Wednesday 21 October 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

Monday 19 October 2015

A Boiler Room Scam On The Tyne

Yesterday's Premier League game between Newcastle United and Norwich City was a matchfixing event.
The outcome was in the market pre-match and insiders benefited at the expense of the integrity of the game.

Our primary SE Asian broker placed their largest bet in 2015 on this match...
... which was incredibly brave or stunningly prescient considering Newcastle United were experiencing their worst start in 117 years, Norwich City had lost only 1 of last 18 away games and Toon keeper Tim Krul had been ruled out for the season!

The clamour for Steve McClaren to be removed from his position would have become deafening if Newcastle had failed to win yesterday.
But there was never any chance of that occurrence.
__________________________________________________________________________________

On legal grounds we are not willing to join all the dots of this corruption.

This post is redacted on the advice of our lawyers.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Sunday 18 October 2015

Teutonic Tectonics

The 2025/2026 title race in the Barclays Wealth 888 British Soccer League went right down to the wire.

Abu Dhabi United withstood the late surges of Ladbrokes Life Celtic, Shoreline Energy Evertonian Toffees, Bet365 City and Key Sports/Legion Bromwich Albion to win their second consecutive title while, despite there being no relegation, the kudos of avoiding the bottom three positions was not experienced by Sports Direct Rangers, Kroenke Sports Gunners nor the Fenway Koppites.

This, the third edition of the Barclays Wealth Circus, was the most successful one yet in terms of profits, revenue streams and asset-stripping - Stan Kroenke took £21m out of his team with no invoices while the Glazers, Dermot Desmond and Mike Ashley took similar amounts out of their franchises.
With the average attendance in the league being just 2,472, the underground betting returns and global merchandising provided the majority of this financial take...
__________________________________________________________________________________

In summer of 2015 the European Club Association (ECA) under the vice-like grip of chief executive and chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge pushed through significant changes to the UEFA governance model giving member clubs of the ECA far greater control of the European game and, as a necessity, markedly increasing the insider trading and matchfixing in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.

Michel Platini helped to energise this breakthrough.

Unfortunately, the parallel power battle for control of FIFA meant that it became public knowledge that a £1.35m suitcase of money had passed between Sepp Blatter and Mr Platini without rhyme, reason or receipt.
This was obviously a major spanner in the works for German control of the European game.

The Deutscher Fußball-Bund (DFB) had previously gained the rights to the 2006 FIFA World Cup by handing over a non-invoiced £4.9m to the black hole of FIFA finances so the slush payment to Platini was seen as an issue of reputational management.

A meeting was called and the outcome was a bifurcation - Rummenigge saw nothing wrong with Platini's collection of brown envelopes (nor with the VW emissions scandal nor the rape of Greece by the Troika nor the close relationships between certain DFB teams and pharmaceutical companies). 
Greg Dyke of the English FA (now disbanded) on the other hand realised that the murky prints of English corruption would surface if Platini decided to spill the beans and so his initial unilateral support for Platini becoming the next president of FIFA became nuanced and eventually "suspended".

With the benefit of hindsight this may now be seen as a pivotal tipping point in world football - the ECA took over UEFA, the British teams withdrew to set up the Barclays Wealth Circus and FIFA - under the control of human rights abuser Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa - based all subsequent World Cups in Offshore Financial Centres, OPEC nations and countries with close links to the underground betting markets.

The rest is history.

But, as ever, there is one curious throwback to the old days of corruption - the International Football Association Board (IFAB). 
Responsible for setting the Laws of the Game, IFAB is under the control of the Barclays Wealth Circus (who took over the reins after the termination of the English and Scottish FA's, the imprisonment of Greg Dyke and Stewart M. Regan and the merging of the English Premier League and the Scottish Professional Football League).
As a result Barclays are able to decide the manner in which sport is played globally and Barclays Wealth still stand bravely against the introduction of video technology to aid the referees and match officials.

So, in some small way, all of global football still moves as one in the control of integrity by the now anonymised individuals who officiate matches from private match centres away from the ground, relaying their match decisions by screen to the 2,472 people in the stadium and the thousands more watching in betting shops and casinos worldwide as well as online after the bankruptcy experiences of BT Sports and Sky Sports following overpayment for television rights for a compromised product.

Everyone is a winner.
Apart from the game.

Football is no longer merely fixed, it is fecked. 

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Saturday 17 October 2015

The Sevco Seven










So October 16th came and went...

Craig Whyte turned up to court looking very confident with a beautiful woman on one hand and 100,000 hours worth of recorded shenanigans in the other.

More intriguingly, Crown Office lawyers have temporarily stopped proceedings against Imran Ahmad for "reasons that cannot be disclosed".
This is the same Mr Ahmad who on September 14th stated "I firmly believe Police Scotland have their own agenda and are deeply emotionally connected to Rangers Football Club. In my view Police Scotland have a clear conflict of interest" http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/fakes.html

Meanwhile Gary Withey of Collyer Bristow solicitors was also excused from attending court and wasn't present at the hearing.

Sevco Seven, Six, Five...

When dealing with systemic affairs, the micro-focus on minutiae rarely yields truths as the wrecking ball of institutional power obliterates clauses in the defence of causes.
Celtic fans want an outcome of judicial integrity which is unlikely to be the case. 

Furthermore, from meetings involving the upper Celtic hierarchy and from media posturings by the same individuals, it is the assessment of our wee cellular grouping that Mr Desmond and Mr Lawwell would appreciate a future return of a strong Rangers as such a return will make these rich men even richer than they already are.
Sod justice.
Sod the wishes of the fans.

Much of what is now sub judice (plus a whole lot more - implicating individuals higher up the food chain) would have been in the mainstream media in April if Celtic's tentacles could have created a strategy.

We were approached by Pat McVey (#Auldheid) to launch a media storm on the issues of SFA/Rangers alleged collusion to defraud HMRC and, potentially, UEFA.
We reached preliminary arrangements with both BBC and Channel 4 for the release of this knowledge when Mr McVey informed us that we couldn't offer exclusivity to either (or any other) party.
On communicating with Paul Brennan of CQN on this matter, he strongly disagreed with McVey writing: "The exclusivity deal will be important to journos, I've known them to back away if they think too many people have the same story at the same time."

We have to conclude that, for some private or top-down reason, McVey did not want the reality in the public sphere in some perverse expression of Scottish Stockholm Syndrome.

Dermot Desmond sees Celtic and Rangers in the English Premier League within the decade which, with the deconstruction of Platini's UEFA and the corresponding mothballing of any pretensions to a European Super League, will very likely be the case.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Monday 12 October 2015

Roy Hodgson - An England Manager For Our Times




Roy Hodgson is so much more than the sum of his admittedly substantial parts.

An entire England team may now be represented by just two firms of agents - Stellar and Key Sports/Legion (plus their tentacles to previous and third party ownership).

Hart (S), Butland (S3), Shaw (S), Jagielka (S), Jones (K), Bertrand (K3), Shelvey (S), Henderson (K3), Lallana (S), Grealish (S), Vardy (K), Berahino (K3), Walcott (K) - how many of these players would get in the teams of Germany, Spain, Argentina etc?

Both Stellar and Key Sports/Legion include individuals with a propensity for insider trading.

The England team is, in effect, controlled by professional gamblers.
 
Hodgson has also capped every single Key Sports/Legion player who could play for England representative teams, produced England's worst ever World Cup performance, has shown bias to certain agents throughout his managership, is fundamentally racist, has history of tilted transfers at club level and has been in rather close proximity to fixed Premier League games.
__________________________________________________________________________________ 

The Hodgson Template (May 23rd 2015) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-hodgson-template.html

Did You Not Like That? (June 20th 2014) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/did-you-not-like-that.html

Introducing SQWBs (30th October 2013) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/introducing-skwbs.html

When Is Racism Not Racism? (October 24th 2013) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/when-is-racism-not-racism.html

Stellar Returns (July 4th 2013) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/stellar-returns.html

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

Bookmakers Take Over The England Team (May 12th 2012) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/bookmakers-take-over-england-team.html

Al-Fayed And His Money Are Soon Parted (May 5th 2009) http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/this-january-transfer-window-promises.html

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Sunday 11 October 2015

Klippity Klopp - The Odd One


As the Hun Hipster rode into Merseyside, the increasingly luvvie English football msm humbled themselves in awe at his hair implants, his outsized glasses, the designer stubble and the colossal intellect of bilingualism.

The saviour is here despite his "I am the Normal One" motif.
No more the idiocy of Hodgson or Rodgers, Hicks or Gillett but the acceleration of the Fenway Hipster Express.

But Klopp is, in reality, the Odd One - a man whose management style creates repetitive cycles of ALMOST.
He is a master of NEARLY, NOT QUITE, THE RUNNER UP.

Here are the reasons that we believe that the man (who is kind enough to point out to our rose-tinted stares that he is not Jesus and consequently not able to walk on water) will struggle at Liverpool.

* Fitness - Liverpool have been the most unfit major team in Europe for seasons 2014/15 and 2015/16 to date. Systemic lack of physicality cannot be solved swiftly (think Sunderland). Klopp's one trick pony strategy is a high-pressing game that Liverpool are simply unable to perform. It will take a serious fitness regime and much activity in the transfer market to solve this structural deficiency.
Early last season, Dortmund markedly underperformed in the Bundesliga sitting in relegation positions for the first third of the season. Concurrently they ran like demons in their parallel Champions League games (remember Dortmund 2 Arsenal 0 with 24 shots to 4, 7 corners to one). It will be interesting to see if such strategy is imported to Merseyside.

* Transfer Failures - Transfer strategy by committee doesn't work - it simply produces lowest common denominator mediocrity. Additionally, neither transfer strategy via a club agent nor via a wheeler-dealer manager work either. Liverpool made signings under Hodgson that persuaded Fenway Sports that a more hands-on input to transfer activity was needed. But the kneejerk reaction to Hodgson's extreme mismanagement  has moved strategy to the opposite end of the spectrum. Klopp will need to grab control of transfer policy away from idiocy or those with a private agenda and further develop the youth system which will always be a provider of talent on Merseyside. He will need to use his sabermetric wizardry to achieve this.

* Klopp's Management Cycle - Both of Klopp's posts to date have lasted seven years and follow the same flow of moderate, overachievement, failure (all against the backdrop of ALMOST).
At Mainz, Klippity twice finished 4th (just missing out on promotion from Bundesliga 2) before scraping up in third place in 2003/04. After two seasons of low mid-table performance, Mainz were relegated in 2006/07 before Klopp managed to finish 4th in Bundesliga 2 once again in 07/08, missing promotion for the third time in four Bundesliga 2 seasons by just one position.
The cycle has been replicated by his time at Dortmund. It took Klopp three seasons to win the title in 10/11 which he repeated the following season before falling away into a sea of SECONDITIS (Klopp finished runner up in 5 competitions between 2012/13 and 2014/15). But the runners up spot in last season's DFB Pokal was the final straw as Dortmund could only finish 7th in the League.

Liverpool should win something under Klopp. But his brinksmanship in management style more often means that he falls just outside his targets - he missed promotion by one place on three occasions and was relegated just one place from safety at Mainz. He finished runner-up five times at Dortmund.

* Goalkeepers - Some managers just don't get goalkeeping. Klopp is one - witness his Weidenfeller/ Langerak slapstick that underpinned Klopp's final season at Dortmund. What he makes of Mignolet and Bogdan will keep us all entertained.

* The Klopp Window - Klopp, like Mourinho, is a narcissist. Their respective management profiles are similar too. Whereas Mourinho lasts 2/3 seasons and brings massive success followed by a fall-off in performance and moving on, Klopp fails for two years, succeeds for two before failing for three and moving on. Neither can create a dynasty.

* Legacy - Personal legacy is only valid if the structure is left strong and intact for one's successor. Klopp does not achieve this - he left Mainz in Bund 2 and Dortmund trophyless and out of Champions League qualification places. Both teams picked up after his departure - Mainz returned to the top tier of German football the year after Klopp departed and Dortmund are the second best team in Germany this season under Thomas Tuchel. Liverpool fans will have to hope that the Klopp 3rd season/ 4th season blast achieves a return of some consequence.

One of the ironies of men with hair implants is that they tend to overachieve relative to ability (in that so much of success in late capitalism is entirely superficial) but such overachievement always falls below peak levels of performance as their mediocrity cannot hack the leap to superlative - Advocaat, Berlusconi, Clattenburg, Rooney, Klopp - narcissists one and all. Prettier than nature intended but pretty average in the big scheme of things.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Friday 9 October 2015

The FIFA Power World Cup Qualifiers 2015 - SE Asia v Europe v USA


 

The FIFA Power World Cup Qualifiers 2015 - SE Asia v Europe v USA

There are believe it or not some small islands of pleasure in being a market analyst.
Although much of the micro work is laborious and, arguably, pointless, the holistic stuff is entertaining. Particularly when networked across different territories and markets.

There has been a tsunami driven through certain football realities in Europe.

Once Blatter's dominoes began to tumble, numerous disaster capitalism strategies were activated to try and wrench control of FIFA.
One of these camps saw the FA and Greg Dyke lounge up to Michel Platini supporting his bid for the FIFA presidency.

Then, of course, there was a mysterious delayed statement about monies sloshing between Blatter and Platini and suddenly Platini is on a 90 day suspension.

But Europe backs him.
En masse.
You bet they do as this is partially a power battle between SE Asia and Europe.
Blatter, Platini, Valcke and Chung Mung-joon all suspended.
All on the same day.

Anyway.
Back to the market analysis.

From the start of season 2015/16 there has been a systemic change in the marketplaces in certain European territories and UEFA competitions.
An entirely new matrix of operation exists.

Fair enough.
Power struggles.
Market control changes.
New systems of 'orchestration' are revealed and, obviously, the resulting corruption loopholes are exploited far and wide.

But what is interesting about the tsunami of 15/16 is that the systemic and structural templates share architectural design.

The new template is multi-centred in its output.

In this light the FA's continuing support for Platini is more understandable. 

All Mr Dyke's entirely reactive statement (rushed out last evening without FA board backing nor support nor presence on the FA website) shows is that there are some very nervous people around AND that the US strategy of 'lesser sentence if you spill the beans' is bringing the Houses of FIFA, UEFA and some other entities closer to home under demolition orders.

America are the other power broker in this grab for the hugely profitable global football franchise - a striking strategy of leaning on your own corrupted representative to squeal on the mafiosi structure of the global game prior to moving in with a 'mani pulite' of US control.

What chance now of FIFA World Cup 2018 or 2022 ending up in the HyperImperium?

Anyway.

Andrew Jennings, who would be FIFA president if the football world was a  legitimate space, is right - 
Foul.
Omertà.
The Dirty Game.

The Beautiful Game has turned ugly.

Meanwhile Stewart M. Regan clings on to the SFA guttering.

Is that Andrew Dickson reaching out to help?

 
 

DykeGate 2






Thursday 8 October 2015

DykeGate


Why The Great British Bake Off Finally Has Some Minor Relevance In Our Lives



The insider trading and market distortions undertaken by BBC employees on the Final of the Great British Bake Off is more than just an idle piece of tomfoolery by a privileged elite (paid for by a private tax on the general public), it is in its own small way a fraud.

This entirely irrelevant show with its scary hyperreal presenters (with dayglo coloured contacts de rigueur) undertook to defraud the public by utilising private knowledge (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11913626/Great-British-Bake-Off-rocked-by-10000-betting-scandal-allegations.html).

In a nutshell, the Final was shot three weeks before programme went to air allowing ample time for private gain.

So what?

1) If any of the £10,000 staked at Ladbrokes (plus significant sums at other bookmakers) was placed prior to the Final being held then we have a prime example of a fixed event.

This is identical to the West Ham United prank on the deliberate loss of the Nottingham Forest FA Cup tie (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/fixed-match-crying-child-english.html).

The market was more inefficient prior to the Final being held hence yielding further value to any insider trade as the 'winner' would be markedly tempting at a longer price.
It is also common knowledge that the correct 'winner' needs to succeed in relation to the marketing purposes of the show. There MUST be a story.

If insider money was placed prior to Final, the individuals concerned should be sacked with immediate effect both for their sneaky-little-prank and for being dim enough to open the accounts in their own names - were any of these people actually interviewed prior to employment??

2) If the money was placed post-Final then the behaviour is still market distorting to the detriment of other punters. If Ms A is the winner and the insider trading sends her price from 11/5 to 4/11 then anybody backing Ms A thereafter is gaining less value than the illicit insider trading (admittedly on a certainty), while anybody tempted by the longer than realistic prices on any of the other finalists is gaining 'value' on a certain loser.

The market was rightly suspended by the bookies after a little bit of intermarket poker play.

A solution for Ladbrokes. Return monies to all punters who are not BBC employees connected with the show and share the £10K illicitly bet by those employees around the other market participants pro rata.

As the BBC tends not to take action against internal miscreants (Jimmy Savile), Ladbrokes could gain further good publicity by befriending the leisure punter against the beast of a boiler room scam.

Of course, the neohyperreality is that as soon as you connect a betting market to any competitive event, the event is tarnished (sometimes irreparably) by the requirements of the money in the marketplace...
... even if that event is merely an extravaganza of developed-world late-capitalism neuron-numbing inanity.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

John Colquhoun - A Football Agent For Our Times

                                   A Young Colquhoun - 'Tached Up And Ready To Party

Whatever happened to John Colquhoun?

From being a rather moderate footballer with a delightful perm and an honorary degree from Edinburgh University...
... to this.
__________________________________________________________________________________

* Matchfixing and Insider Trading of Premier League games (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html)

* Systemic Fraud (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/mobgate-6.html)

* Abusive Control of Celtic FC Transfer Policy, Loans and Team Selection

* Working with Roy Hodgson to Detriment of Team England (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-hodgson-template.html)

* Hidden Editorial and Nom De Plume Control of The Guardian Newspaper Football Output (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/guardian-fabrication-of-reality.html)

* Professional Gambler Working With Insiders To Fix Matches (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/john-colquhoun-and-jonathan-moss.html)

* Threats and Menaces to Whistleblowers and Links to Organised Crime

* Football Agent with Propensity for Illegal Third Party Ownership 
__________________________________________________________________________________

There is another primary issue aside from the corruption, fraud, matchfixing, insider trading, organised crime, threats and menaces and the usage of football clubs to enhance his personal fortune...
... and this relates to taxation.

Of course, no tax is paid on professional gambling and insider trading so when Colquhoun orchestrates bets in the £100K+ range, there is no HMRC waiting in the wings.

But in relation to illegitimate Third Party Ownership and the receiving of brown paper envelopes (or, in Colquhoun's case, suitcases) containing tens of thousands of pounds from fellow agents over player control, we think that the HMRC will be interested.

Colquhoun rents football to create personal wealth (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/football-for-rent.html).

He happily criminalises our national sport.

But even if one accepts that football is fucked, in times of fake austerity, rich bastards should beware.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015