With the current Premier League/ Professional Game Match Officials Board (pgMOB) agenda against Chelsea and Jose Mourinho in full flow, we thought it time to republish the MOBGATE post that defines the corrupted template orchestrated by certain entities in English football.
When Howard Webb selected Jonathan Moss to officiate West Ham United v Chelsea yesterday, we were in another market with all the characteristics of a boiler room scam.
We know of no professional trader nor analyst who is not aware of this allegedly hidden agenda against Mourinho/Chelsea.
We all trade on the realities.
West Ham United 10 fouls 1 booking.
Chelsea 12 fouls 7 bookings and 3 sendings off (Mourinho, Matic and Louro) and a legitimate goal ruled offside.
Also of interest is the reaction of Moss to Chelsea's equalising goal and the fact that he is too overweight to keep up with play.
Mourinho was sent off after calling Moss "fucking soft" during half time interval.
One has to agree with John Obi Mikel who called Moss a "fucking wanker" after his booking but, strangely enough, wasn't sent off.
Moss has not been selected for refereeing duties next weekend presumably so that he can seek therapy for anger management.
And all the usual suspects were there - Roy Hodgson counting his Diplock gold and chuckling away in the Directors' Box, the Guardian newspaper gushing about Moss and Danny Murphy recreating his warped versions of truth on BBC.
When Mourinho is forced out of the English game, there will be many who will celebrate.
But the standard of English football will continue to decline as the same bunch of insiders are shared around the clubs regardless of performance or talent - McClaren, Strachan, Pardew, Allardyce, Sherwood, Rodgers, Poyet, Mackay, Monk, MacDonald, Warnock, Wilkins, Pulis, Irvine, Evans, McLeish, McAllister, McCall, Lennon, Pearson, Moyes, Redknapp, McCoist, Davies, Lambert and of course the Great Underachiever Himself - Roy Hodgson.
Strange how there are so many Scots when Scottish football is so moderate!!
Particularly as the Top 6 teams have non-British managers while the Bottom 5 are all English or Scottish!!!
Jose Mourinho may be bad...
... but Jonathan Moss and the MOBGATE crew are badder.
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Roberto Saviano (Italian writer and journalist): "Their [the mafia's] worst fear is to be under the spotlight."
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INTRODUCTION
When the relatively minor English Matchfixing Crisis of Nov/Dec 2013 surfaced, Sir Bob Russell MP stated "English football is rotten to the core."
The events outlined below suggest an intriguing structure at the Premier League involving the Professional Game Match Official Board (pgMOB) refereeing body, one particular referee, an ex-referee, a leading football agent and a bookmaker.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old.
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HISTORY
We have published 8 separate posts on Football Is Fixed blog highlighting the disproportionate number of BT Sports live tv matches given to referee Jon Moss. Also mentioned on numerous Twitter feeds.
John Colquhoun, a football agent, and Moss have been "acquainted" with one another since their time together as players at Sunderland in 1992.
Mr Colquhoun also 'oversees' football output at the Guardian newspaper where an entirely inappropriate symbiotic relationship exists between the paper and himself resulting in excessively positive PR for his clients and the squashing of stories that might impinge upon his empire building - the Guardian is the only mainstream media outlet not to cover the Delroy Facey matchfixing court case in its duration - the case where an agent, players, fixers and betting bodies allegedly conspired to perform matchfixing!
Additionally, we have tweeted and blogged on several occasions about close links between Colquhoun and Alistair Campbell, a war crime apologist with close links to Burnley FC.
Keren Barratt refereed the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday in 1993 - an appointment regarded as incredulous by many in the refereeing community. He is one of only four referees to receive such an appointment without being on the International List.
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TIMELINE
Jan 27 Tweet regarding 7 Key Sports players (Colquhoun's agency) at Middlesbrough with transfer of Adam Forshaw (2).
Feb 10 Published post "Once Dead The Good And The Bad Are Covered By The Same Moss" on Football Is Fixed blog. Published on the following day on Omertà blog (3). This post showed highly suspicious betting patterns positively correlated with in-match decisions in Premier League matches officiated by Moss. Furthermore, the post also revealed statistically significant tilts in decision-making by Moss in favour of West Bromwich Albion, a team whose unofficial club agent is Colquhoun of Key Sports.
Feb 16 Keren Barratt, the pgMOB official with sole responsibility for selection of Premier League referees, makes appointments for weekend of Jan 21/22 - Moss is given live BT Sport event between Tottenham and West Ham.
Feb 22 Spurs draw 2-2 with the Hammers with a penalty 6 minutes into injury time which was described by BBC Sport as follows: "The striker [Kane]went down in the box under the slightest pressure from Song" (4).
Feb 23 Barratt appoints officials for Jan 28/29 and the following midweek. Moss is given Burnley v Swansea at the weekend and Aston Villa v West Brom in the midweek.
Feb 28 The suspicious betting pattern structure itemised on Feb 10 post existed on the Burnley v Swansea game but was offset by insider money surfacing elsewhere in the market. We warned our Twitter followers of this manipulated structure via a tweet pre-match (5). The pattern that historically was 100% robust was inversed as the visitors won by that very rare occurrence - a double own goal.
Mar 2 Barratt releases appointments for March 7/8. For the first time in season 2014/15, Moss is given an appointment outside of the Premier League. By fluke, the match that he is given is Nottingham Forest v Middlesbrough in the Championship.
Mar 3 Moss referees Villa v WBA and, for the first time in 18 occasions that he has refereed the Baggies, he gives a penalty/sending off against the Albion. We have been told that some media people at BT Sport were privately trading on this outcome. The delirium in the tv studio post-match appears to confirm this reality - Villa won with an injury time penalty after a bizarre collection of refereeing decisions in the game. We tweeted this reality immediately after the game finished (6).
Mar 5 We published the post "Farcical Absurdity" on Omertà detailing the strange officiating by Moss in the West Midlands derby on Tuesday (7).
Mar 7 We warned followers on Twitter about the insider trading on Nottingham Forest v Boro and published "Mocking The Zeitgeist" on Omertà blog detailing the structures (8) (9).
Mar 9 Moss is given Leicester v Hull in the latest set of Premier League appointments.
Mar 14 Moss erroneously (according to unanimous assessment by Sky Sports' Gillette Soccer Saturday pundits) sends off Tom Huddlestone for an alleged foul on Key Sports' client Jamie Vardy.
Mar 18 Keren Barratt, the pgMOB administrator who has chosen Select Group officials throughout referee chief Mike Riley's reign, is removed from his post without warning and prior to the end of his contract. He is replaced by Howard Webb.
Mar 19 We tweeted a mocking message on Twitter regarding our exposure of the shenanigans that led to this sacking of Barratt and published "The Sting" on Football Is Fixed blog (10) (11).
Mar 24 Published "Making A Long Nose On The Sly" on the Football Is Fixed blog (12). In this post, we detailed further history behind this chain of events by itemising a fixed Premier League match between Fulham and Wigan in 2008 - a game exposed on Football Is Fixed blog at the time (13) - and the resultant threats received that were traced back to the offices of Mr Colquhoun. We reported these threats to police and lodged our evidence for posterity.
Mar 30 I sent a letter to Colquhoun offering my "kind regards" and asking for details of his lawyers. No reply was received.
Apr 1 Published "Whistleblow While You Work" a lulzly mocking of the whole affair on the Football Is Fixed blog (14).
Apr 10 Published a blog post entitled "800 Billion To One" on Football Is Fixed blog detailing the incredibly unlikely probability that the above scenario could have happened entirely by chance - such a reality would occur naturally once every 90 billion years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old! We removed this post to archive to make way for the post that you are now reading.
Apr 12 We publish "Bet (Not So Feckin') Fair After All" questioning why Betfair both allow insider trading and why such inside activity is not exposed to the authorities by the market maker (15).
Apr 15 We contacted Colquhoun again asking for a face to face or telephone meeting (as he obviously didn't want his lawyers involved). No reply.
Apr 19 We publish the first part of "pgMOBGATE" on Football Is Fixed blog where we reveal the Timeline, the Statistics and the References relating to this affair. The Betting Patterns and Other Inputs are redacted until a later date.
Multiple Dates
In the first six rounds of Select Group appointments under the selection stewardship of Howard Webb, Moss is given the live tv match between Chelsea and Stoke in the first round, is 4th official for both West Brom v Leicester (where Jamie Vardy scores winning goal in a suspicious betting market) and the live tv match between Man Utd and Man City in the second round of matches, and is referee for Crystal Palace v West Brom in the third round of matches, and a BT Sport live match between Southampton and Spurs in fourth round of games (statistics relating to this are excluded from below as we wish to focus on the Colquhoun/ Moss/ Barratt triumvirate). In the 5th round of matches, Moss gets a Burnley game followed by 4th Official on live tv match between Chelsea and Liverpool in the 6th round of matches together with being referee for Middlesboro's Championship Play Off 1st Leg against Brentford.
And, in what is obviously going to become a theme, yet another tv match next weekend.
Having said that, five tv games and two more WBA games, a Burnley event and a second 'Boro game (his only two non-EPL selections have been Middlesbrough games) is revealing as to the tilts of the new entity in the early days of new regime.
The probability of Jon Moss getting just two non-EPL games all season, both refereeing Middlesboro is entertaining.
The Championship Play-Offs are massively rewarding if promotion achieved both due to EPL monies and betting incomes (see below).
And, in an act of considerable chutzpah, Webb has given this year's FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Aston Villa to...
... Mr Jonathan Moss (16).
Additionally, it has become worthy of note that, in the first 37 Premier Leagues under Webb's watch, 17 have had their outcome in the market pre-match (17).
The continuation of this pattern in the following weeks confirms our analyses that suggests a grouping of EPL teams work together as a fragmented cartel to undertake matchfixing in the underground betting markets.
Four of these teams have British ownership (the other is absentee US-owned) - the fraudulent fragmented cartel has been in existence for several seasons now and, in that 25% of the EPL is involved, we have a systemic corruption template in the Premier League.
Webb was referee for the fixed match between Fulham and Wigan (13) and a further massively suspicious match involving Fulham - their last day of season victory at Portsmouth that saw Reading relegated from Premier League instead of Fulham.
We have no evidence that Webb had any inappropriate part to play in these two match outcomes.
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BETTING PATTERNS
Time to introduce the primary tier betting patterns on a couple of events.
We are not able to disclose non-public market patterns in this place.
To be able to understand the market in the two matches addressed below, we need to explain features of the visual representation.
The Price/Time and Volume/Time charts are from Betfair.
The two primary charts display Price (upper chart) and Volume (lower chart) - the smaller charts at the top of the screenshot are replications of the lower ones.
The Price and Volume are split into red, blue and green for home team, away team and draw.
The solid green block along the x-axis indicates when the match went in-play.
The Volume is measured in pounds sterling.
The Price as a percentage of a 100% book.
Manchester United 2 Crystal Palace 0 (Sep 14th 2013) - Referee: Jon Moss
Manchester United won this match via a fake penalty where the foul took place yards outside the penalty area and where the resultant sending off was fallacious. Prior to these decisions, the match was even and competitive.
53 minutes prior to kick off there had been a significant market breakpoint on Man Utd followed by another trade of £536,000 20 minutes later. These trades totalled £840,000 and represented 30% of the total volume traded on Man Utd up to that point at Betfair (the next highest trade on the day of the match had been just £70K).
Manchester City 4 Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Oct 18th 2014) - Referee: Jon Moss
The Premier League match between Manchester City and Tottenham this season was only the second match in the EPL era that has had 4 penalties and a sending off in the game - 3 of the penalties and the sending off were in favour of the Mancunians.
Additionally, Frank Lampard was offside for the opening City goal and the first City penalty was fallacious too.
In the charts below, the large lower graph represents Total Volume/Time on Man City from KO-85m to KO-25m while the large upper chart shows Price changes over the same window (the upper micro charts display Price and Volume v Time over the entire day with the shading representing the highlighted areas of the market).
In the period from KO-60m to KO-40m, 10 bets between £10K and £50K resulted in over £350,000 being traded on Man City at Betfair (over 27% of the total book at the time).
Everton 3 Chelsea 6 (Aug 30th 2014) - Referee: Jon Moss
Betting patterns below show the window from 12:20 to half-time in this 17:30 kick off.
A bizarre theatrical match more akin to WWE than EPL - there was an outcome within the stageplay.
The Chelsea price shortened 3% in 9 minutes from 16:36.
Many more patterns ahead...
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STATISTICS
Betting Patterns On Premier League Matches Officiated By Jon Moss
To the thresholds outlined above, Moss had refereed 41 EPL games in 2013/14 and 2014/15.
There had been suspicious betting patterns in the same time window at the same bookmaker in 11 of these matches.
All these insider trading patterns were winners and major decisions in game were 11 penalties/sendings off in support of the market activity and one against - the one against was a penalty given to Spurs in a match where Man City were given three penalties plus the sending off of a Spurs player and an offside goal.
The Burnley v Swansea match was the first occasion in 42 matches where this structure was invalid and inversed.
Decision Making On West Bromwich Albion Games Officiated By Jon Moss
In his career as a professional referee, Moss had officiated WBA on 18 occasions.
In these matches he had given 11 converted penalties or sendings off in favour of Albion and no sendings off and no converted penalties against - some of these decisions were laughably dubious.
In the two promotion seasons for WBA in the Championship, Moss refereed Albion 5 times.
This resulted in 5 wins with 7 sendings off or penalties in favour of the West Midlands club and, obviously, none against.
The Aston Villa v West Brom game was the first occasion in 19 matches where a penalty was converted or sending off applied against WBA.
Selection Of Referees For BT Sport Live Matches
There are 21 referees used for Premier League games.
Given equal selection, each official has a 1 in 21 chance of being chosen for BT Sport live matches.
In the aftermath of our reporting, Moss was given two of the next three BT Sport live matches (Spurs v West Ham and Villa v Albion) - he couldn't have been given the third as it was on the following night to the latter game.
There was a 1 in 21 chance of Moss getting either of these games.
Selection Of Moss For Championship Game Between Nottingham Forest And Middlesbrough
Post-threshold of our exposure, Moss was given his first non-EPL appointment of the season in the 36th round of Football League games.
The match was one of 36 Championship and Football League matches occurring in that round of games.
There was a 1 in 36 chance of Moss refereeing outside the Premier League in this round of matches and a 1 in 36 chance of the match chosen featuring Middlesbrough.
Selection Of Moss For Burnley And West Brom Game Following Our Exposé
Moss was chosen for WBA and Burnley Premier League matches in the two rounds of games after our blog posts.
There was a 1 in 5 chance of Moss getting Burnley or WBA for first round of games and a 1 in 9 chance of him getting WBA in the next round of matches.
Match Outcomes
The market likelihood of Burnley, West Brom and Middlesbrough all losing were 26.9%, 28.7% and 30.0% (although these aren't strictly independent variables, when coupled with other aspects not disclosed in this space, they serve as ballpark figures).
Statistical Likelihood Of These Events Happening By Chance
The probability of these selections and inversions coming to pass entirely by chance is 885 Billion to One.
These events occurred in a 14 day window covering 4 rounds of games following our exposés.
There are 38 rounds of games each season in the EPL so the chance of this structure happening in any one season is One in 93 Billion i.e. these realities would occur by chance once every 93 Billion Years.
Our universe is 13.8 billion years old.
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CONCLUSION
So if our universe were seven times older than it actually is and if human beings had existed on our planet from the point of the Big Bang until now and if football was the very first thing that these humans invented and if such invention led to the immediate onset of the Premier League, pgMOBGATE would have happened just once.
The fact that it happened after our exposé is worthy of note!
And, what is more, the probability is based solely on the selection and inversion in reponse to our prompts.
What led to those initial patterns is another story for another day.
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ONGOING TIMELINE AND ADDENDA
1. In Italy And England Matchfixing Is Orchestrated By Mafia
On 20th May 2015, we published a post on Football is Fixed detailing all of the matchfixing crises in Italy in the last decade and showing how strong the parallels are between corruption in Italy and MOBGATE.
"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." (18)
2. The Hodgson Template
The links between Roy Hodgson and John Colquhoun stretch back into the history of Omertà in English football. In a post published on Football is Fixed on May 23rd 2015, we exposed a non-meritocratic side to this partnership by revealing a strong statistically significant bias towards Key Sports clients in Hodgson squad selections. Here is an excerpt.
"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." (19)
3. FIFA Nostra
To coincide with FIFA corruption scandal, we published an article on May 28th 2015. In this article we addressed media biases in the coverage of this story and the similarities between all mafia-like entities.
"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."" (20)
4. The Bizarre Selection Of Jon Moss To Referee FA Cup Final
Two hours prior to the 2015 FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Aston Villa we released a post dealing with the reaction of other pgMOB referees as well as more junior referees to the appointment of Moss for the Final (particularly as Arsenal have won every time he has officiated) (21).
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?"
Most referees could not understand why Mark Clattenburg didn't get the nod but, in a further post, we exposed issues with the bewigged one too (22).
We were left with the uncomfortable question: "Was it a battle between betting markets that saw Jon Moss selected for FA Cup Final ahead of Mark Clattenburg?"
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REFERENCES
1) "How To Spot Matchfixing" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/how-to-spot-matchfixing_19.html
2) 7 Key Sports players at Middlesbrough tweet - "With the arrival of Adam Forshaw, there are now 7 Key Sports-represented players at #Middlesborough!"
3) "Once Dead The Good And The Bad Are Covered By The Same Moss" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/once-dead-good-and-bad-are-covered-by.html
4) BBC Sports report on Tottenham v West Ham http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31476002
5) Tweet warning of inversion on Burnley v Swansea - "@JohnboyMaclean The outcome will be a defeat for the integrity of #PremierLeague football. But beware, market structure is not obvious."
6) Tweet on the inverse in Aston Villa v West Brom - "Jon Moss - 18 matches reffing #WBA 11 Pens/S Offs in favour
0 against
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/once-dead-good-and-bad-are-covered-by.html …
Next game, Moss gives inj time pen against #WBA"
7) "Farcical Absurdity" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/farcical-absurdity.html
8) Tweet warning about Nottingham Forest v Middlesbrough - "If you are considering betting on, attending or otherwise taking an interest in #NFFC v #Boro
READ: …http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html …"
9) "Mocking The Zeitgeist" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html
10) Tweet mocking the systemic nature of the operation and Barratt's sacking - "We mocked a #matchfixing operation.
They mocked us back.
We saw through their mockery and re-mocked.
A job is lost.
…http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html …"
11) "The Sting" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-sole-individual-who-selects-select.html
12) "Making A Long Nose On The Sly" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/a-pre-epilogue-beginning-of-end.html
13) "Happy Anniversary To Roy Hodgson" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html
14) "Whistleblow While You Work" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/whistleblow-while-you-work.html
15) "Bet (Not So Feckin') Fair After All" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/bet-not-so-feckin-fair-after-all.html
16) Mark Halsey @RefereeHalsey http://www.kicca.com/RefereeHalsey/posts/55374d48aed1d94c8aac84e1
17) "Premier League Football Is Fixed" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/premier-league-football-is-fixed.html
18) "In Italy And England Matchfixing Is Orchestrated By Mafia" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/in-italy-and-england-matchfixing-is.html
19) "The Hodgson Template" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-hodgson-template.html
20) "FIFA Nostra" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/fifa-nostra_28.html
21) "What Other Referees Think Of The Appointment Of Jon Moss For FA Cup Final" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/what-other-referees-think-of.html
22) "The Issues With Mark Clattenburg" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-issues-with-mark-clattenburg.html
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