What Other Referees Think Of Appointment Of Jon Moss For FA Cup Final

 

RustyRef: "Just playing devil's advocate here as I have no idea of the reasons for the appointment, but if you had broken a rule at work and been disciplined for it would you expect to be at the top end of the bonus pool at the end of the year or receive employee of the year award? Probably not, so is it right for people to assume that a referee who committed an irregularity and was disciplined for it should then be rewarded with the biggest domestic accolade a referee can get at the end of that very same season?"
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Jon Moss has been appointed to referee the FA Cup Final 2015.
Given his close relationship with John Colquhoun http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/mobgate-6.html, we sincerely hope that Theo Walcott's ongoing contract talks don't impinge on the occasion - Walcott is only in the team due to the inept performance of WBA last weekend (Colquhoun holds considerable sway at Albion).

He has refereed Arsenal 9 times - every game a victory and surely giving this game to Moss is stretching the credibitilies of fans too far... 

There are rumours in the refereeing community that Moss is being moved aside after this game over MOBGATE and that this will consequently be his last match. 
We'll see...

NB 10 Arsenal matches refereed by Moss, 10 wins, 22 goals for, 2 against, 4 pens/reds in favour, 0 against. In the FA Cup Final, Arsenal 9 fouls/0 bookings; Villa 15 fouls/5 bookings (with Cleverley, Delph and Hutton being key); Arsenal denied 0.5 of a penalty and Villa 1.50; although it would have been interesting if Moss had sent off Agbonlahor for repeatedly calling ref a "fuckin' cheat" while on a yellow.

More importantly, there are suspicious betting patterns exposed in MOBGATE on a number of these 10 matches including yesterday's FA Cup Final.
 
Here are some statements from referees both professional and amateur from the Rate The Ref website.
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Exeter_Ref: "I've certainly not seen an appointment so badly received."

Reading Fan: "Perhaps the most ridiculous appointment in the history of football? Ludicrous... I would count as least 4 referees who have had better seasons than Moss and not had a cup final before (Oliver, Taylor, Clattenburg, Swarbrick.) And for the future I think the likes of Kevin Friend and Craig Pawson are more likely to be up to the standard...A dark day for refereeing this in my view."

Reflector: "The other question is, if not Clattenburg, why Moss? Some of us feel that he has been extremely fortunate with both the frequency and quality of some of his PL appointments, particularly this season when some of his performances didn't appear to warrant them. Personally I would say that he struggles to get in the top half of the merit table of the SG (and that is being somewhat charitable) so how does he land what used to be regarded as the most prestigious appointment in our domestic game? I don't suppose we shall ever know but most of us I am sure have our own opinions. Finally, lest anyone should wonder, I had it in mind to write this when I first heard about the appointment and before reading Moss's record in Arsenal games!"

Reg: "Pathetic appointment. Lets reward the worst referee of the season with the FA Cup final. Sends a great message out that does."

Whistleblower: "This is, in my opinion, one of the most extraordinary appointments in English senior refereeing that I have ever known."

Replied to by Reflector: "As always, Whistleblower puts it splendidly and I agree with every word. I hope I am wrong but am not so confident that the truth behind this strange episode will ever become known. If indeed skulduggery is at work, I suspect ranks will be tightly closed and the real truth may never be known."

Babyref: "Totally flabbergasted."

Whoknows: "...it could be that Moss's face fits rather too well. Who knows? It reminds me of an appointment over 2 decades ago when a very mediocre referee had the final. He was very much 'in' at the inner sanctum. So it's nothing new, but it demeans the FA when it is so obviously an appointment not based on merit...The pathetic uncertain Mr [Keren] Barratt. Certainly." 

AJB95: "...on form, consistency of decision-making, performances in big games, he would be well down the list. Poor in every big game he's had, and has been below average in many of his recent games.
What does this show to referees like myself working my way up? That the biggest occasions don't got to those who deserve them? That inconsistency is rewarded with success?"

Plym_Nick: "this is the message that it appears to be sending to up and coming referees : don't try and be the best , try to be someone important's best mate , or at the very least nod and smile at the right people. Competence and ability ? IRRELEVANT!"

Nemesis: "Many people criticize many of the bigger clubs for devaluing the FA Cup, with their team selections and priorities. The FA, or whoever made this appointment, has also done so.... Moss has been awarded a top honour which, by any objective judgement, he was not deserving of. You expect all referees and ex-referees, in this case a better official than Moss, who have not benefited from the same largesse as Moss, to line up and applaud. I don't think so."

DommerOFK: "If your face doesn't fit or someone up on high has an agenda against you then give up?"

YeahWes: "Would Jon Moss be considered strong enough to referee Chelsea v Man Utd? If not, I suggest he shouldn't be refereeing the Cup Final."

RefFan: "I believe the official announcement referred to Jon's 'consistent' performances over the season which I, like many others, would take issue with, although I guess some would contend he's been, at best, consistently average."

Hendo: "...I wish him all the best, part of me still harks back to those refs of yester-year who never got an FA Cup Final but who, in my humble opinion, were as good if not better than Jon."

Dave26: "While I congratulate the team on their appointment the whole appointment has surprised me somewhat and I find it bizzare, Moss has made plenty of errors and bad calls this season."

DeanisBest: "I guess Arsenal will be delighted with the appointment. Nine games Mr Moss has officiated the Gunners, they have won all nine. Staggering statistic."

Acme Thunderer: "Ridiculous in my view."

NotARef: "The FA Cup Final is a reward for long and loyal service? Give me a break."

Locoman: "A truly staggering appointment ,simply because he has not been anywhere near good enough for this honour,no fault of his this and hopefully,it will go well.Whistleblowers' accurate appraisal of this puzzling business is spot on."

Life of Riley: "Firstly, congratulations to Jon Moss and team. But then, really, what?! Wow."

Referee152: "...I am shocked."

Locoman (2): "I have just heard three respected sports writers discuss this appointment on Sky's Sunday Supplement and its fair to say the three were universally puzzled by it. Two comments among many were that he is top of the howlers league this season and that he has had a particularly poor season so I'm afraid it does appear to be be yet another case of Buggins turn next!"
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At another level, here are the views of former pgMOB referee Mark Halsey (he received abusive messages referring to his cancer issues for being open and honest):

"People say I've put undue pressure on Jon Moss before the FA Cup Final. That wasn't my intention and I think Jon's a decent lad but if he's good enough to get a prestige Wembley game, why isn't he deemed good enough to ref a high intensity Premier League match?

I think this is Jon's fourth season on the select list but he still hasn't been given a Manchester derby, a Mersey derby, a North London derby or, say, a Manchester United v Liverpool - games where referees are under the fiercest scrutiny.
That's not Jon's fault, he doesn't pick and choose his games but it speaks volumes that the powers-that-be haven't given him a massive Premier League match yet reckon he's ready for a game watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
I don't expect Jon to turn round and say, 'Sorry chaps, I don't think I'm ready for this one.' Of course not. He should rightly be proud of being selected and I hope he goes on to have a great game.
But part of me reckons he'll be feeling a little bit sheepish that he's got the Cup Final so early in his career. Privately, he'll know this should have been Mark Clattenburg's time."

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed

FIFA Nostra

The FIFA Football Family...
... or, as they call it in Italy, mafia.                                                       


If I were Sepp Blatter, I'd be ordering breakfast at 05:30 over the coming weeks as Swiss authorities have stated that the eventual questioning of Bonaparte Blatter will begin in this window.

Although FIFA is gross and an abuse of the global game, the 'good guys' aren't exactly outside the black market themselves (see below and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/omerta.html).

This article focuses on the Machiavellian contortions of the football sector, sports media and financial industries in the UK and at the systemic structures of mafia entities.
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There are a lot of stenches around FIFAGATE:

* The football being the only object placed on the table during yesterday's Zurich press conference to remind Walter de Gregorio that the body he represents should be about football and not racketeering.

* The invisibility of Blatter when the going gets tough - all psychopaths are cowards at heart (many sociopaths are also challenged in the height department).

* Visa, McDonalds, Adidas, Nike and Coca Cola finally taking the moral high ground after years of marketing acquiescence in favour of proprietary profits.

* The first continental governing body to offer unequivocal support to Blatter being the Asian Football Confederation, as the other major impact of Blatter's time in charge has been the takeover of the integrity of the game by betting markets (particularly but not exclusively SE Asian ones).

* The duplicitous nature of the English mainstream media and the FA with regard to FIFAGATE and their historical acceptance of FIFA's ways of doing business.
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English Duplicity

Andrew Jennings, the investigative journalist who should have been all over British tv screens when FIFAGATE broke yesterday reckons that there isn't one trustworthy mainstream media sports journalist in Britain since retirement of Patrick Collins.
Not one.
When David Conn and Paul Kelso were waxing lyrical via word and question for the Guardian and Sky Sports, their refusal to confront the matchfixing in English football was the elephant dung in the rooms - this corruption is also "rampant, systemic, deep-rooted". They both also carefully avoided the lack of ethics in England's World Cup 2018 bid (see below) - doesn't fit with the fake narrative, doesn't pay the mortgage.
Neither are fit for purpose.
Meanwhile Channel 4 News bizarrely chose to interview David Ginola as a paragon of virtue - the man who pocketed £250,000 from Paddy Power to front a bid to unseat Blatter.

Then there is Greg Dyke, the chairman of the FA, who happily received a £16,000 Parmigiani watch from CBF president José Maria Marin (a man complicit in the murder of ex-BBC journalist Vladimir Herzog) http://www.transparencyinsport.org/Did_Brazil%27s_Football_Boss_Jose_Maria_Marin/did_brazil%27s_football_boss-page1.html.
And there he was yesterday, smarming away in a sea of viscous self-righteousness.
What on earth was Dyke thinking in accepting such a bribe?
Initially, Mr Dyke refused to return the 'gift' but with the threat of sanctions and being in breach of the FIFA code of ethics (sic) he eventually did so.

During the bidding processes for FIFA World Cup 2018 and 2022, the English bid team had the mighty marketing team of a monarch, an old Etonian and a male model.
At a meal attended by senior members of the England 2018 bid team on January 11th 2010, the chief executive Andy Anson was asked about rumours of corruption among the FIFA executive committee who would decide England's fate.
Patrick Collins: "We expected him to mumble evasive platitudes and were unprepared for his devastating candour. He said that he and his team had given the matter much thought and they had concluded that, of the 24 voting members, 'at least 13 are buyable'.
"His colleagues coughed loudly and fixed him with incinerating glares. Somebody explained that the notion of 'buying' delegates had never crossed English minds."
So the self-righteous English bid team were willing to consider buying votes themselves (which is heavy luggage to drag up onto the moral high ground!)

Then, when the Sunday Times disclosed that two voting members could be bought, the English bid team wrote a wretchedly humiliating letter to FIFA, in which they distanced themselves from the revelations and referred to the two members (now suspended) as 'our friends'.

Then, when the BBC produced the infamous Panorama programme which the English bidding team feared as a truth-telling exercise. Anson declared that the BBC had 'embarrassed themselves'. He condemned the organisation for being 'sensationalist' and 'unpatriotic' before even seeing the programme.

The whole make-up of the English bid team was tainted - conman Peter Hargitay, lobbying partner Marcus Siegler, bid chief and FIFA vice-president Geoffrey Thompson, the pompous Chief of Staff Simon Greenberg and the EPL's Sir Dave Richards, described by Andrew Jennings as "a man of miniscule talent, thinly spread. Is there another country which would tolerate somebody so utterly unsuited to high office?"
And we bet Prince William is regretting granting a private 'audience' to Jack Warner too.

Then, there are the matchfixing events at FIFA World Cup Finals.
At the Brazil World Cup last year, one leading British bookmaker was in control of the global market on the match between France and Honduras and exercised this control by defensive pricing and limited volume offered internally while trading the match rapaciously elsewhere.
Nearly £5 million was traded at Betfair on France victory in the hour leading up to kick off including one bet of £630,000 (the highest matched bet on football at the market maker in 4 years) and two others over £200K.
Given market structure and control together with the events that unfolded on the pitch, it is surprising that this game wasn't reported to matchfixing authorities.
The bookmakers of England and its offshore centres are than happy to piggy back onto FIFA corruption templates and take advantage of 'market opportunities' as they arise.

Then, there is Barclays (the sponsors of the Premier League) and HSBC. The millions of pounds in this racketeering scandal did not flow around the world in suitcases and wallets. Why didn't these (and other) banks carry out the necessary checks relating to money laundering? And, of course, the primary three Offshore Financial Centres behind the racketeering operation are all UK offshore tax havens - Turks and Caicos Islands, British Virgin Islands and the Caymans.

Then. there is the BBC, Sky and ITV telling sponsors, players, FAs etc what to do about FIFA without any offer of refusing to show future World Cups tournaments themselves.

Then, there is Al Jazeera who managed in their 'Inside Story' programme on FIFAGATE not to mention Qatar at all and who employed as a talking head Jonny Gould, a man whose idiocy is only exceeded by those who employ him.

Then, there is John Whittingdale and the UK government.
Colin Lovelace "Government agencies travel the world bribing foreign government officials – and produce arms contracts that help kill and maim millions every day. I haven’t heard of the FBI raiding Whitehall offices at six in the morning. Let western governments clean up their own ethics before huffing and puffing about FIFA."

The 4th Estate is broken and corrupt.
Money matters relating to the particular loci produce imbalance in all news presentation turning journalism into nothing more than propaganda and public relations.
The insitutions and the entities that leech onto football are similarly not fit for purpose.
It is a sham and the football fans of Britain and the world deserve better...
...much much better.
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Mafia Matrices

To undermine mafiosi structures, there are two components - firstly, one needs whistleblowers and/or investigative journalists willing to confront power and, secondly, one needs a deep insider with either a grudge to bear or, as is the case with Chuck Blazer, someone willing to co-operate to receive a reduced sentence themselves.
The only inputs that cut across these structures are those of sousveillance and surveillance. 
Once the hierarchy is split open, the beans tend to spill.


This applies with FIFAGATE. It also applies in MOBGATEhttp://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/mobgate-6.html. And it applies in Sicily, Napoli and southern Italy.

Take Bernardo Provenzano who was imprisoned for life in 2006. He was head of the Corleonesi branch of Cosa Nostra and capo di tutti capi prior to arrest. 46 mafia suspects were arrested on January 25th 2005 and two months later another 80 were taken into custody leading to the arrests of Provenzano and 'Shorty' Riina.

Mafia groups can be family-based, institutional or cultural but the ties that bind the leading members together are fragile as trust is in short supply while paranoia tends to peak in times of crisis. And then there is the cowardice - the one common thread underpinning psychopathic personality disorder is fear. There is no trust between fearful sociopaths when the shit hits the fans.

Mafia entities also seek anonymity. Roberto Saviano (Italian anti-mafia journalist): "Their [the mafia's] worst fear is to be under the spotlight."

Racketeering operations also tend to use the same tactics over and over and over again as strategic intelligence is never a core competency.
So, Blazer was involved in bribes relating to location of FIFA World Cup Finals going back to the early nineties and used the same template of wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and income tax and banking offences.
Attorney General Lynch: "They [FIFA elite] did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament."

Sepp Blatter hasn't travelled to or through the US since 2011 and stated just last week that "everybody knows that in the US there is an investigation".
The templates outlined above suggest that his days are numbered - Blazer, Webb, Marin and Warner, in particular, surely will reduce their own 'inconveniences' at the expense of the little man from Visp.

All mafia (apart from state mafia) crumble eventually as greed, thuggery and stupidity eventually align in an eclipsing conjunction. Hopefully, proceedings will move quickly enough for jail terms to be handed out before the mortal coil intercedes - Blatter is 79, Marin is 83, Blazer 70 and Warner 72.
Manga de viejos hijos de puta!
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Football has sold its soul to the likes of FIFA, the Premier League, bookmakers, agents, dopers, mafia, money launderers and matchfixing operations.
The two quotes below refer to FIFAGATE but equally apply to MOBGATE.

Diego Maradona: "They hate soccer. They hate transparency. Enough shady dealings. Enough lying to the people."

Chilean journalist Juan Cristóbal Guarello: "Interpol has arrested them 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."

Meanwhile, away from the media glare, the medieval fiefdom of Qatar refused to allow Nepalese immigrant workers to return home to attend funerals in the aftermath of the recent devastating earthquakes in the country.

A Man From Visp...
... And A Nest Of Vipers.

And Uncle Jack...

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed

The Hodgson Template

Introduction 

On May 1st 2012, Roy Hodgson was appointed manager of England earning £3.5 million per year - the only international manager to earn more is Fabio Capello.

Capello has won Serie A 7 times, La Liga twice, the Champions League once, UEFA Super Cup once, Italian Super Cup four times - a total of 15 trophies in 24 years of management.

Hodgson has not won a single trophy in the last 26 years and his only successes prior to that were in Sweden.

Hodgson led England to their worst ever FIFA World Cup performance and only ever Group Stage exit in Brazil last summer.
Since then victories against Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, San Marino and Switzerland led to Hodgson demanding in March 2015 that his contract be extended until 2018.

In his 3 year tenure there has not been one competitive victory against any team of note.

So, with the application of any common sense whatsoever, Hodgson with his professional underperformances and his apartheid-supporting, folksy racist past should not be manager of the England team.

But there are further reasons why Hodgson should not be given a contract extension and these relate to his entirely inappropriate non-meritocratic biases towards players from Key Sports Management agency in the selection of England representative squads - Hodgson takes a very hands-on approach to junior squad selection.

Hodgson is particularly close to Key Sports' John Colquhoun who was Fulham club agent during Hodgson's time in charge of the club from 2007 (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html).
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Key Sports' Selections For England Representative Teams Under Roy Hodgson

Prior to Hodgson's appointment, just two Key Sports' players were picked for England representative teams - Theo Walcott and Phil Jones.

Roy Hodgson has been the first England manager to give input to player selection at U21 and other junior levels.

In the three years of the Hodgson Template, 25 players from Key Sports have been given their first opportunity to wear the three lions on their shirts or have been brought back into the squad...
... every single Key Sports player who could have been called up for England squads has received that 'honour'.

* Josh McEachran (Chelsea) - brought back into U21's by Hodgson.
* Sammy Ameobi (Newcastle) - brought back into U21's.
* Ravel Morrison (Unattached) - given U21 debut during Hodgson's reign (no longer represented by Key Sports).
* Jamie Vardy (Leicester) - 1st full England call up despite forward having scored just 4 goals in 33 EPL appearances.
* Reece Brown (Birmingham) - first U17 and U18 call ups under Hodgson.
* Ryan Inniss (Everton) - brought back into team and made captain of Under 17's under Hodgson.
* Henri Lansbury (Nottingham Forest) - returned to U21's under Hodgson.
* Bryn Morris (Middlesbrough) - first called up for U17, U18 and U19 under Hodgson.
* Dan Crowley (Arsenal) - U17 call up under Roy's reign.
* Callum Robinson (Aston Villa) - introduced into U19 and U20 since Hodgson took over.
* Lee Nichols (Wigan) - called into U20 squad under Hodgson.
* Priestley Griffiths (Middlesbrough) - U19 call up under Hodgson.
* Saido Berahino (WBA) - given first U21 and full England call up (no longer represented by Key Sports).
* Isaiah Brown (Chelsea) - U16, U17, U18 and U19 call ups initiated under Hodgson.
* Martyn Waghorn (Wigan) - brought back into U21 squad under Hodgson.
* Brandon Fox (Leicester) - introduced into U16, U17 and U18 under Mr Hodgson.
* Tolaji Bola (Arsenal) -brought into U16's under Hodgson.
* Jake Bidwell (Brentford) - given U16, U17 and U18 debuts under Hodgson.
* Ben Pearson (Manchester United) - called up for first time into U18, U19 and U20 in last 3 years.
* Harrison Chapman (Middlesbrough) - given first call up (to U18's) under Hodgson.
* Ryan Huddart (Arsenal) - first U16 and U17 call ups by Hodgson.
* Dael Fry (Middlesbrough) - first call up for U18's under The Hodge.
* Sadou Diallo (Man City) - first U16 and U17 caps under Hodgson.
* Matthew Pennington (Everton) - first call up for U19's.
* Joe Gomez (Charlton) - given first U16, U17 and U19 call ups under Mr Roy Hodgson.

The statistical likelihood of these selections happening purely by chance is cosmological in magnitude!
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What Does This Mean For The Integrity Of The Game In England? 

1. When players are selected to represent England, their transfer value, future wages and career prospects skyrocket to the benefit of both player and agent.

2. Players at other agencies miss out on national team and career advancement potential due to biases in favour of Key Sports.

3. In the future, talented young players will be attracted to Key Sports due to the very existence of this non-meritocratic fraudulent structure.

4. The England representative teams underperform as players are not selected on merit.

5. Key Sports used to represent Saido Berahino and he was called into England squad by Hodgson for the first time last November. When Berahino left to join Raheem Sterling's agent Aidy Ward, he was immediately omitted from the next (and subsequent) England squads by Hodgson while the Guardian newspaper, whose football section is under the sociopathic control of John Colquhoun, has produced 7 weeks of anti-Raheem Sterling/Aidy Ward diatribe. This is not journalism, it is PR...
... Key Sports should not orchestrate their business via control of a national broadsheet.

6. This holistic is linked to the inappropriate business relationship between John Colquhoun and referee Jon Mosshttp://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/mobgate-6.html.
If Middlesbrough are promoted to the Premier League on Monday, not only do the club get that £100 million bonus but the valuation of the 7 'Boro players represented by Key Sports massively inflates too.

7. There are additional (and harder to quantify) issues relating to 3rd Party Ownership (3PO) as this illegal practice is commonplace in English football with players under joint ownership, multiple ownership or rotating ownership. As FIFA has decided to end its system of licensing agents, this is going to become a much greater problem with regard to both matchfixing and biased international selections.
Jean-Pierre Louvel (the head of the association of French professional clubs): "It was already difficult to know the exact identity of a player's agent. Now it's going to be worse."
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Conclusion

But the very key question here is surely this...
...what does Roy Hodgson get out of this?

Is it a man crush thing? 
Is it a maletas thing?
Is it just a mockery of our realities?

Whatever it is, the FA should not give this overpaid outsized oaf any contract extension when it is so evident that the selection of players for English representative teams is so linked to the financial bottom line of one particular football agency.

Football is Fixed!

© 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