Markets

A Listing of 30 Players involved in Matchfixing

A Bayesian Analysis on the Impact of the World Cup on Sabermetrics and the Transfer Markets

Configurative Analyses of Fitness, Tiredness and Travel and the Impact on World Cup as a Spectacle
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We are auctioning off one copy of this extensive consultancy document to industry professionals.

The document not only provides total coverage of the manner in which World Cup 2014 was fixed but also allows parallel analyses to be undertaken for all future tournaments.

Bids should be logged via Twitter Direct Message on the @FootballisFixed account by July 31st 2014.
The winning bidder will be informed immediately thereafter.
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© Football is Fixed 2006-2014

The Shit Squad

We asked our Asian broker, a UEFA administrator, our publishers and a former Norwegian international to choose the worst players, referee and manager at the World Cup in Brazil.

The selections were made based on matchfixing, links to insider trading bookmakers and/or agents, motivational deficiencies and lack of professionalism.

Here is what they came up with...
... the Shit Squad.

Manager Roy Hodgson (England)

Goalkeepers Hart (England), Rui Patricio (Portugal), Casillas (Spain)

Defenders Jagielka (England), David Luiz (Brazil), Pepe (Portugal), Assou Ekotto (Cameroon), Johnson (England), Ramos (Spain), Baines (England)

Midfielders W. Palacios (Honduras), Gerrard (England), Song (Cameroon), Katsouranis (Greece), Henderson (England), Fernandinho (Brazil), Luiz Gustavo (Brazil), Meireles (Portugal), Alonso (Spain)

Forwards Fred (Brazil), Suarez (Uruguay), Nani (Portugal), Boateng (Ghana)

Referee Carballo (Spain)

12 of the squad played in the English Premier League last season (9 in Liverpool or Manchester!).

The EPL - the best league on the planet?

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

© Football is Fixed 2006-2014

Four Referees And A Linesman - Guest Post by Bob Pomfret

A rare guest post with a, hopefully, tongue-in-cheek assessment of half a century of failures by the England football team.
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I blame Carlos Velasco Carballo. 

‘Who’s he?’ I hear you ask.

He’s a referee of course. He’s the referee that stopped England from winning the World Cup in Brazil this summer. You may think, having seen the England team fly home after three winless games, that this is stretching the imagination too far, but you’re wrong. In fact let me add some more names: José Roberto Wright, Jorge Larrionda, Ali Bin Nasser. There are others, but in my very humble opinion these are the four worst offenders.

It’s Tuesday 19th June, twenty eight minutes past eight here in Woodstock, not sure what time that is in the Corinthians stadium Sao Paulo but never mind. Daniel Sturridge is roaring down the wing when he gets elbowed off the ball by Uruguay captain Diego Godin. It’s a yellow card, anybody could see it’s a yellow card. REFEREE, It’s clearly a yellow card. Now, any other time I’m sure it would have been given, but twenty minutes earlier Godin had already been booked for handball, and Carlos Velasco Carballo, yes you Mr Carballo, bottled it. No second card, Godin stays on the pitch. Ten minutes later Suarez scores the first of two goals to send us on our way out of the cup, and home to unfair ridicule in the press.

‘So what if Godin had been sent off?'

 

Well, naturally England would have won. And the momentum would have carried us forward to glory. We would have beaten Costa Rica in the next game, topped the group, gone on to trounce Greece in the following round, and stormed past a fading Holland in the Quarter Finals. After coming out on top in a tough tight game with Argentina in the Semi’s, the nation would bask in the glorious sunshine of victory over arch rivals Germany in the final. In the bag, our fifth World Cup victory.

‘Fifth?’ I hear you say, ‘Surely Bob you’ve got that wrong, its 48 years of hurt since England last won the World Cup in 1966.’ 

Well yes, technically it is nearly half a century, and counting, since we won the cup but if it were not for Messrs Wright, Larrionda and Bin Nasser, and of course Mr Carballo, I feel pretty damned confident we would today be on the verge of winning our fifth World Cup. I have a fairly strong sense of injustice about a couple of others, and two or three European Championships too, but for now I’ll concentrate on making the case for five World Cup wins. 

I’ll start with the closest that we got. The one that hurts the most for me personally. It’s 1990. ‘Italia 90’, I loved it. Pavarotti singing ‘Nessum Dorma’ and John Barnes rapping on ‘World in Motion’. After a very slow start, England were playing great football. Platt’s last minute goal against Belgium was the best of the tournament. Lineker was on form, Gazza was at his peak. It was a brilliant World Cup. And suddenly we were through to the Semi-finals.

You remember it? Of course you do... the penalty shoot-out versus West Germany. Waddle whacks his penalty over the bar, hangs his head in despair, and the nation joins Gazza in floods of tears. Okay, fair enough. I don’t blame Chris Waddle (well I do a bit). Anybody can miss a penalty, especially the fifth penalty of five in a World Cup semi-final, but in the minutes leading up to that shoot out, the referee, José Roberto Wright (Yes you, Mr Wright), made two key decisions that went against us. 

I’ll start with the second one. Nine minutes from the end of extra time, Platt scored a goal which, had it been given would have put us 2-1 up. He was flagged offside and okay, maybe he was offside, but it was s-o-o-o close and it could easily have been given couldn’t it? I’d have given it. That was bad enough, but the real reason that Mr Wright cost us the 1990 World Cup came a few minutes earlier.

It was the ninth minute of extra time and Paul Gascoigne, who had collected a yellow card earlier in the tournament, and knew he would miss the final if he got another one, tackled Thomas Berthold. I’m not denying it was a foul, but, was it a bad foul? Was it worthy of the 428 rollovers that Berthold managed to perform, before lying dead at the edge of the pitch? Was it? No it bloody wasn’t. 

If anybody deserved a card, it should have been Berthold for behaving like an arse, Instead the ref waves the card into Gazza’s face, and that was that... I was very nearly sobbing myself.

‘And, the point is Bob?’ 

Well, the point is, that had the referee not been sold a very smelly salmon by Berthold, who by the way got up and was absolutely fine, Gazza would, I’m sure, have driven England forward into the final.

‘And when we got there?’ 

We would have brushed aside Argentina, who had lost half their first choice team to injury and suspension, and the cup would have been ours. 

‘And there are two more World Cups we should have won?’ I can hear the hint of scepticism in your voice. Well, yes there are. When I remind you, I’m sure you will remember them as clearly as me.

1986. The year of the ‘Hand of God’. I’m not going to dwell on this for too long but the plain straightforward simple truth is that Diego Maradona handled the ball to beat Peter Shilton. Referee Ali Bin Nasser managed to miss the incident, and instead of sending Maradona off, he let the goal stand. Maradona scored again later to secure a 2-1 win. Argentina went on to win the World Cup. As we were definitely better than them, it’s clear that, had Mr Magoo not been the referee, after only 20 years of minor discomfort, we would have won our second World Cup.

2010. The year of ‘the goal that wasn’t’. If I’m entirely honest, I’m not absolutely totally completely and utterly sure that we would have beaten Spain, had we met them later in the competition, but for the sake of my claim, let’s not dwell on that. What I am clear about, is that referee Jorge Larrionda did his very best to make sure that we would never find out how things would have gone had we taken on the Spanish.

I’ll take you back to June 27th 2010. The game is against Germany (again). Remember? The stadium is full, the vuvuzelas are driving everybody loopy, and England have started very badly. After conceding two early goals it looks like we might get over run, but first Matthew Upson gets a goal back, and then, just before half-time, Lampard beats the goalkeeper with a shot from thirty yards. The ball hits the bar, drops a full yard behind the line, and here in Woodstock we are bouncing round the living room. But, and it is a very big bastard of a but, somehow Mr Larrionda and his linesman appear not to notice that Frank has scored… at the same time as the big screens are showing the ball bounce behind the line, Larrionda is waving play on. 45 minutes later it’s all over, and it’ll be another four years before Carlos Velasco Carballo comes along and spoils yet another World Cup for us. 

So there you go. If history were not full of bloody awful referees, next Sunday we’d be celebrating England’s fifth World Cup win.

‘And the linesman?’ Ah, good. You haven’t forgotten that the title features five officials. It’s the marvelous Mister Tofiq Bahramov, of course.

‘Who is he?’ 

Who is Mr Tofiq Bahramov? He is the very best, the most competent, lineman ever to wave his flag in a World Cup final. Mr Tofiq Bahramov is the wonderful wonderful man who spotted that Geoff Hurst’s shot had so clearly gone over the line in the World Cup Final at Wembley in 1966. Mr Tofiq Bahramov is without doubt the greatest match official of all time. 

For the record, the other World Cups we might well have won, and who deserves the blame for failure: 

1970 – Alf Ramsey’s fault for taking Bobby Charlton off, at 2-0 up versus Germany. We lost 3-2.

1974 – Brian Clough’s fault. We fail to qualify after he calls Polish Goalkeeper, Jan Tomaszewski, a clown. No need to ask who was man of the match. 

1982 – Ron Greenwood this time, brings on Keegan and Brooking too late against Spain. We need to win, draw 0-0 and come home unbeaten. 

1994 – The FA take the blame, for giving Graham ‘Do I not like Orange’ Taylor the job of taking the team that should have won in 1990, and failing to qualify four years later. 

1998 – Complex one this one: Hoddle for not picking Gazza, Danny Baker and Chris Evans for getting photographed getting pissed with Gazza and giving Hoddle the excuse not to play him, and Eileen Drewery for trying to get God on our side. Maradona had already established whose side the almighty is on 12 years earlier. 

2002 – David Beckham’s second metatarsal on his left foot. 

2006 – Christiano Ronaldo’s fault for encouraging the referee to send off Rooney. And the resultant wink to camera was unforgivable… well I haven’t forgiven him, maybe you are a better person! 

Just in case you are wondering, I haven’t forgotten 1978, but we were just crap that year!