State Of The (Football) Nation
Umberto Eco: "... how can one not speak of terrorism? how can one find a good use of the media? there is none"
Matchfixing corrupts.
Absolute matchfixing corrupts absolutely.
From the mid-nineties onwards, the South East Asian underground betting markets exercised virtually total control over English football.
In recent years, that control has been grasped by a cartel of inappropriates from the USA and UK (and its offshore territories).
Neither of these structures is to the benefit of football.
Both create corruption.
- There are referees working with bookmakers and agents to manufacture match outcomes to the financial benefit of their insider trading.
- There are titles and trophies determined entirely by corruption.
- There are managers taking backhanders from agents to pick their clients to mutual benefit.
- There are bookmakers who own football clubs and who utilise this control to fix matches.
- There are individuals within the pgMOB who liaise with criminals and matchfixers in the selection of referees.
- There are individuals passing the fit and proper persons' test that are entirely unfit and entirely improper.
- There are crime syndicates and mafia groups who takeover football clubs for fraud, money laundering and matchfixing.
- There are fragmented cartels of football agents who pool their players on the pitch to land huge insider gambles.
- There are broadsheet, tabloid and tv journalists who lubricate these corruptions via public relations abuses posing as journalism and media output.
- There are bookmakers who accept insider trading and matchfixing as such knowledge is regarded as preferential information in the corrupted marketplace.
- There are numerous individuals throughout the game who utilise threats, menaces and coercion as standard business practice.
- There are betting patterns that link these corruptions with their perpetrators.
- There are administrators who facilitate these corruptions in support of their belief in laissez faire capitalism,
- There are many bookmakers who refuse to pay out winnings.
- There are rewards for historical matchfixing and corruptions via a career in media providing disinformation to fans.
- There are rampant abuses of third party ownership by agents which frequently borders on a slave trade.
- There are widespread abuses of performance enhancing substances (and their related masking agents).
- There are a whole array of under-the-table payments where tax is avoided (either by bungs or the selling of inside information etc).
- There are networks of individuals illegally hacking IT systems in search of valuable information.
- There are numerous examples of referees (and other peripherals) whose wealth is not explained by their legitimate earnings.
- There are a cabal of mainstream television media who accommodate matchfixing and corruption.
- There are more criminalised goalkeepers in English football than any other primary territory in Europe.
- There are no regulations nor governmental actions preventing these corruptions.
- There are fortunes being made at the expense of the integrity of the game.
English football is systemically corrupt...
... and extensively corrupt in the particular.
The fan is kept in the shadows via a variety of techniques, some of which we discuss here.
Let's look at home advantage.
In the days when football matches could be evaluated utilising fundamental parameters as opposed to insider trading / matchfixing ones, home advantage averaged 0.50 goal but varied according to the home team. Some stadiums could generate an advantage up to 0.80 goal due to the intensity of the fan participation, the 'cultural' input and the architecture of the ground; others could only help the home side by 0.20 goal due to the impact of the moaning supporters and their proximity to the pitch undermining player psychology.
Then there were the more complex formulations relating to sides who share a stadium (Inter Milan and AC Milan or AS Roma and Lazio), particularly in derby matches.
'Home advantage' could even effect games at neutral grounds if there was a weighting of parameters tilting in favour of one team.
Project Restart and equivalents around Europe presented another configurative structure needing to be evaluated - what happens to home advantage when there are no fans (home or away)?
Below are three analyses from the Economist, the Guardian and World Soccer magazine...
... all are incorrect and serve as examples of media misinforming the reader (either deliberately or by an inability to determine the bigger picture).
The Economist: "Empty stadiums have shrunk home advantage, but not eliminated it."
Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian: "Will home advantage really vanish when the Premier League resumes?... it's the apparent loss of home advantage that has been the most striking trend since the Bundesliga resumed."
Jonathan Wilson (again) in World Soccer: "As travelling has become easier and stadiums have become more homogenous, home advantage has been diminishing for some time. The early indications are that playing behind closed doors has accelerated that."
The reality is that Project Restart should have been viewed analytically as equivalent to a side moving into a new stadium. In the initial matches after a team leaves their long term home to move to a McCain Oven Chip stadium, home advantage entirely disappears and, in some cases, even inverts to a slight away advantage due to the lack of familiarity with new surroundings. As the team become accustomed to their new home, home advantage gravitates back to the norm of 0.50 goal +/-.
It's familiarity that creates home advantage - my university team won more games at home and so did my school.
Where there is an impact on home advantage, it emanates largely from corruption as the home side is more frequently at hot favourite likely to be targeted by nefarious forces.
Problem solved.
There appears to be an inability or a refusal to address sporting data in a robust manner.
This even applied to the analytics of the holistic data on covid-19 - there were a few key metrics relating to the holistic analysis of the pandemic e.g. the number of deaths per million population or the 7-day moving average of new cases or deaths yet some academics at elite universities are using 3-day and 5-day moving averages in territories where there is an obvious weekend effect i.e. less cases and deaths are recorded at weekends due to inefficiencies and medical under-staffing on Saturday and Sunday.
Such analytics create white noise and disguise trends - there is a world of difference between a 3-day moving average and a 7-day one in the UK.
This is just poor analytics but it is corruption that is the elephant in the room for professional analysts when we look at football.
The mainstream media outputs disinformation for an array of reasons - read Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" for a holistic on such matters.
In sport, newspapers provide erroneous evaluations due to the external requirements of the inappropriate powers who control the publishing of football 'knowledge'.
The wonderful thing about the fundamentals in a market is that they expose corruption - either by a direct comparison with non-corrupted leagues or where the fake reality stands at odds with an accepted fundamental parameter.
Take Expected Goals (xG).
Liverpool should have won 39 points less over the two Premier League seasons 18/19 and 19/20 if results had gone according to xG. Manchester City would have been clear champions in 2018/19 and would have won the 2019/20 title by 13 points.
Ted Knutson: "... I think there's stuff Liverpool do that's not in the expected goals model. I'm not going to be specific about that but at a certain point when you have the second and fourth-best Premier League seasons ever and the expected goals models don't really reflect that, maybe you've got some stuff going on that is beyond the model."
This 'stuff' is corruption.
Liverpool ran Manchester City close in 18/19 and won the title in 19/20 season through referee bias, cartelised behaviours and other illegitimate inputs which we will address in a later chapter.
The same referees, 4th Officials and VAR referees were selected time and time again for Liverpool games in 2019/20. For example, Mike Dean, who moved out of Merseyside in order to be able to officiate Liverpool and Everton matches, was banned for a year from refereeing Liverpool matches after Football is Fixed Network provided evidence of bias in the first batch of matches after his relocation.
Following his return, in the 32 matches leading up to Liverpool winning the EPL title, Mike Dean was involved in 11 of them including a run of five consecutive matches in the period up to landing the trophy.
Given Mr Dean's history and his close links with gambling professionals in South East Asia, it is an astonishing feature of the Premier League and the pgMOB that this rogue official is given this amount of power within the game.
UEFA understand the issues with Mr Dean...
... he has only ever been given two Champions League games (both in the qualifying rounds prior to the group phase), one in 2004/05 (before Dean was banned for links to a gambling company) and the other in 2010/11.
Problem solved.
There appears to be an inability or a refusal to address sporting data in a robust manner.
This even applied to the analytics of the holistic data on covid-19 - there were a few key metrics relating to the holistic analysis of the pandemic e.g. the number of deaths per million population or the 7-day moving average of new cases or deaths yet some academics at elite universities are using 3-day and 5-day moving averages in territories where there is an obvious weekend effect i.e. less cases and deaths are recorded at weekends due to inefficiencies and medical under-staffing on Saturday and Sunday.
Such analytics create white noise and disguise trends - there is a world of difference between a 3-day moving average and a 7-day one in the UK.
This is just poor analytics but it is corruption that is the elephant in the room for professional analysts when we look at football.
The mainstream media outputs disinformation for an array of reasons - read Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" for a holistic on such matters.
In sport, newspapers provide erroneous evaluations due to the external requirements of the inappropriate powers who control the publishing of football 'knowledge'.
The wonderful thing about the fundamentals in a market is that they expose corruption - either by a direct comparison with non-corrupted leagues or where the fake reality stands at odds with an accepted fundamental parameter.
Take Expected Goals (xG).
Liverpool should have won 39 points less over the two Premier League seasons 18/19 and 19/20 if results had gone according to xG. Manchester City would have been clear champions in 2018/19 and would have won the 2019/20 title by 13 points.
Ted Knutson: "... I think there's stuff Liverpool do that's not in the expected goals model. I'm not going to be specific about that but at a certain point when you have the second and fourth-best Premier League seasons ever and the expected goals models don't really reflect that, maybe you've got some stuff going on that is beyond the model."
This 'stuff' is corruption.
Liverpool ran Manchester City close in 18/19 and won the title in 19/20 season through referee bias, cartelised behaviours and other illegitimate inputs which we will address in a later chapter.
The same referees, 4th Officials and VAR referees were selected time and time again for Liverpool games in 2019/20. For example, Mike Dean, who moved out of Merseyside in order to be able to officiate Liverpool and Everton matches, was banned for a year from refereeing Liverpool matches after Football is Fixed Network provided evidence of bias in the first batch of matches after his relocation.
Following his return, in the 32 matches leading up to Liverpool winning the EPL title, Mike Dean was involved in 11 of them including a run of five consecutive matches in the period up to landing the trophy.
Given Mr Dean's history and his close links with gambling professionals in South East Asia, it is an astonishing feature of the Premier League and the pgMOB that this rogue official is given this amount of power within the game.
UEFA understand the issues with Mr Dean...
... he has only ever been given two Champions League games (both in the qualifying rounds prior to the group phase), one in 2004/05 (before Dean was banned for links to a gambling company) and the other in 2010/11.
And in just one week recently, Dean's retirement role as a VAR Official saw him entirely ruin the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Wolves and the EPL game featuring Newcastle and Fulham.
He was deselected for a week but key people want Dean in control.
Why do the Premier League and the pgMOB allow this referee so much power?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Police And Thieves
Corrado De Rosa (on Italian football): "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"
Whenever matchfixing is exposed by official bodies, it is always some minor event involving the likes of Skenderbeu in Albania or peripheral European matches like Dynamo Tbilisi versus Panionios.
There is a reason for this.
Grigory Rodchenkov, talking about use of performance enhancing substances in the Olympics: "Olympic officials talked tough on doping control but worried that scandals would scare off sponsors and audiences."
Federbet, Sportradar, Early Warning, the FA Sports Betting Integrity Forum, Europol and Interpol have all suffered from this blinkered bias against disclosing the full extent of matchfixing.
These entities are either toothless, captured, blinkered or inept.
Consider the latest 2020 Europol report "How Are Organised Crime Groups Involved In Sports Corruption?"
Europol state that "the global annual criminal proceeds from betting-related matchfixing are estimated at 120 million euros (£108 million)".
And that is for all sports!
Within months Valcke had been arrested as part of FIFAgate and was sacked on January 13th 2016.
Thomas Moore:
How oft a cloud, with envious veil,
Obscures yon bashful light,
Which seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of night!
'Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs
Obscure with malice keen
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.
_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2023 Football is Fixed
________________________________________________________________________________________
Why do the Premier League and the pgMOB allow this referee so much power?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Police And Thieves
Corrado De Rosa (on Italian football): "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"
Whenever matchfixing is exposed by official bodies, it is always some minor event involving the likes of Skenderbeu in Albania or peripheral European matches like Dynamo Tbilisi versus Panionios.
There is a reason for this.
Grigory Rodchenkov, talking about use of performance enhancing substances in the Olympics: "Olympic officials talked tough on doping control but worried that scandals would scare off sponsors and audiences."
Federbet, Sportradar, Early Warning, the FA Sports Betting Integrity Forum, Europol and Interpol have all suffered from this blinkered bias against disclosing the full extent of matchfixing.
These entities are either toothless, captured, blinkered or inept.
Consider the latest 2020 Europol report "How Are Organised Crime Groups Involved In Sports Corruption?"
Europol state that "the global annual criminal proceeds from betting-related matchfixing are estimated at 120 million euros (£108 million)".
And that is for all sports!
Get real!
In 1995, current Brighton and Hove Albion club owner Tony Bloom informed me that you could place a £1 million bet in the South East Asian underground and the broker accepting the trade wouldn't even blink - such bets were normal.
Both Steve Darby (who has managed Thailand and Laos) and Terry Steans (former head of global investigations at FIFA) have described how call centres full of operators in South East Asia place oodles of money on corrupted events in unison - a whole call centre springing into action as the clock strikes 10, placing 10 grand a time on the rigged event.
Nowadays, £100 million bets in the dark pool markets are seen on the major leagues.
It is difficult to see how these figures equate with the financial reality put forward by Europol.
Europol: "Football remains the most targeted and manipulated sport by international organised crime groups (OCGs) due to its worldwide popularity, financial dimension and the large turnover betting market attached to it. Criminals more often target players having a specific role within the team (e.g. goalkeepers, defenders, captain of the team) as these players are more 'valuable' for matchfixers than others, as a simple mistake can easily lead to the conceding of a goal without raising suspicion."
Europol estimate that 895 billion euros (£806 billion) are wagered on football annually. This total doesn't include either the underground nor dark pool markets and is hence a serious underestimation - some individual Premier League matches alone can have volumes of over £5 billion, for instance.
Europol recognise that, in effect, they are out of the loop. "Criminal matchfixing syndicates appear to have established in-country networks - akin to sleeper cells - where players or referees may be easily 'activated' to fix a match as and when needed. These networks remain stable and are not easily disrupted... in cases where players and coaches or executives are involved, the transfers of certain players and managers from one club to another recurring together can be a useful indicator to flag suspicious schemes. Such elements may allow investigators to identify relevant patterns linking these movements to attempts of OCGs to plan and execute large-scale matchfixing schemes. In such cases, pro-active intelligence gathering activities are crucial to identify and investigate key individuals of a criminal group involved."
A football match is only worth fixing for two reasons - improvement in the probability of a performance related positivity being landed or to support insider trading positions on the game.
Or both.
The key investigative input to solve the holographic jigsaw of corruption is market and fundamental analytics.
Once matchfixing operatives enter the marketplace, the evidence of the corruption is in the public domain (even when well-disguised). An OCG has to monetise its corruption. Betting patterns hidden within key underground areas of the global marketplace reveal these events in their shoddy reality. Throughout their report into matchfixing, Europol repeatedly refer to Sportradar as a suitable source of data analytics. It isn't. Sportradar is funded by bookmakers and works on behalf of bookmakers and, as a result, ends up in territories way beyond the horizons of where an alleged integrity body should reside.
The problem that Europol experience is a complete absence of suitable analytical evidence.
Our internal analytics reveals that 238 out of 380 Premier League matches in season 2019/20 exhibited highly suspicious betting structures. If we had traded on these 238 events, 216 of the matches had outcomes positively correlated with the suspicious betting patterns i.e. the insider trading was imitated in the match outcome. That is over 90% of the games in the sample group.
And we cannot detect all corruptions - we estimate that over 70% of EPL games are market controlled.
The major issue to the Premier League is that suspicious betting patterns matched with the outcome 100% of the time with a certain array of EPL clubs who are evidently insider trading on their own events.
This type of matchfixing becomes systemic particularly when it occurs from season to season as it has done in the Premier League over these last few seasons.
There are parallels to certain financial markets where the market manipulators wish to keep other market participants in the dark, which results in a lack of market efficiency i.e. all of the information is not in the price. So Big Oil is defunct strategically due to climate catastrophe and yet will continue to function at inappropriate market prices due to cartelised price-fixing behaviours and the lack of activist investors to hold the sector and companies to account and, particularly, the fact that Saudi Aramco intends to be the last entity pumping the stuff (according to the Financial Times)..
British Petroleum's chief executive Bernard Looney recently claimed: "We're not about volume. We're about value."
Those individuals undertaking matchfixing in football betting markets might retort: "We're about value. And we're about volume."
If there is no external yardstick to measure reality, the outcome is imaginary.
As physicist George Yamow stated: "... it is possible to do imaginary experiments in worlds that are themselves imaginary and thus to illuminate reality in a novel way."
That is exactly how the Football is Fixed Network functions - we initiate thought experiments; we choose promising models; we develop those models and mock trade them against the fake reality that top level football provides.
Et voila!
The Football is Fixed Network contacted Europol in 2008 over the fixed Premier League match.
We received a response from a Serbian policeman telling us to report the matter to local police.
Unfortunately, the referee of the match in question was a policeman.
So we passed on that option!
_________________________________________________________________________________
The IFAB Four
Grigory Rodchenkov: "Sport won't be clean. Never"
To enable a systemic corruption to become ingrained on a matrix, one requires not only an absence of suitable analytical oversight and policing but also the presence of institutional and media myopia. Accordingly, captured entities (either by takeover or infrastructure) are critical to prevent rules and regulations evolving towards an obstruction of the corruption.
Such an entity is the International Football Association Board (IFAB).
IFAB is an anachronism. Composed of four members from the FA's of England, Scotland, the North of Ireland and Wales plus a further four individuals selected from the other 207 associations, the body behaves like an old City of London club. To discuss and decide upon proposed alterations to the Laws of the Game requires 75% agreement which, in effect, means that the United Kingdom controls the rules of global football.
In effect, the English Premier League and the Scottish Premier League, via their respective control of the Football Association and the Scottish FA, are able to block all and any changes to the Laws of the Game with the support of just one other IFAB member.
This was how the introduction of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) was delayed for so long allowing untrammelled corruption and matchfixing to continue for four more years in the Premier League without redress or regulation.
That decision was the death knell for the integrity (and success) of the English game - the subsequent years have seen the spectator steadily lose faith in the pgMOB and its operations.
And VAR was still not in existence in Scotland until October 2022 as Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) chief executive Neil Doncaster worried that the technology could damage the game's "brand".
In 1995, current Brighton and Hove Albion club owner Tony Bloom informed me that you could place a £1 million bet in the South East Asian underground and the broker accepting the trade wouldn't even blink - such bets were normal.
Both Steve Darby (who has managed Thailand and Laos) and Terry Steans (former head of global investigations at FIFA) have described how call centres full of operators in South East Asia place oodles of money on corrupted events in unison - a whole call centre springing into action as the clock strikes 10, placing 10 grand a time on the rigged event.
Nowadays, £100 million bets in the dark pool markets are seen on the major leagues.
It is difficult to see how these figures equate with the financial reality put forward by Europol.
Europol: "Football remains the most targeted and manipulated sport by international organised crime groups (OCGs) due to its worldwide popularity, financial dimension and the large turnover betting market attached to it. Criminals more often target players having a specific role within the team (e.g. goalkeepers, defenders, captain of the team) as these players are more 'valuable' for matchfixers than others, as a simple mistake can easily lead to the conceding of a goal without raising suspicion."
Europol estimate that 895 billion euros (£806 billion) are wagered on football annually. This total doesn't include either the underground nor dark pool markets and is hence a serious underestimation - some individual Premier League matches alone can have volumes of over £5 billion, for instance.
Europol recognise that, in effect, they are out of the loop. "Criminal matchfixing syndicates appear to have established in-country networks - akin to sleeper cells - where players or referees may be easily 'activated' to fix a match as and when needed. These networks remain stable and are not easily disrupted... in cases where players and coaches or executives are involved, the transfers of certain players and managers from one club to another recurring together can be a useful indicator to flag suspicious schemes. Such elements may allow investigators to identify relevant patterns linking these movements to attempts of OCGs to plan and execute large-scale matchfixing schemes. In such cases, pro-active intelligence gathering activities are crucial to identify and investigate key individuals of a criminal group involved."
A football match is only worth fixing for two reasons - improvement in the probability of a performance related positivity being landed or to support insider trading positions on the game.
Or both.
The key investigative input to solve the holographic jigsaw of corruption is market and fundamental analytics.
Once matchfixing operatives enter the marketplace, the evidence of the corruption is in the public domain (even when well-disguised). An OCG has to monetise its corruption. Betting patterns hidden within key underground areas of the global marketplace reveal these events in their shoddy reality. Throughout their report into matchfixing, Europol repeatedly refer to Sportradar as a suitable source of data analytics. It isn't. Sportradar is funded by bookmakers and works on behalf of bookmakers and, as a result, ends up in territories way beyond the horizons of where an alleged integrity body should reside.
The problem that Europol experience is a complete absence of suitable analytical evidence.
Our internal analytics reveals that 238 out of 380 Premier League matches in season 2019/20 exhibited highly suspicious betting structures. If we had traded on these 238 events, 216 of the matches had outcomes positively correlated with the suspicious betting patterns i.e. the insider trading was imitated in the match outcome. That is over 90% of the games in the sample group.
And we cannot detect all corruptions - we estimate that over 70% of EPL games are market controlled.
The major issue to the Premier League is that suspicious betting patterns matched with the outcome 100% of the time with a certain array of EPL clubs who are evidently insider trading on their own events.
This type of matchfixing becomes systemic particularly when it occurs from season to season as it has done in the Premier League over these last few seasons.
There are parallels to certain financial markets where the market manipulators wish to keep other market participants in the dark, which results in a lack of market efficiency i.e. all of the information is not in the price. So Big Oil is defunct strategically due to climate catastrophe and yet will continue to function at inappropriate market prices due to cartelised price-fixing behaviours and the lack of activist investors to hold the sector and companies to account and, particularly, the fact that Saudi Aramco intends to be the last entity pumping the stuff (according to the Financial Times)..
British Petroleum's chief executive Bernard Looney recently claimed: "We're not about volume. We're about value."
Those individuals undertaking matchfixing in football betting markets might retort: "We're about value. And we're about volume."
If there is no external yardstick to measure reality, the outcome is imaginary.
As physicist George Yamow stated: "... it is possible to do imaginary experiments in worlds that are themselves imaginary and thus to illuminate reality in a novel way."
That is exactly how the Football is Fixed Network functions - we initiate thought experiments; we choose promising models; we develop those models and mock trade them against the fake reality that top level football provides.
Et voila!
The Football is Fixed Network contacted Europol in 2008 over the fixed Premier League match.
We received a response from a Serbian policeman telling us to report the matter to local police.
Unfortunately, the referee of the match in question was a policeman.
So we passed on that option!
_________________________________________________________________________________
The IFAB Four
Grigory Rodchenkov: "Sport won't be clean. Never"
To enable a systemic corruption to become ingrained on a matrix, one requires not only an absence of suitable analytical oversight and policing but also the presence of institutional and media myopia. Accordingly, captured entities (either by takeover or infrastructure) are critical to prevent rules and regulations evolving towards an obstruction of the corruption.
Such an entity is the International Football Association Board (IFAB).
IFAB is an anachronism. Composed of four members from the FA's of England, Scotland, the North of Ireland and Wales plus a further four individuals selected from the other 207 associations, the body behaves like an old City of London club. To discuss and decide upon proposed alterations to the Laws of the Game requires 75% agreement which, in effect, means that the United Kingdom controls the rules of global football.
In effect, the English Premier League and the Scottish Premier League, via their respective control of the Football Association and the Scottish FA, are able to block all and any changes to the Laws of the Game with the support of just one other IFAB member.
This was how the introduction of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) was delayed for so long allowing untrammelled corruption and matchfixing to continue for four more years in the Premier League without redress or regulation.
That decision was the death knell for the integrity (and success) of the English game - the subsequent years have seen the spectator steadily lose faith in the pgMOB and its operations.
And VAR was still not in existence in Scotland until October 2022 as Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) chief executive Neil Doncaster worried that the technology could damage the game's "brand".
And, bizarrely, he was right although not in the manner he intended...
... VAR has been a catastrophe in Scotland.
The Tribute Act should change their name to VAR Rangers.
The corruption in the SPFL is less mature than in the EPL and has largely gravitated around the Hugh Dallas dynasty of bias in favour of Glasgow Rangers.
Rogue football agent John Colquhoun informed me in 2008 that Dallas had two underlings being trained up to continue his good work...
... how apt that a decade later Colquhoun exhibits the equivalent abusive power in England as well as controlling the Head of VAR Neil Swarbrick.
Furthermore, from 2003, Angel Maria Villar Llona, the Spanish FIFA vice-President and Chairman of the Referees' Committee, was involved in IFAB meetings.
That was until July 2017 when Llona and four others were arrested following an investigation into the finances of the Spanish federations after raids on the Royal Spanish Football Federations (RFEF) headquarters.
He resigned his position at RFEF and UEFA.
It is surely of relevance to the whole discussion that Javier Tebas, the Spanish La Liga president, (not a man to whom integrity comes naturally) believes that some bodies wish to hide the reality of matchfixing.
Speaking in October 2014, Tebas said: "... there are also some important institutions that want to hide the problem. Our integrity department in La Liga, for example, last weekend detected matchfixing activity in the third division. We detected the problem and communicated it to the responsible authority, but they chose to hide it, probably because they don't want to recognise that this problem exists, even in the lower division."
Other sports successfully implemented video technology without the fabric of the competitive event being blown apart - tennis, rugby league, rugby union, horseracing, athletics, cricket etc.
So why did football drag its feet for so long and why has the implementation been so prone to disaster?
Which members of IFAB voted against the proposal to implement VAR?
Who stood to lose and gain from the delay?
Well, this last question is a suitable starting point.
The entities that gained from lack of video technology were, in no particular order of merit - UEFA, FIFA, the Premier League, corrupt referees, corrupt bookmakers, insider gamblers, underground criminalised betting markets, global mafia groups, corrupt football agents, dodgy committee men...
... while the losers were the fans, the integrity of the game, those within the sport outside the corrupt inner loops and, interestingly, the broadcasters who end up overpaying for television rights on illegitimate events.
Former UEFA president, Michel Platini, performed a U-turn on video technology.
There were four reasons - the European body were utilising grey corruption via match officials to offset the criminalities of matchfixing operations targeting UEFA events which was not a sustainable strategy, the power base of the allegedly disbanded G14(18) group, the successful marketing of tournament spectacles and the critical nature of television money.
The latter two points also apply to FIFA although the inaction at the global body is more closely linked to the interests of those involved in matchfixing.
In 2015, we wrote the following:
The Premier League and pgMOB do not want video technology in English football. Furthermore, they do not support the elements of the FA that are calling for the implementation.The EPL have been undermining the role of the national association since inception and reached a nadir when buffoon Sir Dave Richards performed as Scudamore's rottweiler destabiliser at the governing body.
pgMOB referees earn a few grand a week for officiating on matches that can have global betting turnover of £5bn. In some seasons, the core group of pgMOB has been comprised of just 15 individuals who officiate at nearly 95% of EPL matches (including all the high betting volume televised events) and are frequently present as 4th officials at other games. This structure is primed for corruption.
Additionally, one individual who hides in the shadows selects referees for all EPL games.
One man!
Former leading referees Graham Poll and Keith Hackett have lacerated the current standard of pgMOB refs with the latter finally successful in having Mike Riley removed from leadership of the body. He also demanded that 5 officials stood down.
Hackett stated: "If [a manager] is at the bottom of the league then his job is at risk. At this moment in time he [Riley] is more than bottom. I am seeing a regression. The performances of the referees are not acceptable. He must carry the responsibility".
And the reaction to criticism of referees is Stalinist. Most managers (with honourable exceptions of Jose Mourinho and Steve Bruce) have learnt that it is preferable not to articulate concerns over refereeing integrity as the body politic merely dumps more negative controversy on managers who step out of line.
The Stalinism continues with media silence, no post-match ref interviews, hush money paid at end of referee's careers, no public ratings from internal assessments and generally no punishment for miscreants.
Additionally, since the beginning of season 2013/14 and up to the introduction of VAR, all match officials were miked up to a secretive network which we will term the Premier League Match Centre. All kick offs were coincident and referees were aided (or abetted) by other unknown officials with access to television replays. This resulted in numerous match decisions being delayed while a decision was made and, more disturbingly, the key match decisions were often consolidated by an invisible operative away from the ground.
Three points.
Firstly, this was illegal under the Laws of the Game.
Secondly, to what template were the decisions being made if made under such secrecy?
Thirdly, the outcome was disastrous for the brand. The EPL descended into fraudulent farce when VAR eventually arrived.
The corruption in the SPFL is less mature than in the EPL and has largely gravitated around the Hugh Dallas dynasty of bias in favour of Glasgow Rangers.
Rogue football agent John Colquhoun informed me in 2008 that Dallas had two underlings being trained up to continue his good work...
... how apt that a decade later Colquhoun exhibits the equivalent abusive power in England as well as controlling the Head of VAR Neil Swarbrick.
Furthermore, from 2003, Angel Maria Villar Llona, the Spanish FIFA vice-President and Chairman of the Referees' Committee, was involved in IFAB meetings.
That was until July 2017 when Llona and four others were arrested following an investigation into the finances of the Spanish federations after raids on the Royal Spanish Football Federations (RFEF) headquarters.
He resigned his position at RFEF and UEFA.
It is surely of relevance to the whole discussion that Javier Tebas, the Spanish La Liga president, (not a man to whom integrity comes naturally) believes that some bodies wish to hide the reality of matchfixing.
Speaking in October 2014, Tebas said: "... there are also some important institutions that want to hide the problem. Our integrity department in La Liga, for example, last weekend detected matchfixing activity in the third division. We detected the problem and communicated it to the responsible authority, but they chose to hide it, probably because they don't want to recognise that this problem exists, even in the lower division."
Other sports successfully implemented video technology without the fabric of the competitive event being blown apart - tennis, rugby league, rugby union, horseracing, athletics, cricket etc.
So why did football drag its feet for so long and why has the implementation been so prone to disaster?
Which members of IFAB voted against the proposal to implement VAR?
Who stood to lose and gain from the delay?
Well, this last question is a suitable starting point.
The entities that gained from lack of video technology were, in no particular order of merit - UEFA, FIFA, the Premier League, corrupt referees, corrupt bookmakers, insider gamblers, underground criminalised betting markets, global mafia groups, corrupt football agents, dodgy committee men...
... while the losers were the fans, the integrity of the game, those within the sport outside the corrupt inner loops and, interestingly, the broadcasters who end up overpaying for television rights on illegitimate events.
Former UEFA president, Michel Platini, performed a U-turn on video technology.
There were four reasons - the European body were utilising grey corruption via match officials to offset the criminalities of matchfixing operations targeting UEFA events which was not a sustainable strategy, the power base of the allegedly disbanded G14(18) group, the successful marketing of tournament spectacles and the critical nature of television money.
The latter two points also apply to FIFA although the inaction at the global body is more closely linked to the interests of those involved in matchfixing.
In 2015, we wrote the following:
The Premier League and pgMOB do not want video technology in English football. Furthermore, they do not support the elements of the FA that are calling for the implementation.The EPL have been undermining the role of the national association since inception and reached a nadir when buffoon Sir Dave Richards performed as Scudamore's rottweiler destabiliser at the governing body.
pgMOB referees earn a few grand a week for officiating on matches that can have global betting turnover of £5bn. In some seasons, the core group of pgMOB has been comprised of just 15 individuals who officiate at nearly 95% of EPL matches (including all the high betting volume televised events) and are frequently present as 4th officials at other games. This structure is primed for corruption.
Additionally, one individual who hides in the shadows selects referees for all EPL games.
One man!
Former leading referees Graham Poll and Keith Hackett have lacerated the current standard of pgMOB refs with the latter finally successful in having Mike Riley removed from leadership of the body. He also demanded that 5 officials stood down.
Hackett stated: "If [a manager] is at the bottom of the league then his job is at risk. At this moment in time he [Riley] is more than bottom. I am seeing a regression. The performances of the referees are not acceptable. He must carry the responsibility".
And the reaction to criticism of referees is Stalinist. Most managers (with honourable exceptions of Jose Mourinho and Steve Bruce) have learnt that it is preferable not to articulate concerns over refereeing integrity as the body politic merely dumps more negative controversy on managers who step out of line.
The Stalinism continues with media silence, no post-match ref interviews, hush money paid at end of referee's careers, no public ratings from internal assessments and generally no punishment for miscreants.
Additionally, since the beginning of season 2013/14 and up to the introduction of VAR, all match officials were miked up to a secretive network which we will term the Premier League Match Centre. All kick offs were coincident and referees were aided (or abetted) by other unknown officials with access to television replays. This resulted in numerous match decisions being delayed while a decision was made and, more disturbingly, the key match decisions were often consolidated by an invisible operative away from the ground.
Three points.
Firstly, this was illegal under the Laws of the Game.
Secondly, to what template were the decisions being made if made under such secrecy?
Thirdly, the outcome was disastrous for the brand. The EPL descended into fraudulent farce when VAR eventually arrived.
No other country had such problems with initiating the technology.
In a desperate attempt to keep fans on message, the mainstream media entirely ignores matchfixing in England despite journalists getting some of their leaks / stories from individuals who are orchestrating this very matchfixing.
The television pundits are worse!
Lee Dixon, Mark Lawrensen and Robbie Savage work for bookmakers, Danny Murphy is close to a matchfixing agent, Michael Owen used to be bookie for the England team (linked to Goldchip private bookmakers), Steve McManaman was a business associate of money laundering fraudster Carson Yeung and David James is, well, David James.
In a desperate attempt to keep fans on message, the mainstream media entirely ignores matchfixing in England despite journalists getting some of their leaks / stories from individuals who are orchestrating this very matchfixing.
The television pundits are worse!
Lee Dixon, Mark Lawrensen and Robbie Savage work for bookmakers, Danny Murphy is close to a matchfixing agent, Michael Owen used to be bookie for the England team (linked to Goldchip private bookmakers), Steve McManaman was a business associate of money laundering fraudster Carson Yeung and David James is, well, David James.
Key Sports / Wasserman and all SWUC agents are hugely over-represented in the television studios.
An interesting impact of the Dutch experiment with VAR in 2013/14 was that the volatility of outcome would have diminished markedly if the video ref had been able to overrule the match referee. Think about that. The price set by the global marketplace on a game is more accurate once integrity is reintroduced via taking power away from the referee.
This period of delay was utilised by those corrupting the English game to consolidate the structure enabling referee, 4th Official and VAR Official to 'control' the outcomes of future matches. This was achieved initially by referees illegally receiving 'information' over their headphones from the Premier League Match Centre and became robust under Swarbrick as the Premier League has developed the most questionable version of VAR on the planet.
An interesting impact of the Dutch experiment with VAR in 2013/14 was that the volatility of outcome would have diminished markedly if the video ref had been able to overrule the match referee. Think about that. The price set by the global marketplace on a game is more accurate once integrity is reintroduced via taking power away from the referee.
This period of delay was utilised by those corrupting the English game to consolidate the structure enabling referee, 4th Official and VAR Official to 'control' the outcomes of future matches. This was achieved initially by referees illegally receiving 'information' over their headphones from the Premier League Match Centre and became robust under Swarbrick as the Premier League has developed the most questionable version of VAR on the planet.
Largely ignored by the mainstream media was the fact that Howard Webb removed Swarbrick from Head of VAR soon after his arrival to replace the bullied and inept Mike 'Kipper' Riley - he's two-faced, he's slippery and he stinks.
At the time of IFAB delaying the introduction of VAR, Jerome Valcke, the secretary general of FIFA, stated: "Is there a risk the referee will not be as strong as he is today?"
At the time of IFAB delaying the introduction of VAR, Jerome Valcke, the secretary general of FIFA, stated: "Is there a risk the referee will not be as strong as he is today?"
Personally, mate, I go to watch a game of football, not a strong referee.
Within months Valcke had been arrested as part of FIFAgate and was sacked on January 13th 2016.
No shit.
Another crook bites the dust.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Corruption In A Depression
Jean Baudrillard: "In the same way that Nietzsche spoke of the vital illusion of appearances, we might speak of a vital function of corruption in society. The principle of corruption is illegitimate, it cannot be made official and hence it can only operate in secret"
Disaster capitalism thrives on systemic chaos.
And fake constructs (like Project Restart) are the bezzle.
Most big book-cooking scandals occur in downturns but only the black swan extremities sponsor outright fraud and matchfixing. Other entities focus more on psychic wealth and grey area activities.
But criminals everywhere realised that the covid-19 pandemic was the perfect platform to do outrageous things safe in the obscurity provided by a lack of regulation and institutional policing, while public attention was focused elsewhere on dying relatives.
False information is produced by a captured media - consider how little mainstream media attention has been given to AFC Bournemouth being relegated from the Premier League based on an alleged failure of Hawkeye or on how Manchester United got all those dubious penalties en route to their guaranteed Champions League spot for 2020/21.
Why the mainstream media silence?
In parallel, these same media entities attempt to suppress "fake news" by which they usually mean "honest criticism". This effective censorship of reality blocks the flow of real information hence frustrating an evidence-based response to Premier League irregularities.
This allows corruption to thrive.
Corruption suppression doesn't only exist in the media but in academia too.
J.B.S. Haldane: "I began to realise that even if the professors leave politics alone, politics won't leave the professors alone."
Academic enhancing of corruption together with related disinformation is a prize worth paying.
In 1995, Professor Neville Topham (then at the Centre for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at Salford University) told me how he had managed to prove that house prices directly under the flight paths at Heathrow Airport increased more than in the surrounding area.
It was a lie. But an economics professor from the Institute of Directors using econometrics can prove anything so long as the consultancy fee and public gullibility is high enough.
When corruption operates under the radar of public perception, the visible outliers of the corrupted reality must be explained away by fake media or fake academia. This is the zeitgeist of corruption - the gap between a corrupt reality and the public perception of that reality. If there had been proper scrutiny of Project Restart, the fans would have gravitated towards a realisation of the actual level of systemic corruption rather than being held at arms length in their bewildered befuddlement.
The more extreme the corruption, the more extreme the efforts to hide it.
And these manipulations become currency within the sport as it is impossible to compete against cartels and systemic corruption without entering the grey market arena in self-defence.
So Manchester City, who were incredibly harshly treated by UEFA, the allegedly disbanded G14(18) grouping of elite European teams, the Premier League and the British media (particularly via the Guardian's incredibly dodgy association with 'Football Leaks' and the blackmailing Rui Pinto) had to perform their own contortions to protect their "brand" which was being maliciously tarnished.
We have been informed by a very senior and reliable source that Manchester City had added leverage in their relations with the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) and were consequently assured of the UEFA nonsense being overturned. Safe in this knowledge, City 'set up' some captured journalists for an authenticity collapse - Tariq Panja's desperate folly being a particularly well-targeted bullseye.
If you are going to live by the blunt sword, you are going to die by a razor sharp one.
When dealing with extreme corruption infrastructures, moral clarity becomes more important than objectivity - as the continuum has shifted so that corruption is the norm, the discussion needs to exclude input from the corrupt operatives. Their output is just noise.
Wesley Lowery has demonstrated that the same structure exists on the political spectrum as virtually all politics is on the right. So although the new UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is portrayed as soft-left by the mainstream media, he is actually a right wing neo-liberal Blairite who is undoubtedly part of the problem rather than any essence of the cure. His utterings have no holistic validity.
Another crook bites the dust.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Corruption In A Depression
Jean Baudrillard: "In the same way that Nietzsche spoke of the vital illusion of appearances, we might speak of a vital function of corruption in society. The principle of corruption is illegitimate, it cannot be made official and hence it can only operate in secret"
Disaster capitalism thrives on systemic chaos.
And fake constructs (like Project Restart) are the bezzle.
Most big book-cooking scandals occur in downturns but only the black swan extremities sponsor outright fraud and matchfixing. Other entities focus more on psychic wealth and grey area activities.
But criminals everywhere realised that the covid-19 pandemic was the perfect platform to do outrageous things safe in the obscurity provided by a lack of regulation and institutional policing, while public attention was focused elsewhere on dying relatives.
False information is produced by a captured media - consider how little mainstream media attention has been given to AFC Bournemouth being relegated from the Premier League based on an alleged failure of Hawkeye or on how Manchester United got all those dubious penalties en route to their guaranteed Champions League spot for 2020/21.
Why the mainstream media silence?
In parallel, these same media entities attempt to suppress "fake news" by which they usually mean "honest criticism". This effective censorship of reality blocks the flow of real information hence frustrating an evidence-based response to Premier League irregularities.
This allows corruption to thrive.
Corruption suppression doesn't only exist in the media but in academia too.
J.B.S. Haldane: "I began to realise that even if the professors leave politics alone, politics won't leave the professors alone."
Academic enhancing of corruption together with related disinformation is a prize worth paying.
In 1995, Professor Neville Topham (then at the Centre for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at Salford University) told me how he had managed to prove that house prices directly under the flight paths at Heathrow Airport increased more than in the surrounding area.
It was a lie. But an economics professor from the Institute of Directors using econometrics can prove anything so long as the consultancy fee and public gullibility is high enough.
When corruption operates under the radar of public perception, the visible outliers of the corrupted reality must be explained away by fake media or fake academia. This is the zeitgeist of corruption - the gap between a corrupt reality and the public perception of that reality. If there had been proper scrutiny of Project Restart, the fans would have gravitated towards a realisation of the actual level of systemic corruption rather than being held at arms length in their bewildered befuddlement.
The more extreme the corruption, the more extreme the efforts to hide it.
And these manipulations become currency within the sport as it is impossible to compete against cartels and systemic corruption without entering the grey market arena in self-defence.
So Manchester City, who were incredibly harshly treated by UEFA, the allegedly disbanded G14(18) grouping of elite European teams, the Premier League and the British media (particularly via the Guardian's incredibly dodgy association with 'Football Leaks' and the blackmailing Rui Pinto) had to perform their own contortions to protect their "brand" which was being maliciously tarnished.
We have been informed by a very senior and reliable source that Manchester City had added leverage in their relations with the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) and were consequently assured of the UEFA nonsense being overturned. Safe in this knowledge, City 'set up' some captured journalists for an authenticity collapse - Tariq Panja's desperate folly being a particularly well-targeted bullseye.
If you are going to live by the blunt sword, you are going to die by a razor sharp one.
When dealing with extreme corruption infrastructures, moral clarity becomes more important than objectivity - as the continuum has shifted so that corruption is the norm, the discussion needs to exclude input from the corrupt operatives. Their output is just noise.
Wesley Lowery has demonstrated that the same structure exists on the political spectrum as virtually all politics is on the right. So although the new UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is portrayed as soft-left by the mainstream media, he is actually a right wing neo-liberal Blairite who is undoubtedly part of the problem rather than any essence of the cure. His utterings have no holistic validity.
He is one of only five Britons who have been invited to be a member of the undemocratic and neo-liberal Trilateral Commission, for example.
Those who choose to undertake whistleblowing to expose corruption stand true to the words of Roland Tapsoba: "After effort, there is comfort. After sweat, there is happiness. If life doesn't end, there is no despair. Take courage... In jail, you might feel hungry or have needs, but those are physical needs. In your mind the main priority is to get free, to go beyond the gate."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Sufficient Reason For The Roll Of A Dice (Agra, India, 1611)
Anthony Aguirre: "While technically forbidden, gambling was still loosely tolerated in the court of Jahangir, and your recollections of Cardano's unpublished book on games of chance makes you feel that you should have the edge in games of dice. However, luck has not been with you, and you've started to complain loudly about your poor rolls. The stakes have gotten high... What does cause the roll of a die? The number that comes up does not appear to be truly random, but rather the result of innumerable and complex causes - the angle of your hand, the exact speed imparted, the texture of the floor, and so on - that conspire to make the roll difficult to predict. Your time with the djinn, however, has largely convinced you that, while difficult, predicting the roll of a die is not impossible... But for the Universe - or Allah, or the djinn - the die is as good as cast, and there is a 100% probability of a particular outcome. If only you could know what it is! You console yourself with the fact that your gambling companions are just as limited, and that you are not gambling with the djinn, which would be a hopeless prospect... Could there be a die that not even the djinn could predict? Perhaps. But what about God? Or the Universe? Could there be a chain of causation that starts with no cause?"
Is it possible for an event to exist without a cause? There are many sporting events that we cannot predict and yet these events are statistically predictable without corruption. Take an each of two end-of-season match where neither team has anything to play for so that the fixed odds market offers 2/1 on home, draw and away (assuming a 100% book). In a legitimate match, each outcome has a 33.3% chance of occurring (making the further assumptions that the betting market is efficient and all of the information is in the price) - if the match were played a thousand times, home, away and draw would be represented by these odds. Hence the theory of probability is utilised to assign probabilities to events that we cannot predict.
But do insiders know more?
It is clear that there are reasons for a particular match outcome and there are algorithms and artificial intelligence working to predict these outcomes on behalf of their operators.
Consider the global betting markets (public, privileged or private). Analytics of the betting patterns and insider trading, the intermarket analyses and bespoke fundamentals, combined with a developed computer simulation of all inputs, would be sufficient to judge the match outcome with great accuracy. Let's project that these analyses suggest a fixed match.
It would be foolish to bet against such a holistic model and, in systemic corruption templates, considerable profits may be yielded by simply mimicking the corrupt insider trading.
Such market analytics create two issues. Firstly, what happened to home, away and draw having equal probability? This is evidently not a market reality in a corrupted match. And, secondly, who originally decided that home, away and draw were equally likely?
The simulator trading model includes all relevant inputs to the outcome and, for example, in our each-of-two event this model might predict a draw as the most likely result.
But a robust model does not stop here because, even in a perfect trading model, each input has an associated uncertainty. As one cannot test the model over and over again (the match, after all, is a unique occurrence), the model must be run multiple times using the full array of variability present in the initial data and measurements. So, for example, we might be 95% certain that neither team is doping but we would still be required to run the model based on the 1-in-20 chance that one (or both) of the teams are drugged up. This leads the simulations of the football match to potentially varied match results.
The trading model is, however, able to collate the range of possible outcomes via repeatedly running the simulation and this may be translated into a continuum of probabilities. For instance, our model might say that the chances of a home victory are 4%, an away victory 3% and a draw 93%. This is valuable analytics towards the match being an agreed draw in comparison to the other feasible outcomes.
Looking again at the 2/1 2/1 2/1 market - who decided that each outcome was equivalently likely? The market-makers who establish the early markets in the underground have incomplete information to form the market. Their initial knowledge is based on their own particular internal analytics and their access to early inside information. But, as the market develops pre-match, new information solves unknown unknowns while some known knowns become problematic and may well transpose the market to a draw being 93% likely.
No bookmaker will price this event to its true probabilities for two reasons - firstly, it discloses to the public that the match is rigged as an agreed draw and, secondly, if one bookie were to price up at 93% the draw while the majority of the others, say, chose 35% or 40% the draw then there is a corruption incentive to exploit the 93% stance by re-fixing the match to a new template. After all, in competitive terms, the match is largely irrelevant with neither team having anything sporting to play for. Consequently, in reality, bookmakers shorten the odds on a draw in such an event but only to the degree that doesn't offer cornered market opportunities to their rival companies.
This is a solid proof of why corrupted betting markets are not efficient.
It is also why corrupted matches are so profitable to criminals - getting 2/1 on an option that should have been 1/14 is quite the trading edge.
If you are a leisure bettor, you are potentially trading against an opponent who not only has greater holographic overview of all the inputs to the event but also insists on a transaction cost or margin or overround percentage to tilt the table further against your interests.
And, on top of that, even if you develop an equivalent or superior trading model to those utilised by the bookies and develop a winning account, it will be closed as it is not in the economic interests of bookmakers to hand money out to people who are merely telling them what they already know.
Offer them unique insider information, however...
A corrupted event that is totally robust (i.e. both teams and the match officials are 'in' on the fix) operates at near 100% probability - see the Aston Villa / Sheffield United / Hawkeye EPL match mentioned previously.
100% likelihood can never be achieved though in a sport like football. What if the referee injures himself in pre-match warm-up or the corrupted goalkeeper arrives coked up to his eyeballs or very extreme weather undermines all the fundamentals or there is a cartel of market operators who intend taking control of the match in-running or at half time?
Although in a football match 100% likelihood is not valid in practice, it is an option in principle. But corruption isn't physics and bookmakers aren't the djinn. However, although difficult, the ultimate 100% trade is what matchfixers seek and such probabilistic effect cannot be conceived without a cause.
Of course, there are specific inputs that can create this 100% e.g. if a draw would see both sides reach the Champions League while any other result would only see one of the teams progress or games that are contracted pre-season as 3-for-3 or 2-for-2 events i.e. it is legally binding to share points over the season (or even over a longer timescale).
There is an equivalent here to the quantum state of a physical system - all the solid information that the entire market and all key participants have to share. Born's rule provides a clear mathematical description for the probability of each quantum state before the measurement is made providing us with a total knowledge of the event. Yet quantum reality does not work like our original computer model.
In quantum mechanics, this is explained by superposition and Schrodinger's equation which takes the initial state of a system and offers a prediction of how the system will evolve.
Both our original model and the quantum simulation lead to uncertainties in outcome. But these uncertainties are quite different. The quantum system does not necessarily solve the question of interest while the trading model is uncertain because of the initial condition and the ensuing dynamics with this uncertainty increasing over time.
But the matchfixers in football have become more powerful than the djinn.
All other fundamental and non-core inputs are suppressed by the overarching power and rottenness of the corrupted inputs to the fixed match.
Systemic corruption is more absolute than analytical probability or quantum mechanics.
Those who choose to undertake whistleblowing to expose corruption stand true to the words of Roland Tapsoba: "After effort, there is comfort. After sweat, there is happiness. If life doesn't end, there is no despair. Take courage... In jail, you might feel hungry or have needs, but those are physical needs. In your mind the main priority is to get free, to go beyond the gate."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Sufficient Reason For The Roll Of A Dice (Agra, India, 1611)
Anthony Aguirre: "While technically forbidden, gambling was still loosely tolerated in the court of Jahangir, and your recollections of Cardano's unpublished book on games of chance makes you feel that you should have the edge in games of dice. However, luck has not been with you, and you've started to complain loudly about your poor rolls. The stakes have gotten high... What does cause the roll of a die? The number that comes up does not appear to be truly random, but rather the result of innumerable and complex causes - the angle of your hand, the exact speed imparted, the texture of the floor, and so on - that conspire to make the roll difficult to predict. Your time with the djinn, however, has largely convinced you that, while difficult, predicting the roll of a die is not impossible... But for the Universe - or Allah, or the djinn - the die is as good as cast, and there is a 100% probability of a particular outcome. If only you could know what it is! You console yourself with the fact that your gambling companions are just as limited, and that you are not gambling with the djinn, which would be a hopeless prospect... Could there be a die that not even the djinn could predict? Perhaps. But what about God? Or the Universe? Could there be a chain of causation that starts with no cause?"
Is it possible for an event to exist without a cause? There are many sporting events that we cannot predict and yet these events are statistically predictable without corruption. Take an each of two end-of-season match where neither team has anything to play for so that the fixed odds market offers 2/1 on home, draw and away (assuming a 100% book). In a legitimate match, each outcome has a 33.3% chance of occurring (making the further assumptions that the betting market is efficient and all of the information is in the price) - if the match were played a thousand times, home, away and draw would be represented by these odds. Hence the theory of probability is utilised to assign probabilities to events that we cannot predict.
But do insiders know more?
It is clear that there are reasons for a particular match outcome and there are algorithms and artificial intelligence working to predict these outcomes on behalf of their operators.
Consider the global betting markets (public, privileged or private). Analytics of the betting patterns and insider trading, the intermarket analyses and bespoke fundamentals, combined with a developed computer simulation of all inputs, would be sufficient to judge the match outcome with great accuracy. Let's project that these analyses suggest a fixed match.
It would be foolish to bet against such a holistic model and, in systemic corruption templates, considerable profits may be yielded by simply mimicking the corrupt insider trading.
Such market analytics create two issues. Firstly, what happened to home, away and draw having equal probability? This is evidently not a market reality in a corrupted match. And, secondly, who originally decided that home, away and draw were equally likely?
The simulator trading model includes all relevant inputs to the outcome and, for example, in our each-of-two event this model might predict a draw as the most likely result.
But a robust model does not stop here because, even in a perfect trading model, each input has an associated uncertainty. As one cannot test the model over and over again (the match, after all, is a unique occurrence), the model must be run multiple times using the full array of variability present in the initial data and measurements. So, for example, we might be 95% certain that neither team is doping but we would still be required to run the model based on the 1-in-20 chance that one (or both) of the teams are drugged up. This leads the simulations of the football match to potentially varied match results.
The trading model is, however, able to collate the range of possible outcomes via repeatedly running the simulation and this may be translated into a continuum of probabilities. For instance, our model might say that the chances of a home victory are 4%, an away victory 3% and a draw 93%. This is valuable analytics towards the match being an agreed draw in comparison to the other feasible outcomes.
Looking again at the 2/1 2/1 2/1 market - who decided that each outcome was equivalently likely? The market-makers who establish the early markets in the underground have incomplete information to form the market. Their initial knowledge is based on their own particular internal analytics and their access to early inside information. But, as the market develops pre-match, new information solves unknown unknowns while some known knowns become problematic and may well transpose the market to a draw being 93% likely.
No bookmaker will price this event to its true probabilities for two reasons - firstly, it discloses to the public that the match is rigged as an agreed draw and, secondly, if one bookie were to price up at 93% the draw while the majority of the others, say, chose 35% or 40% the draw then there is a corruption incentive to exploit the 93% stance by re-fixing the match to a new template. After all, in competitive terms, the match is largely irrelevant with neither team having anything sporting to play for. Consequently, in reality, bookmakers shorten the odds on a draw in such an event but only to the degree that doesn't offer cornered market opportunities to their rival companies.
This is a solid proof of why corrupted betting markets are not efficient.
It is also why corrupted matches are so profitable to criminals - getting 2/1 on an option that should have been 1/14 is quite the trading edge.
If you are a leisure bettor, you are potentially trading against an opponent who not only has greater holographic overview of all the inputs to the event but also insists on a transaction cost or margin or overround percentage to tilt the table further against your interests.
And, on top of that, even if you develop an equivalent or superior trading model to those utilised by the bookies and develop a winning account, it will be closed as it is not in the economic interests of bookmakers to hand money out to people who are merely telling them what they already know.
Offer them unique insider information, however...
A corrupted event that is totally robust (i.e. both teams and the match officials are 'in' on the fix) operates at near 100% probability - see the Aston Villa / Sheffield United / Hawkeye EPL match mentioned previously.
100% likelihood can never be achieved though in a sport like football. What if the referee injures himself in pre-match warm-up or the corrupted goalkeeper arrives coked up to his eyeballs or very extreme weather undermines all the fundamentals or there is a cartel of market operators who intend taking control of the match in-running or at half time?
Although in a football match 100% likelihood is not valid in practice, it is an option in principle. But corruption isn't physics and bookmakers aren't the djinn. However, although difficult, the ultimate 100% trade is what matchfixers seek and such probabilistic effect cannot be conceived without a cause.
Of course, there are specific inputs that can create this 100% e.g. if a draw would see both sides reach the Champions League while any other result would only see one of the teams progress or games that are contracted pre-season as 3-for-3 or 2-for-2 events i.e. it is legally binding to share points over the season (or even over a longer timescale).
There is an equivalent here to the quantum state of a physical system - all the solid information that the entire market and all key participants have to share. Born's rule provides a clear mathematical description for the probability of each quantum state before the measurement is made providing us with a total knowledge of the event. Yet quantum reality does not work like our original computer model.
In quantum mechanics, this is explained by superposition and Schrodinger's equation which takes the initial state of a system and offers a prediction of how the system will evolve.
Both our original model and the quantum simulation lead to uncertainties in outcome. But these uncertainties are quite different. The quantum system does not necessarily solve the question of interest while the trading model is uncertain because of the initial condition and the ensuing dynamics with this uncertainty increasing over time.
But the matchfixers in football have become more powerful than the djinn.
All other fundamental and non-core inputs are suppressed by the overarching power and rottenness of the corrupted inputs to the fixed match.
Systemic corruption is more absolute than analytical probability or quantum mechanics.
Related to this is the ongoing conversation in cosmology between Platonists and Intuitionists.
The former would argue (and I would agree but only partially) that the Mandelbrot Set is absolute in nature - the beautiful Mandelbrot patterns exist regardless of the observer or the machine being used to observe.
Both Godel and Penrose were / are Platonists.
Intuitionists (also known as Finitists), on the other hand, go to the other extreme and refuse to accept the existence of any finite set whatever. This angle goes all the way back to Aristotle who, entertainingly, was Plato's pupil.
Roger Penrose: "I have made no secret of the fact that my sympathies lie strongly with the Platonistic view that mathematical truth is absolute, external, and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria; and that mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own, not dependent on human society nor on particular physical objects."
Max Tegmark (in his superb book 'Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest For The Ultimate Nature Of Reality') takes this further and claims that the multiverse is to a large extent based on mathematics.
"What the fuck is he on about", I can hear you say?
Financial markets are based around two interacting continua - the degree of efficiency of the market (the extent to which all of the information relevant to a price is actually included in the assessment of that price), and market maturity (the stage of market development that allows efficiency to become strong-form).
In a mature and efficient market, no trader should be able to profit as the market price is correct and offers no value to traders.
This is the Platonist reality.
One of the reasons that economics and market analytics are not scientific is that they are absolutely not Platonist.
An example.
As market sectors mature, they always evolve towards one or more of several constructs - monopoly, duopoly, cartel, fragmented cartel, organised crime...
The behavioural human inputs contort the reality of the market away from Platonism and towards an Intuitionism that means, to achieve value in the market via trading, one must develop a Counter-intuitive Intuitionism to profit.
In reality, corruptions (both particular and systemic) distort the efficiency of markets allowing skilled professionals to beat the market without access to the inside information that monopolies, duopolies, cartels and mafia rely on for their unsophisticated edge.
So.
In the biggest shock at Qatar 2022, the market reckoned Argentina were around 90% certain to beat Saudi Arabia.
I priced the market at Argentina +0.85 which equates to approximately a 60% probability of the favourites winning.
As we have demonstrated above - take the example of a bookmaker / market maker who knows that Argentina's price is stupidly short. If this entity were to price the event at its real price, corruption would be applied to massacre this entity in the marketplace - in effect, the entity would be punished for being very correct.
The optimal strategy to our entity would be to price up at 88% probability to attract losing trades without alerting the corrupting monster at the heart of the market.
This is the manner in which corrupt markets remain inefficient because all of the information is not in the price.
This World Cup is presenting a whole array of events where this reality is the stage on which the sport is set.
And as an aside, I am not convinced that the multiverse is solely a mathematical construct either.
This will be covered in Book Two of our trilogy.
John Dalberg-Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
_________________________________________________________________________________Thomas Moore:
How oft a cloud, with envious veil,
Obscures yon bashful light,
Which seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of night!
'Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs
Obscure with malice keen
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.
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© 2023 Football is Fixed
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