Take The EBT Money And Run

Av total net wealth of people in #UK is £147,000. Look at the #EBT totalisations for those associated with RFC plc. https://t.co/ytyATOkkNd

— FOOTBALL is FIXED (@footballisfixed) November 21, 2015

Look what somebody has just posted through my Tor...
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Below are details of the illegal inducements (EBTs) used by Rangers Football Club plc to gain unfair advantage in Scottish football.

It would be interesting to know how much it would cost Celtic (due to retrospective bonus payments) if stolen trophies were returned to their rightful owners.

This will surely impact upon the club's strategy with regard to...
 ...#StripTheTitles
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The Rangers Football Club plc

List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 28.02.08
Regulation 80 Determination // Section 8 Decision

2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 // 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07

Graeme Souness The Rangers Football Club plc 20,000.00 (01/02) // 5,950.00 (01/02)
Walter Smith The Rangers Football Club plc 53,333.20 (02/03) // 15,733.29 (02/03)
Christian Nerlinger The Rangers Football Club plc
Barry Ferguson The Rangers Football Club plc 333,333.60 (01/02) 74,666.80 (03/04) 120,000.00 (04/05) 307,333.20 (05/06) 122,000.00 (06/07) // 99,166.74 (01/02) 25,760.04 (03/04) 41,400.00 (04/05) 106,029.95 (05/06) 42,090.00 (06/07)
Michael Ball The Rangers Football Club plc 233,333.20 (01/02) 233,333.60 (02/03) 233,333.60 (03/04) 233,333.60 (04/05) 18,266.80 (05/06) // 69,416.62 (01/02) 68,833.41 (02/03) 80,500.09 (03/04) 80,500.09 (04/05) 6,302.04 (05/06)
Martin Bain The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (01/02) 8,666.80 (02/03) 24,000.00 (03/04) 60,666.80 (04/05) 66,666.80 (05/06) // 2,975.00 (01/02) 2,556.70 (02/03) 8,280.00 (03/04) 20,930.04 (04/05) 23,000.04 (05/06)
Nick Peel The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (01/02) 5,600.00 (02/03) 26,666.80 (03/04) 18,666.80 (04/05) // 2,975.00 (01/02) 1,652.00 (02/03) 9,200.04 (03/04) 6,440.04 (04/05)
Claudio Paul Caniggia The Rangers Football Club plc
Craig Andrew Moore The Rangers Football Club plc
Neil Doherty McCann The Rangers Football Club plc 166,666.40 (01/02) 166,666.40 (02/03) 333,333.20 (03/04) // 49,583.25 (01/02) 49,166.58 (02/03) 114,995.95 (03/04)
Shota Averladze The Rangers Football Club plc 186,666.40 (01/02) 93,333.20 (02/03) 186,666.40 (03/04) 279,999.60 (04/05) // 55,533.25 (01/02) 27,533.29 (02/03) 64,399.90 (03/04) 96,599.86 (04/05)
Arthur Numan The Rangers Football Club plc 250,000.00 (02/03) 90,000.00 (03/04) // 73,750.00 (02/03) 31,050.00 (03/04)
Lorenzo Amoruso The Rangers Football Club plc 200,000.00 (01/02) 126,000.00 (02/03) 100,000.00 (03/04) // 59,500.00 (01/02) 37,170.00 (02/03) 34,500.00 (03/04)
Russell Latapy The Rangers Football Club plc 121,666.40 (02/03) 68,333.20 (03/04) // 35,891.58 (02/03) 23,574.95 (03/04)
Robert Campbell Ogilvie The Rangers Football Club plc 3,333.20 (01/02) 3,333.20 (02/03) 3,333.20 (03/04) 53,333.20 (05/06) // 991.62 (01/02) 983.29 (02/03) 1,149.95 (03/04) 18,399.95 (05/06)
Stefan Klos The Rangers Football Club plc 83,333.20 (01/02) 83,333.20 (02/03) 166,666.40 (03/04) 483,333.20 (04/05) 263,333.20 (05/06) // 24,791.62 (01/02) 24,583.29 (02/03) 57,499.90 (03/04) 166,749.95 (04/05) 90,849.95 (05/06)
Alex McLeish The Rangers Football Club plc 100,000.00 (02/03) 240,000.40 (03/04) 160,000.00 (04/05) 242,000.00 (05/06) 460,000.00 (06/07) // 29,500.00 (02/03) 82,800.13 (03/04) 55,200.00 (04/05) 83,490.00 (05/06) 158,700.00 (06/07)

Annual Totals 
1,246,666.00 (01/02) 1,245,266.00 (02/03) 1,547,000.00 (03/04) 1,356,000.00 (04/05) 950,933.20 (05/06) 582,000.00 (06/07) // 370,883.10 (01/02) 367,353.43 (02/03) 533,710.95 (03/04) 467,819.98 (04/05) 328,071.93 (05/06) 200,790.00 (06/07)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 07.03.08
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 // 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06

Kevin Muscat The Rangers Football Club plc 53,333.20 (02/03) 358,800.00 (03/04) 152,800.00 (04/05) 152,800.00 (05/06) // 15,733.29 (02/03) 123,786.00 (03/04) 52,716.00 (04/05) 52,716.00 (05/06)
Mikel Arteta The Rangers Football Club plc 142,504.00 (02/03) 470,980.80 (03/04) // 42,045.76 (02/03) 162,488.37 (03/04)
Dick Advocaat The Rangers Football Club plc 513,433.20 (02/03) // 151,462.79 (02/03)
Billy Dodds The Rangers Football Club plc 126,666.80 (02/03) // 37,366.70 (02/03)
Andre Kanchelskis The Rangers Football Club plc 96,666.80 (02/03) // 28,516.70 (02/03)
Tore Andre Flo The Rangers Football Club plc 533,333.20 (02/03) 166,666.80 (03/04) 166,666.80 (04/05)// 157,333.29 (02/03) 57,500.04 (03/04) 57,500.04 (04/05)
John Greig The Rangers Football Club plc 6,666.80 (02/03) 6,666.80 (03/04) 6,666.80 (04/05) 6,666.80 (05/06) // 1,966.70 (02/03) 2,300.04 (03/04) 2,300.04 (04/05) 2,300.04 (05/06)
Bert Van Lingen The Rangers Football Club plc 43,333.20 (02/03) // 12,783.29 (02/03)
Ronald de Boer The Rangers Football Club plc 403,490.00 (03/04) 418,609.20 (04/05) 244,884.80 (05/06) // 119,029.55 (03/04) 144,420.17 (04/05) 84,485.25 (04/05)

Annual Totals 
1,515,937.20 (02/03) 1,406,604.40 (03/04) 744,742.80 (04/05) 404,351.60 (05/06) // 566,238.07 (02/03) 490,494.62 (03/04) 197,001.33 (04/05) 55,016.04 (05/06)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 14.03.08
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 // 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07

Bert Konterman The Rangers Football Club plc 200,000.00 (03/04) // 69,000.00 (03/04)
Andy Watson The Rangers Football Club plc 13,333.20 (02/03) 16,666.80 (03/04) 33,333.60 (04/05) 65,000.00 (05/06) 40,000.00 (06/07) // 3,933.29 (02/03) 5,750.04 (03/04) 11,500.09 (04/05) 22,425.00 (05/06) 13,800.00 (06/07)
Jan Wouters The Rangers Football Club plc 75,000.00 (03/04) 33,333.60 (04/05) 65,000.00 (05/06) // 25,785.00 (03/04) 11,500.09 (04/05) 22,425.00 (05/06)
Michael Mols The Rangers Football Club plc 68,000.00 (03/04) 105,333.20 (04/05) // 23,460.00 (03/04) 36,339.95 (04/05)
Andrew Dickson The Rangers Football Club plc 5,333.20 (03/04) // 1,839.95 (03/04)
Peter Lovenkrands The Rangers Football Club plc 124,000.00 (03/04) 172,000.00 (04/05) 211,333.20 (05/06) // 42,780.00 (03/04) 59,340.00 (04/05) 72,909.95 (05/06)
Emerson Costa The Rangers Football Club plc 156,000.00 (03/04) 418,000.00 (04/05) // 53,820.00 (03/04) 144,210.00 (04/05)
Nuno Cappucho The Rangers Football Club plc 313,333.60 (04/05) 133,333.20 (05/06) // 108,100.09 (04/05) 45,999.95 (05/06)
Dan Eggen The Rangers Football Club plc 22,666.80 (03/04) 22,666.80 (04/05) // 6,686.70 (02/03) 7,820.04 (03/04)
Jerome Bonnisel The Rangers Football Club plc 62,000.00 (03/04) // 21,390.00 (03/04)
Steven Thomson The Rangers Football Club plc 86,666.40 (03/04) 129,999.60 (04/05) 106,666.40 (05/06) // 29,899.90 (03/04) 44,849.86 (04/05) 36,799.90 (05/06)

Annual Totals 
13,333.20 (02/03) 616,333.20 (03/04) 1,228,000.40 (04/05) 581,332.80 (05/06) 40,000.00 (06/07) // 10,619.99 (02/03) 212,544.93 (03/04) 415,840.08 (04/05) 200,559.80 (05/06) 13,800.00 (06/07)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 31.03.08
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 // 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06

Jean Alain Boumsong The Rangers Football Club plc 133,333.20 (03/04) 286,666.80 (04/05) // 45,999.95 (03/04) 98,900.04 (04/05)
Egil Ostenstad The Rangers Football Club plc 246,666.80 (03/04) // 85,100.46 (03/04)
Paolo Vanoli The Rangers Football Club plc 394,666.80 (04/05) // 136,160.04 (04/05)
Zurab Khizanshvilli The Rangers Football Club plc 63,333.20 (03/04) 120,000.00 (04/05) 86,666.40 (05/06) // 21,849.95 (03/04) 41,400.00 (04/05) 29,899.90 (05/06)
Nacho Novo The Rangers Football Club plc 110,933.20 (04/05) 167,600.00 (05/06) // 38,271.95 (04/05) 57,822.00 (05/06)
Iain McGuiness The Rangers Football Club plc 6,666.40 (04/05) 10,266.40 (05/06) // 2,299.90 (04/05) 3,541.90 (05/06)
Tommy McLean The Rangers Football Club plc 8,000.00 (04/05) 16,666.40 (05/06) // 2,760.00 (04/05) 5,749.90 (05/06)
Gavin Rae The Rangers Football Club plc 19,000.00 (03/04) 32,333.20 (04/05) 60,000.00 (05/06) // 6,555.00 (03/04) 11,154.95 (04/05) 20,700.00 (05/06)
Jesper Christiansen The Rangers Football Club plc 213,333.20 (03/04) // 73,599.95 (03/04)

Annual Totals 
675,666.40 (03/04) 959,266.40 (04/05) 341,199.20 (05/06) // 159,505.36 (03/04) 404,546.83 (04/05) 117,713.70 (05/06)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 25.04.08
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 // 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07

Bob Malcolm The Rangers Football Club plc 43,333.20 (05/06) // 14,949.95 (05/06)
Chris Burke The Rangers Football Club plc 36,666.80 (05/06) // 12,650.04 (05/06)
Alan Hutton The Rangers Football Club plc 14,666.80 (05/06) // 5,060.04 (05/06)
Steven Smith The Rangers Football Club plc 5,000.00 (05/06) // 1,725.00 (05/06)
Kris Boyd The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (05/06) // 3,450.00 (05/06)
Fernando Ricksen The Rangers Football Club plc 80,000.00 (05/06) 98,000.00 (06/07) // 27,600.00 (05/06) 33,810.00 (06/07)
Sotirios Kyrgiakos The Rangers Football Club plc 50,000.00 (04/05) 158,800.00 (05/06) 146,000.00 (06/07) // 17,250.00 (04/05) 54,786.00 (05/06) 50,370.00 (06/07)
Gregory Vignal The Rangers Football Club plc 62,000.00 (04/05) 53,332.00 (05/06) // 21,390.00 (04/05) 18,399.95 (05/06)
Alex Rae The Rangers Football Club plc 66,000.00 (04/05) 227,333.20 (05/06) 86,000.00 (06/07) // 22,770.00 (04/05) 78,429.95 (05/06) 29,670.00 (06/07)
Dragan Mladenovich The Rangers Football Club plc 83,333.20 (04/05) 250,159.20 (05/06) // 28,749.95 (04/05) 86,304.92 (05/06)
Marvin Andrews The Rangers Football Club plc 50,133.60 (04/05) 119,066.80 (05/06) // 17,296.09 (04/05) 41,078.04 (05/06)
Dado Prso The Rangers Football Club plc 374,000.00 (04/05) 480,666.80 (05/06) // 129,030.00 (04/05) 165,830.04 (05/06)
Ronald Waterreus The Rangers Football Club plc 222,000.00 (05/06) 118,000.00 (06/07) // 76,590.00 (05/06) 40,710.00 (06/07)
Ian Murray The Rangers Football Club plc 63,333.20 (05/06) // 21,849.95 (05/06)
George Adams The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (05/06) // 3,450.00 (05/06)
Jose Pierre FanFan The Rangers Football Club plc 258,333.20 (05/06) 80,000.00 (06/07) // 89,124.95 (05/06) 27,600.00 (06/07)
Brahim Hemdani The Rangers Football Club plc 145,000.00 (05/06) 140,666.80 (06/07) // 50,025.00 (05/06) 48,530.04 (06/07)
Maurice Ross The Rangers Football Club plc 80,000.00 (05/06) // 27,600.00 (05/06)
Thomas Buffell The Rangers Football Club plc 268,333.20 (05/06) 110,000.00 (06/07) // 92,574.95 (05/06) 37,950.00 (06/07)

Annual Totals 
685,466.80 (04/05) 2,526,024.40 (05/06) 778,666.80 (06/07) // 236,486.04 (04/05) 871,478.78 (05/06) 268,640.04 (06/07)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 03.03.09
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2006/07 2007/08 // 2006/07 2007/08

Nacho Novo The Rangers Football Club plc 99,466.40 (06/07) 147,303.60 (07/08) // 85,135.65 (07/08)
Brahim Hemdani The Rangers Football Club plc 132,666.80 (06/07) 282,666.80 (07/08) // 143,290.90 (07/08)
Dado Prso The Rangers Football Club plc 416,666.80 (06/07) 42,666.80 (07/08) // 158,470.09 (07/08)
Barry Ferguson The Rangers Football Club plc 244,000.00 (06/07) 366,666.80 (07/08) // 210,680.04 (07/08)
Carlos Cuellar The Rangers Football Club plc 83,333.20 (07/08) // 28,749.95 (07/08)
Daniel Cousin The Rangers Football Club plc 176,666.40 (07/08) // 60,949.90 (07/08)
Libor Sionko The Rangers Football Club plc 86,666.80 (06/07) // 29,900.04 (06/07)
Gavin Rae The Rangers Football Club plc 74,000.00 (07/08) // 25,530.00 (07/08)
Olivier Bernard The Rangers Football Club plc 149,333.20 (06/07) // 51,519.95 (06/07)
Thomas Buffell The Rangers Football Club plc 110,000.00 (06/07) 110,000.00 (07/08) // 75,900.00 (07/08)
Julien Rodrigues The Rangers Football Club plc 52,666.80 (06/07) // 18,170.04 (07/08)
Stephen Wiertelak The Rangers Football Club plc 18,850.00 (06/07) // 6,503.25 (07/08)
Kris Boyd The Rangers Football Club plc 16,666.80 (06/07) 33,333.60 (07/08) // 17,250.00 (07/08)
Yves Colleau The Rangers Football Club plc 70,800.00 (06/07) // 24,426.00 (06/07)
David Jolliffe The Rangers Football Club plc 90,000.00 (06/07) // 31,050.00 (06/07)
Paul Le Guen The Rangers Football Club plc 13,433.20 (06/07) // 4,634.45 (06/07)
Joel Le Hir The Rangers Football Club plc 18,850.40 (06/07) // 6,503.25 (06/07)
Marvin Andrews The Rangers Football Club plc 41,533.20 (06/07) // 14,328.95 (06/07)
Ronald Waterreus The Rangers Football Club plc 118,000.00 (06/07) // 40,710.00 (06/07)
Bob Malcolm The Rangers Football Club plc 40,000.00 (06/07) // 13,800.00 (06/07)
Fernando Ricksen The Rangers Football Club plc 157,333.20 (06/07) // 54,279.95 (06/07)
Dragan Mladenovic The Rangers Football Club plc 166,666.80 (06/07) // 57,500.04 (06/07)
Stefan Klos The Rangers Football Club plc 606,666.80 (06/07) // 209,300.00 (06/07)
Jan Wouters The Rangers Football Club plc 16,666.80 (06/07) // 5,750.04 (06/07)
Jose Pierre FanFan The Rangers Football Club plc 480,000.00 (06/07) // 165,600.00 (06/07)
George Adams The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (06/07) // 3,450.00 (06/07)

Annual Totals 
3,156,934.00 (06/07) 1,316,637.20 (07/08) // 712,752.71 (06/07) 830,629.82 (07/08)
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List of Regulation 80 Determinations and Class 1 NI Decisions issued on 15 March 2010
Employee Company Regulation 80 // Determination Section 8 Decision

2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 // 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09

Christian Nerlinger The Rangers Football Club plc 433,333.33 (04/05) // 149,500.00 (04/05)
Craig Moore The Rangers Football Club plc 178,000.00 (04/05) // 61,410.00 (04/05)
David Jolliffe The Rangers Football Club plc 13,333.33 (04/05) 16,666.67 (05/06) // 10,350.00 (05/06)
Andrew Dickson The Rangers Football Club plc 10,000.00 (05/06) // 3,450.00 (05/06)
Julien Rodriguez The Rangers Football Club plc 136,666.67 (05/06) 236,000.00 (06/07) // 128,570.00 (06/07)
Federico Nieto The Rangers Football Club plc 16,333.33 (06/07) // 5,635.00 (06/07)
Alex McLeish The Rangers Football Club plc 1,333.33 (06/07) // 460.00 (06/07)
Steven Thompson The Rangers Football Club plc 26,666.67 (06/07) // 9,200.00 (06/07)
Peter Lovenkrands The Rangers Football Club plc 94,000.00 (06/07) // 32,430.00 (06/07)
Gavin Rae The Rangers Football Club plc 65,333.33 (06/07) // 22,540.00 (06/07)
Kris Boyd The Rangers Football Club plc 16,666.67 (06/07) 33,333.33 (08/09) // 17,250.00 (08/09)
Paul Le Guen The Rangers Football Club plc 234,900.00 (06/07) // 81,040.50 (06/07)
Yves Colleau The Rangers Football Club plc 22,833.33 (06/07) // 7,877.50 (06/07)
Libor Sionko The Rangers Football Club plc 32,000.00 (06/07) // 11,040.00 (06/07)
Thomas Buffell The Rangers Football Club plc 110,000.00 (07/08) 110,000.00 (08/09) // 75,900.00 (08/09)
Alan Hutton The Rangers Football Club plc 114,000.00 (07/08) 114,000.00 (08/09) // 78,660.00 (08/09)
Barry Ferguson The Rangers Football Club plc 340,000.00 (08/09) // 117,300.00 (08/09)
Nacho Novo The Rangers Football Club plc 127,183.33 (08/09) // 43,878.25 (08/09)
Brahim Hemdani The Rangers Football Club plc 242,666.67 (08/09) // 83,720.00 (08/09)
Daniel Cousin The Rangers Football Club plc 49,200.00 (08/09) // 16,974.00 (08/09)
Carlos Cuellar The Rangers Football Club plc 83,333.33 (08/09) // 28,750.00 (08/09)
Pedro Mendes The Rangers Football Club plc 240,000.00 (08/09) // 82,800.00 (08/09)
Steve Davis The Rangers Football Club plc 206,666.67 (08/09) // 71,300.00 (08/09)
Sasa Papac The Rangers Football Club plc 48,666.67 (08/09) // 16,790.00 (08/09)

Annual Totals 
624,666.66 (04/05) 179,666.67 (05/06) 729,733.33 (06/07) 224,000.00 (07/08) 1,595,050.00 (08/09) // 210,910.00 (04/05) 19,435.00 (05/06) 293,158.00 (06/07) Zero (07/08) 633,322.25 (08/09)
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REGULATION 80 DETERMINATION OVERALL TOTAL - £27,271,478.66

SECTION 8 DECISION OVERALL TOTAL - £9,189,322.78
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© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Orangeopoli

When it was discovered in May 2006 that a number of clubs in Italy had been abusing the integrity of the sport by utilising football agents to bribe referees to undertake matchfixing, Juventus were stripped of two Serie A titles, relegated and missed out on Champions League money for two seasons.

The Scudettos were given to the 2nd placed team. 

This was despite evidence at the time and since that suggested AC Milan were equally culpable and should also have been relegated but Silvio Berlusconi pulled strings and calciopoli was, in effect, a direct targeting of the Old Lady of Turin.
Three other clubs - Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina - received lesser slaps on the wrists.

Additionally, 16 individuals were banned for various periods from any footballing activities and three spent time in jail.
Referees De Santis, Paparesta, Racalbuto, Cassara, Pieri, Dattilo, Bertini and Gabriele were also banned for their parts in the corruption.

So.
Solid evidence.
Selective prosecution.

Fast forward to Scotland 2015 and the HMRC's victory against Rangers in the Big Tax Case.
Rangers won a number of titles when almost the entire playing squad were in receipt of illicit payments the existence of which have been repeatedly denied in a variety of manners over a period of 16 years.
Rangers attracted players that they simply would not have been able to purchase without the EBTs.

Orangeopoli.

As the HMRC said in judgement yesterday: "... so far as the footballers are concerned, at least, it seems to us that if bonuses had not been paid they may well have taken their services elsewhere. We realise that the fifth respondent [RFC2012] was in, potentially, a difficult financial position, competing for good players in an international market where other countries might not have the same rigorous approach to taxation as the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the law is clear: the payments made in respect of footballers were in our view derived from their employment and thus the payments were emoluments or earnings."


Evidence was concealed from this Commission rendering its conclusions obsolete and non-robust.

Juventus were stripped of two titles and relegated even when there was a degree of doubt about their share of complicity in matchfixing.

There is no such doubt with Rangers.
Titles were won illegally.
Extensive efforts have been made by representatives of the club to cover up these realities.

Regardless of any other prosecutions and/or inquiries, the club that was liquidated in 2012 should have their now redundant history adjusted to show that they weren't quite as successful a club as future generations might otherwise think.

So.
#StripTheTitles.
And prosecutions and life bans for those found guilty of fraudulent behaviours.
Relegation would have been a further punishment but, of course, the club no longer exists except as a memory.

And all these smokescreens relating to 'remits' and 'distortions of Scottish law' are exactly that - smokescreens.

And asterisks? Not enough.
Asterisk the Gael! 

Oh!
And #SackRegan.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

An Arranged Marriage Between Rangers And The SFA

                                               The Stench of Hidden Corruptions 

The following communications and interactions were enjoyed between December 7th and 20th 2011.

Andrew Dickson to Ali Russell (cc Craig Whyte) - Dec 7th 2011:

"Regarding Rangers getting a license for next season (following email from Stephen Kerr to Andrew Dickson and Carol Patton) - enclosed email from Stewart Regan."

Regan: "Further to my discussion yesterday with Andrew on the matter of Rangers FC's European license I would like to release the following statement..."

STATEMENT: In light of persistent speculation across all media, the SFA would like to clarify the position in regard to RFC's license to play in Europe as governed by Article 50 of the UEFA regulations. It is noted from the report submitted to the Licensing Committee of RFC's advisers Grant Thornton UK LLP, dated 30th March 2011 that "All the recorded payroll taxes at December 31st 2010 have, according to the accounting records of the Club, since that date been paid in full by March 31st 2011, with the exception of the continuing discussion between the Club and HMRC in relation to a potential liability of £2.8m associated with contributions between 1999 and 2003 into a discounted option scheme. These amounts have been provided for in full within the interim financial statements."

Regan: "Since the potential liability was under discussion by RFC and HMRC as at 31st March 2011, it could not be considered an overdue payable as defined by Article 50."

Internal RFC Communication from Craig Whyte to Andrew Dickson (cc Ali Russell) - Dec 7th 2011:

"It would be crazy for them to put this out."

Internal RFC Communication from Ramsay Smith to Stephen Kerr, Craig Whyte, Carol Patton, Ali Russell - Dec 7th 2011:

"We should put some pressure on the SFA from a high level, from Ali or Andrew, to say we do not believe this is a good idea the SFA putting out such a statement. .. If they persist they will only cause issues for themselves as much as Rangers."

RFC Communication from Ali Russell to Stewart Regan, Andrew Dickson (cc Ramsay Smith, Stephen Kerr) - Dec 7th 2011:

"... we would prefer no comment or the following: 'We have looked at this matter and there is no issue with the license granted to Rangers from the SFA."

Internal RFC Communication from Ali Russell to Craig Whyte, Andrew Dickson, Fiona Goodall (cc Ramsay Smith, Stephen Kerr, Gary Withey) - Dec 7th 2011:

"All sorted. Held until further notice and I have agreed we will meet Stewart and Campbell for dinner in the next couple of weeks to discuss bigger issues."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Dinner was duly served to Campbell Ogilvie, Stewart Regan and Craig Whyte at 19:30 hours on December 20th 2011 at Hotel du Vin in Glasgow.

It is our belief that Craig Whyte recorded this meeting in discussion of "bigger issues".
__________________________________________________________________________________

There are hundreds of questions that we might ask (particularly on the day that EBTs resurfaced) but we'll restrict ourselves to seven:

                                  EBT Recipients With Red Faces - A Fair Competition?

1) How was a member club of the SFA able to orchestrate SFA policy and actions against the interests of the wider Scottish game, UEFA and the HMRC?

2) The SFA knew from the Craig Whyte Takeover Statement of June 3rd 2011 that Rangers had an actual tax liability but failed to raise the issue of compliance with Article 66 with HMRC as they should have done under Article 43 of UEFA FFP. Were the SFA negligent or fraudulent at the taxpayer's expense? Either way, why is Stewart Regan still in a job?

3) It would appear that the lunatics have taken over the asylums in Scotland. How on earth was one of the EBT orchestrators Andrew Dickson (also the Head of Football Administration at Ibrox when Whyte was appointed) selected onto the SFA Congress by the SPFL this summer?

4) Campbell Ogilvie always resides just outside the room but he was present at meeting of The Rangers Employee Remuneration Committee meeting chaired by David Murray and attended by Ogilvie as Secretary and David Odam (then financial controller) on September 10th 1999. This was when the first Discount Option Scheme EBT was agreed to be provided to Craig Moore. If the dinner in December 2011 was to discuss "bigger issues", what could be bigger than the illicit EBT incentivisations and, at the very least, the misleading of the HMRC and other bodies?

5) When David Murray and Group Tax Manager Ian MacMillan wrote to HMRC on April 7th 2005 stating: "I have now completed my review of the players' personnel files at Rangers and confirm that there are no contract variations or side agreements for any of the players" - what variation of economy with truth was being utilised to mislead the EBT investigation? 

6) Ogilvie instigated the first type of EBT and received £95,000 from the second. Consequently, surely all decisions reached by David Murray's next-door neighbour Lord Nimmo Smith should be similarly discounted due to concealed evidence?

7) So. When do Celtic get the stolen titles back?
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© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Mr Green And The Taxman

... if you know your history...

Dated: 16/01/2013

cc David Cameron, Alex Salmand, Kenny MacAskill, Ramsay Jones


"On February 14th 2012, the then Rangers FC plc went into administration through failure to pay HMRC outstanding substantial amounts of PAYE and VAT. In addition, the Club's historic use of EBTs was the subject of a First Tier Tax Tribunal which convened the previous year and had yet to return its decision.

"I led a consortium which wished to purchase the Club, preferably through a CVA with creditors. Our rationale for this was that the football club business would be able to retain its place in the SPL... As a failsafe, my consortium struck agreement with the administrators that we would purchase the business and assets of the Club, should a CVA be rejected by the creditors. This would, however, require the liquidation of Rangers FC Ltd (oldco) as it was and the formation of a new company.

"On June 11th 2012, HMRC announced it would not support a CVA, which rendered that process redundant. In its public statement HMRC said the decision would give Rangers 'a fresh start'.

"Since then, the Club has begun the very long road to recovery under the auspices of a new company. On November 20th, the First Tier Tax Tribunal found in Rangers (oldco) favour and the spectre of what became known as the 'big tax case' was ostensibly removed.

"However, the announcement by HMRC that it had sought leave to appeal the First Tier Tax Tribunal's decision has, once again, placed the Club in an invidious position.

"... the situation has been aggravated  by the SPL's decision to press on with a Commission into the payments by Rangers to players through EBTs, even though the First Tier Tax Tribunal found that the payments were non-contractual and discretionary.

"It seems desperately unfair that the football club, and the wider football community which have already suffered as a result of Rangers' insolvency, should continue to suffer as we try to rebuild our Club and make a contribution to Scottish football that is vital to its survival.

"... I would ask that careful consideration is given to the potential impact of a drawn out appeal should one proceed... The fact of the matter is that Rangers and its supporters are major contributors to the football and wider economy, and it would be to the benefit of businesses throughout Scottish football that this matter is resolved as soon as possible."

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

The Piketty Paradigm - A Progressive Global Tax On Capital

Thomas Piketty: "... wealth accumulated in the past grows more rapidly than output and wages. This inequality expresses a fundamental logical contradiction. The entrepreneur inevitably tends to become a rentier, more and more dominant over those who own nothing but their labour. Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future. The consequences for the long-term dynamics of wealth distribution are potentially terrifying, especially when one adds that the size of the initial stake and that the divergence in the wealth distribution is occurring on a global scale."

While virtually all advocacy, transparency and tax avoidance entities focus on offshore financial centres, money laundering and current abuses of the template of capital, the real wealth inequalities exist on the basis of old money and all those forgotten crimes.
For privately educated individuals enhancing their existences via private income in their non-meritocratic NGOs, the critical nature of historical wealth and inheritance is carefully ignored.

Josiah Wedgwood: " Political democracies that don't democratise their economic systems are inherently unstable."

Ponzi Capitalism

Capitalism has been a Ponzi scheme throughout its history - political scientists from Marx to Piketty have understood this fact.

Since 1700, the average annual rate of growth of the global economy has been 0.8%...
... and the average annual demographic growth in global population has been 0.8%.

Growth in income is expected to fall further throughout the 21st Century as the birth rate declines in lockstep across the world whilst, in parallel, systemic issues relating to planetary climatic stability move into primary focus.

The Ponzi scheme is running towards its precipitous conclusion and all that remains is the opportunity for imposition of redistributive policies to prevent the same fools from performing the same self-harming in a world of post-capitalist bliss.

There is only one solution to the first stage of the deconstruction of late capitalism - a markedly progressive tax on the largest fortunes worldwide (targeting both capital and income) to both prevent inheritance trumping meritocracy and to enforce an efficient use of capital for global rather than proprietary benefit.
Additionally, with such a progressive tax in place, the incentive to amass huge fortunes in the first place would be undermined.

Taxing Capital Progressively

Piketty: "... most countries' taxes have (or will soon) become regressive at the top of the income hierarchy. For example, a detailed study of French taxes in 2010, which looked at all forms of taxation, found that the overall rate of taxation... broke down as follows. The bottom 50% of the income distribution pay a rate of 40-45%; the next 40% pay 45-50%; but the top 5% and even more the top 1% pay lower rates, with the top 0.1% paying only 35%."

The annual global returns on capital are conservatively estimated at 5-6% while income growth is expected to struggle above zero this century.
Piketty: "Note, too, that inequality of income from capital may be greater than inequality of capital itself, if individuals with large fortunes somehow manage to obtain a higher return than those with modest to middling fortunes... Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (the fortunes accumulated in the past) predominate over savings (wealth accumulated in the present)."

"... the ideal policy for avoiding an endless inegalitarian spiral and regaining control over the dynamics of accumulation would be a progressive global tax on capital. Such a tax would also have another virtue: it would expose wealth to democratic scrutiny, which is a necessary condition for effective regulation of the banking system and international capital flows."

"There are two distinct justifications of a capital tax; a contributive justification and an incentive justification... The primary purpose of the capital tax is not to finance the social state but to regulate capitalism."

The conventional focus on taxing income and targeting money laundering is merely a part of the jigsaw of fiscal justice - much more importantly, capital needs to be progressively taxed to avoid the inefficient use of such capital, the excessive returns generated by such non-meritocratic wealth and an end to austerity-based matrices of social injustice.

The most farcical argument against progressive income and capital taxes is that the elite would simply move to more tax-friendly locations. With global tax co-operation and an end to the opacity of offshore financial centres, there would moreover be nowhere left to slink off to.
Anyway - Piketty: "The idea that all US executives would immediately flee to Canada and Mexico and nobody with the competence or motivation to run the economy would remain is not only contradicted by historical experience and by all the firm level data at our disposal; it is also devoid of common sense."

Income Inequality - The Root Of All Financial Crises

National wealth has become markedly privatised in the last four decades.

Furthermore, as Piketty states, "... given the fact that the share of the upper decile in US national income has peaked twice in the past century, once in 1928 (on the eve of the Depression of 1929) and again in 2007 (on the eve of the recession of 2008, the question [does increasing inequality cause financial crisis?] is difficult to avoid."

Currently in the US, incomes are as unequally distributed as has ever been observed anywhere anytime - the top 1% gain 35% of income while the bottom 50% of population earn just 25%.

Piketty: "Effective tax rates (expressed as a percentage of economic income) are extremely low at the top of the wealth hierarchy, which is problematic, since it accentuates the explosive dynamics of wealth inequality, especially when larger fortunes are able to garner larger returns... The goal is first to stop the indefinite increase in the inequality of wealth, and second to impose effective regulation on the financial and banking system to avoid crises."

There are only three tools for getting rid of the current levels of debt in the developed nations - taxes on capital, inflation and austerity.
Austerity isn't a prerequisite, it is an option.

The privatisation of wealth in the last 40 years has seen huge rewards for "super-managers" - such rewards are not commensurate with performance.
Piketty: "... there is no statistically significant relationship between the decrease in top marginal tax rates and the rate of productivity growth in the developed countries since 1980. Concretely, the crucial fact is that the rate of per capita GDP growth has been almost exactly the same in all the rich countries since 1980. In contrast to what many people in Britain and the United States believe, the true figures on growth ... show that Britain and the United States have not grown any more rapidly since 1980 than Germany, France, Japan, Denmark or Sweden."

Of course, the mainstream media, governments and the financial system en masse don't want any focus on private wealth with their collective attempts to get us to pay attention to immediate income rather than long-term capital wealth. But their myopia is complete in that all Ponzi's possess the seeds of their own destruction.
Piketty: "... capitalists do indeed dig their own grave: either they tear each other apart in a desperate attempt to combat the falling rate of profit..., or they force labour to accept a smaller and smaller share of national income, which ultimately leads to a proletarian revolution and general expropriation. In any event capital is undermined by its internal contradictions."
Stiglitz has made a similar point.

Meanwhile, in a parallel sociopathic world, George Osborne increased the inheritance tax threshold this month.

Piketty: "To regulate the globalised patrimonial capitalism of the twenty-first century, rethinking the twentieth-century fiscal and social model and adapting it to today's world will not be enough. To be sure, appropriate updating of the last century's social-democratic and fiscal-liberal program is essential... But if democracy is to regain control the globalised financial capitalism of this century, it must also invent new tools, adapted to today's challenges. The ideal tool would be a progressive global tax on capital, coupled with a very high level of international financial transparency. Such a tax would provide a way to avoid an endless inegalitarian spiral and to control the worrisome dynamics of global capital concentration."

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed

Football For Rent

Chilean journalist Juan Cristóbal Guarello: "Interpol has arrested them [FIFA executives] for doing what they always did without reproach: behaving as a bigwig in the world of professional football. All the allegations that they face (fraud and money laundering) are everyday elements of their activity. That is to say they are an essential part of football for rent."

Global football 'elites' act as a fragmented cartel to solicit proprietary gains alongside the rape of the game.
Football is prostituted under the supervision of the institutional, bookmaking, media, agent and regulatory captures that dominate the systemic structure of the corruption. 

Over the last few weeks, we have witnessed the evolving scandal regarding Girona's promotion-securing 3-0 win at already-promoted Real Betis on the last day of Spain's Segunda Liga season, and Serie B's latest matchfixing scandal involving Catania (who allegedly avoided relegation by fixing a number of games) and Messina. These series of fraudulent events involved half of the players and both club presidents. In total 7 people have been arrested and police say further raids will be carried out in Roma, Catania, Chieti and Campobasso.
These outrages are layered on the surface of the continuing crises involving matchfixing in each country with 41 people still under investigation over the corrupting of a La Liga relegation battle and the latest lower league matchfixing scandal in Italy (explained in our post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/in-italy-and-england-matchfixing-is.html).

Fortunately, Spain has Javier Tebas and Italy has a functioning judiciary (and associated arms of the state)...
... and FIFA has the Swiss and US authorities.
England has nothing.

Richard Scudamore - the well-remunerated Premier League overseer of the renting out of his product and overlooker of murk.

Bookmakers owning and sponsoring teams while accepting insider trading on fixed events and treating such market knowledge as competitive advantage.

Underground bookmakers creating hugely destabilised and unbalanced markets where referees earning less than two grand per week officiate on matches with global betting volumes of £5-10 billion.

The FA was a joke prior to the arrival of asset-stripper Dyke. Now it is beyond parody.
Skybet sponsors the Championship while the Football League's chief executive is, hilariously, Shaun Harvey.

Agents are the lubrication of the corruptions as they box far above their weight in the fragmented cartel due to their omnipresent nature.
Players are with agents for life while playing for numerous clubs.
Where do loyalties lie?
The one English matchfixing scandal that the police have acted upon involved a football agent and former player Delroy Facey.
And as FIFA have altered the regulations, it is now going to be increasingly difficult to even determine who represents a player. This opens the door to rapacious matchfixing and third (and higher orders) party ownership (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/dirty-dozen-role-of-agents-in.html).

And it is this self-regulation and lack of regulation that allows this underworld to continue renting out football on the streets.

With a non-functioning 4th estate media under output capture, stories of corruption and matchfixing in England are simply opaqued away in the Omertà.
Facey's case was almost entirely ignored originally and where was the mainstream media coverage of the sacking of pgMOB administrator Keren Barratt and the disciplining of pgMOB referee Jon Moss? Or the matchfixing of numerous EPL games? We have been reliably informed that individuals at BT Sport gained financially from a fixed match covered by the channel (incidentally refereed by Mr Moss).
And the television companies target the gullible with their corrupted product whilst furnishing viewers with the output of individuals who featured heavily on the pages of early Football is Fixed blog posts (during their playing careers).

Referees need to have their power removed as they are at the root of most matchfixing crises.
English football must implement video technology (although there are structural reasons why they won't as these two articles demonstrate - http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-to-solve-match-fixing-once-and-for.html and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-ifab-four.html).

And then there are the kickback racketeering territories of the marketing companies and their 'first world' neo-capitalist monstrosities attaching their beefburger or their credit card or their state-owned gas company to the prostituted event on the field of play.

This holistic structure demonstrates the systemic abuse of football for rent in a private universe of Omertà.

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/fractal-football-and-gizan-geysers.html

Enjoy your product...
... the game is paying for it.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed

In Italy And England Matchfixing Is Orchestrated By Mafia

Italian football is besmirched by mafia, matchfixing, money laundering and linkage to transglobal crime syndicates and bookmakers...
... and so is English football.

The difference is that, in Italy, the authorities attempt to do something about these frauds, while the criminals in England laugh all the way to their offshore tax havens.
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History of Recent Matchfixing in Italy

* Yesterday more than 50 people were arrested and 70 more placed under investigation over a widespread matchfixing scandal throughout Italy in Operation 'Dirty Soccer'.
Anti-mafia prosecutors in Catanzaro say more than 30 clubs in Lega Pro, Lega Pro 2 and Serie D (Italian third and fourth divisions) are involved.
Charges include criminal association aimed at sports fraud worth millions of euros, with some linked to mafia organisations – one in particular to the ’Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate.
One police officer was also involved, authorities said.

A full listing of matchfixing events is provided by Gazzetta dello Sport (1) and highlights of one fixed match between Brindisi and San Severo are also provided by the same paper (2).

* Earlier this season, there had been a whole array of matchfixing events involving AC Parma which we exposed in February (3). The club have been matchfixed and asset-stripped to virtual oblivion by rogue owners linked to Balkan, Russian and Cypriot betting operations.

* Back in 2012, then-Lecce chief prosecutor Cataldo Motta claimed that up to seven clubs in the Eccellenza (fifth Tier) Puglia were controlled by members of the Sacra Corona Unita (4).

* Since 2011, over 100 people have been arrested by Italian prosecutors in Bari, Napoli and Cremona over the separate Ultima Scommessa matchfixing scandal regarding matchfixing in Serie A and Serie B games with players being drugged as part of matchfixing operations.
Those arrested include players, bookmakers, management, owners, agents and other former players.

* In February 2011, 39 people were arrested after La Nuovo Quarto Calcio was found to have been owned by Camorra mafia leader Giuseppe Polverino

* In 2010, Rosarno were also taken over by the regional courts who wrested control from the Pesce family.

* In 2009, the southern Italian Parisi gang used an English betting firm (Paradisebet) as a front to launder money. 74 people were arrested and businesses, land and racehorses were seized (5).

* In 2006 Italian football suffered  the Calciopoli scandal in which police found six teams to have rigged matches by selecting favourable referees. Juventus were stripped of two Serie A titles and relegated to Serie B, while Fiorentina, Milan, Lazio and Reggina were sanctioned.
33 Serie A matches were declared as matchfixing events from seasons 2004/05 and 2005/06 and 13 referees were banned or suspended during season 2006/07 (6) (7).
Prosecutors in Parma are still investigating Juventus goalkeepers Gigi Buffon and Antonio Chimenti, defender Mark Iuliano and Palermo player Enzo Maresca.

Later developments in April 2007 saw La Repubblica expose 9 referees linked to club owners via SIM cards purchased in Slovenia and Switzerland and release 200 audio files of the wiretappings (8).

At the time of Calciopoli, our analyses showed that AC Milan were, if anything, more guilty of matchfixing yet, after initially being barred fro 2006/07 Champions League, they were reinstated and won the tournament.
In 2011, inquiries by FIGC chief investigator, Stefano Palazzi, showed Inter, AC Milan and Livorno should have been relegated but, due to statute of limitations (Berlusconi's Law), the proceedings could not be reopened.

Calciopoli first came to light when GEA World, a football agents under control of  Alessandro Moggi, was investigated by prosecutors and transcripts of recorded phone conversations appeared in Italian mainstream media. Juventus general managers Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo had conversations with several officials of Italian football to influence referee appointments.

This is exactly the same matchfixing structure involving John Colquhoun, Jonathan Moss and Keren Barratt in England that we exposed in MOBGATE (9).

* Even at amateur levels in Italy, mafiosi are in operation. In 1995 over 800 children between the ages of six and 14 played in a tournament named in honour of Fortunato Maurizio Audino, a convicted drug dealer and suspected of being a mafia capo. Indeed, in Naples, rival mafia clans are said to compete in a yearly football tournament, with the winners collecting drugs instead of a trophy.
A police informer by the name of Armando De Rosa has said that these matches have been happening since 2002 in the city’s notorious Scampia suburb. Clan bosses have even reportedly brought in semi-professional players to help their team get one over their rivals. De Rosa has further claimed that men with international arrest warrants often turn up to watch.

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The Situation in England

The parallels with systemic corruptions in English football exposed on the Football is Fixed blog over the last 9 years are remarkably similar: referees owned by clubs, mafia and clubs influencing referee selection, conflicts of interest relating to club ownership and betting market companies, agents coercing players and match officials, criminalised players morphing into match commentators/summarisers after career, no whistleblowing bodies and no institutional entities of even the remotest integrity, MOBGATE is based on the Calciopoli template.

Hundreds of matches in the Premier League and the Skybet Championship are affected by this systemic matchfixing (10). We have provided fulsome evidence including the holistics, the betting patterns, the linked betting accounts and the trail of proxies to mainstream media but, as England does not have a functioning 4th Estate, the MOBGATE English Matchfixing Crisis is given no media attention.
Indeed, the Guardian and Telegraph football output would appear to be under the sociopathic control of Mr Colquhoun.
 
The Lower Level English Matchfixing Crisis of 2013 featuring agent and former player Delroy Facey covered matchfixing in the lower leagues and was virtually ignored by mainstream media at the time (11) and, once the case arrived in court, only the Birmingham Mail provided any coverage (due to the similarity of the corruption template to matchfixing in the Premier League).
The Birmingham Mail were 'persuaded' to drop their real-time coverage of the Facey trial due to the input of a certain football agent.

Another area where England performs as poorly as the remainder of the continent is when it comes to the bodies investigating matchfixing. Europol, Interpol, Early Warning and Federbet have hidden agendas while the International Centre for Sport Security is one of those NGO-lite bodies that arranges conferences while ignoring realities.
And, in England, the FA have launched the Sport Betting Integrity Forum.
Current members include Ladbrokes, Bet365 (bookmaker and owner of Stoke City), William Hill, Coral, Betfair (12), the Association of British Bookmakers, the Remote Gambling Association, together with several other entities of dubious countenance.
In total, 50% of members of this forum are under control of the bookmaking industry.
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Conclusion

Camorra expert, Corrado De Rosa, states: "Ownership of the local football team adds considerably to the mobsters' social status and influence... In addition to possessing a powerful means of money laundering, being owners of a football team means credibility and being respected." 

Leading anti-mafia writer and investigative journalist, Roberto Saviano, stated in the Guardian newspaper: "Their [the mafia's] worst fear is to be under the spotlight... They want to be famous in their own territory, feared for thei power, but on a national or international level they want to be anonymous." 

We might not term it the mafia but English football at the very highest levels is under the vice-like grip of matchfixing operations and their accomplices...
... as the duplicitous Guardian newspaper is well aware.

However a primary difference between Italy and England relates to the statute of limitations - criminals in Italy avoid prison sentences via the creation of lengthy legal delays while those in England only enjoy such rewards if state-backed (think Chilcot Report or #OperationDeathEater).
Hence, in England, it becomes a race against time for systemic fraudsters and matchfixers to launder their reputations before the shit hits the fans.

Honoré de Balzac: "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."

Football is Fixed.
English Football is Fixed Absolutely.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed
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References:

1) Calcioscommesse: Le Partite Sotto Esame Nell'Inchiesta Del Catanzaro http://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/19-05-2015/calcioscommesse-lista-partite-sotto-esame-inchiesta-catanzaro-lega-pro-110888355545.shtml

2) Brindisi-San Severo, Una Papera Troppo Strana... http://video.gazzetta.it/brindisi-san-severo-papera-troppo-strana/f197dac8-fe16-11e4-8440-62b46e4e5c1b

3) Mafia, Matchfixing, Money Laundering - The Beautiful Game - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/mafia-matchfixing-money-laundering.html

4) The Mafia and Calcio - Kevin Nolan http://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/04/20/the-mafia-and-calcio/

5) £200 Parisi Mafia Gang 'Ran Betting Operation From London' - Duncan Gardham http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6703202/200m-Parisi-mafia-gang-ran-betting-operation-from-London.html

6) Bribesville Revisited - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/bribesville-revisited.html

7) Subvert, Divide And Rule, Bribe - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/subvert-divide-and-rule-bribe.html

8) Calciopoli's Wiretappings - La Repubblica http://www.repubblica.it/speciale/2007/dossier_intercettazioni/index.html

9) MOBGATE - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/mobgate-6.html

10) Happy Anniversary To Roy Hodgson - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html

11) Surfing The Zeitgeist Of Corruption - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/surfing-zeitgeist-of-corruption.html

12) Bet (not So Feckin') Fair After All - Football is Fixed http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/bet-not-so-feckin-fair-after-all.html

Baudrillard In Brussels And Blackpool

1. Introduction

Jean Baudrillard: "Today's violence, the violence produced by our hypermodernity, is terror."

The financialisation of inversion late capitalism is terroristic and destroys reality in favour of corruption, fraud, fakery, insider trading, regulatory capture, money laundering and irrational violence.

In sport, football is no longer football but has reached Baudrillard's 4th Phase of the Image where there are no linkages whatsoever between what plays out on our screens and the game which was once loved by fans the world over.

2. Spectacles of Violence

Heysel Disaster

Baudrillard: "The most striking thing about events such as those that took place at the Heysel Stadium, Brussels, in 1985, is not their violence per se but the way in which this violence was given worldwide currency by television, and in the process turned into a travesty of itself... A simulacrum of violence, emerging less from passion than from the screen: a violence in the nature of the image... So true is this that it is advisable not to be in a public place where television is operating, considering the high probability that its very presence will precipitate a violent event [the Boston Marathon, the murders at Port Said stadium, Hillsborough]."

Hillsborough Disaster

Neither Heysel nor Hillsborough were solely disasters. They were terroristic events. The institutional lies of the South Yorkshire police have produced 26 years of lack of closure for all those affected by the loss of 96 innocent lives at a football match (all under the real-time media gaze of television cameras left running to capture the unfolding tragedy). The Hillsborough Inquiry has heard that senior masonic officers met after the disaster to collate strategy with David Duckenfield, the police commander at the match, being made Grand Master of his lodge just one year on from the deaths - institutional terror rewarded with power on the square.
Baudrillard: "We are dealing, therefore, not with irrational episodes in the life of our society, but instead with something that is completely in accord with that society's accelerating plunge into the void... the diverted effects of a terrorism to which the state is in no way opposed."

Bradford City Fire Disaster

The relatives of the 56 football fans who died in the 1985 disaster at Valley Parade have thought for decades that the deaths of their loved ones were caused by a casually discarded cigarette igniting rubbish under a poorly maintained wooden stand. Yet author Martin Fletcher has recently revealed that Stafford Heginbotham, the club's then chairman, had alleged pyromaniacal tendencies - the Bradford City blaze being the ninth incidence of incendiary blaze at businesses owned by Heginbotham over a period of 18 years.
Having learned two days prior to the fire that the club would have to spend £2m to bring the ground up to the safety standards required for promotion, Heginbotham's series of coincidences beggar belief. And yet the Popplewell Inquiry found nothing untoward and a myth has been allowed to continue for three decades.
Insurance terror against one's own fans.

Blackpool Fans Anti-Oyston Protests  

 
                                 A Protesting Fan

By the seaside last weekend, Blackpool football fans became Baudrillardian in their continuing protests against the psychopathic Oyston family who are in the process of asset stripping the club to oblivion.
After the pitch was invaded, the match was abandoned and will not be replayed. There was no violence against the visiting Huddersfield Town supporters, no interference by police nor stewards and only a targeting of sociopath by supporter.
In a symbolic act of some consequence, the Oystons had the statue of Stan Mortensen removed prior to the planned Judgement Day protest and continue to exercise their power by suing fans for being fans.

If the Oystons are the bad guys in this media spectacle then the good guy is supposed to be Valeri Belokon, the president of the Seasiders. He is a Latvian banker whose former financial backer, Maxim Bakiyev, was a Kyrgyzstani warlord on the run from Interpol.

Quoting Baudrillard about Heysel applies here also: "There is another logic at work here, too, the logic of attempted role reversal: spectators (English fans, in this case) turn themselves into actors; usurping the role of the protagonists (players), under the gaze of the media, they invent their own spectacle (which - we may as well admit it - is somewhat more fascinating than the official one). Now is this not precisely what is expected of the modern spectator? Is he not supposed to abandon the spectatorish inertia and intervene in the spectacle himself?"

Baudrillard: "Where exactly does participation pass over into too much participation?"

3. Institutional Terror in Football

Once wrenched away from its basic principle, football can be pressed into the service of any end whatsoever - financialisation, utilisation of performing enhancing substances, insider trading and matchfixing, spectacles of corruption, public relations abuses and violence of coercion.
Football has become, in the words of Roger Caillois, "a theatre of circus-like play" linked via mafiosi and transglobal crime syndicates to underground betting markets, largely but not exclusively located in SE Asia.

In the Premier League, there are referees earning £2K per week officiating on matches with global turnover around £5bn. Some of these officials are criminalised in a net of corruption - it is not by fluke that Betfair (a bookmaking facilitator of matchfixing) use an Octopus and SE Asians in their advertising campaigns.

Football matches are ever more frequently played behind closed doors due to spectators having previously impinged upon an event. Baudrillard: "A ban of this kind could never do away with the chauvinistic passions surrounding soccer, but it does perfectly exemplify the terroristic hyperrealism of our world, a world where a 'real' event occurs in a vacuum, stripped of its context and visible only from afar, televisually."

Football events played without fans merely mimic the reality that already exists across much of horseracing - courses with minimal numbers of racegoers, operating fraudulent events to the private benefit of the offcourse bookmaking chains, the online market makers, the bookies in the betting rings and the manipulators on the rails. The horse is merely an afterthought in this particular poker game.

In Scottish football we have an antagonistic relationship between the Bhoy and the 'Ger but the background bears no resemblance to the history of St Walfrid or the Sons of Struth.
Dermot Desmond, who owns around a third of Celtic, also owns nearly 5% of Ladbrokes, the official bookmaker of Rangers, whilst Celtic have set up a deal with Unibet to provide in-play betting opportunities for the Celtic fans via the club's phone app. Yet Unibet are a bookmaker that Sportsbook Review advise punters against using due to non-payment of winnings so that, in effect, the club are merely taking a slice of the action in the illicit fleecing of their fans.
Meanwhile, Rangers are being repeatedly asset stripped by the most rapacious forms of psycho-capitalist.
Celtic and Rangers fans deserve better than this.

Elsewhere in Scottish football, the fans are invisible at "events so minimal that they might as well not take place at all" - these events, however, must have maximal enlargement on our screens.

In England, the Premier League is in the midst of its very own Calciopoli - a combination of mafia and matchfixing that creates a systemic criminalisation of the sport to the benefit of an array of sociopathic insiders who corrupt the game for considerable proprietary benefits.
Bookmakers own football clubs and those owners are then elevated to institutional positions of power and influence. Agents choose referees for EPL matches to the benefit of their clients and their proprietary trading.
Last night's Championship Play-Off between Brentford and Middlesboro is a case in point - 7 'Boro players and the Brentford goalkeeper are represented by the same agent and this agent has a very very very close relationship with the referee stretching back nearly a quarter of a century. It is no surprise that the outcome was in the market pre-match.

The FA Cup has become an insider traders paradise - remember the betting patterns on the fixed match last season between Nottingham Forest and West Ham that left a child crying and insiders much the richer for their terroristic psychopathy?

                                                            A Crying Child

4. The Terror of 4th Estate Mainstream Media 

The mainstream media is the facilitating catalyst to these hyperrealities and is always complicit in this collection of travesties.
Baudrillard: "The media is always on the scene in advance of terrorist violence."

Take Andy Murray's joyous wedding. The media scrummage at the rehearsal led to leading Scottish photojournalist Gordon Jack dying. Not only did all mainstream media representations of the wedding entirely ignore this death but the fact that the wedding required a rehearsal in order to be perfect for media was surreal in itself. Death intruding on the spectacle is an abomination of the public relations control grid.

The mainstream media accommodates terroristic violence and warped public relations as its raison d'etre.

Out of all the footballers across all generations, what sort of media would choose to select Steve McManaman as a match summariser in the aftermath of his close business relationship with the matchfixing money launderer Carson Yeung?
The output of the football section of the Guardian newspaper is entirely overseen by a football agent who is actively involved in matchfixing and mafia-like behaviours while Clare Balding's new BBC chat show must have an obligatory criminal to parade positively in each episode.

Baudrillard: "The public must simply be eliminated, to ensure that the only event occurring is strictly televisual in nature."

5. State Terror

Britain has just experienced a terroristic play in the 2015 General Election.

Baudrillard: "Neither a represented people nor a legitimate sovereign is now the issue. That political configuration has given way to a contest in which there is no longer any question of a social contract; a transpolitical contest between an agency orientated towards totalitarian self-reference on the one hand, and sardonic or refractory, agnostic and infantile masses on the other (masses which no longer speak, though they chat)."

There is no such thing as a representative democracy just like there is no such thing as justice - the only person currently serving a prison sentence over the HSBC affair is a whistleblower.

The media plays with our hyperrealities whilst the first past the post system denies any vestige of democratic process. The BBC is more than happy to allow Nigel Farage to appear over 20 times on its Question Time programme to engender the fear that decides elections and is happy for that process to produce an outcome whereby 13% of the vote is for a racist party so long as that only equates to one seat in parliament and the post-election removal of Farage from the stage until next required.
And, on election night itself, out of all the former politicos that might be chosen to provide the Labour party line, the BBC gave us war crime apologist Alistair Campbell who we must now all remember as a former alcoholic fighting depression rather than a facilitator of illicit murder.

The City of London wanted a Conservative majority government and that is exactly what we were given.

Or as Nomi Prins writes about the US oligarchy: "No matter what spin is used for campaigning purposes, the idea that a critical distance can be maintained between the White House and Wall Street is naïve given the multiple channels of money and favours that flow between the two.  It is even more improbable, given the history of connections that Hillary Clinton has established through her associations with key bank leaders in the early 1990s, during her time as a senator from New York, and given their contributions to the Clinton foundation while she was secretary of state. At some level, the situation couldn’t be less complicated: her path aligns with that of the country’s most powerful bankers. If she becomes president, that will remain the case."

Baudrillard: "It [the State] no longer works on the basis of political will, but instead on the basis of intimidation, dissuasion, simulation, provocation or spectacular solicitation."

6. Conclusion

Baudrillard: "Political events... unfold, in a sense, in an empty stadium (the empty form of representation) whence any real public has been expelled because of potentially too lively passions, and whence nothing emerges now save a television retranscription (CRT images, statistics, poll results...). Politics still works, even captivates us, but subtly everything begins to operate as though some International Political Federation has suspended the public for an indeterminate period and expelled it from all stadiums to ensure the objective conduct of the match. Such is our present transpolitical arena: a transparent form of public space from which all the actors have been withdrawn - and a pure form of the event from which all passion has been removed."

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015