Death And The Fix
Football Is Fixed Network: "Football Is Fixed operate as a cellular network. We use the Iceberg Effect. We release 5% of our analytics and any information made available to us. We retain 95% for strategic defence. In extremis, we recuse ourselves and operatives will ensure full publication"
Manus manum lavat.
On October 16th 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated as a result of her investigative journalism revealing that Malta had evolved into a mafia state.
Known as the "one-woman Wikileaks", Caruana Galizia had tirelessly exposed corruption on the crime island for three decades, and she continued on with her work even after receiving the first threats on her life in 1996. Two weeks prior to her death, Caruana Galizia had filed a complaint to police after receiving further threats to her safety.
Daphne was that most-feared creature of our contemporary world of anti-corruption, a solitary decider.
Her final blog entry read: "There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate."
Her death changes everything.
Her life was not for nothing.
On the day prior to her murder, Neville Gafa (of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's office) had followed Caruana Galizia's vehicle around the island photographing her with the resultant images appearing on Facebook. Despite this malicious stalking being reported to the police, no action was taken.
The fact that at the time of her death there was a linked array of possible perpetrators - intermediaries - orchestrators (most leading back to the then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and / or the business magnate Yorgen Fenech) only served to show how the state of Malta had become a state of mafia.
Cigarette smuggling from Cyprus, rogue bookmakers backed by Italian crime syndicates, matchfixing of games across Europe, the selling of EU "golden passports" to global criminals, abuses of footballer third party ownership schemes, diesel smuggling from Libya, systemic corruption in sports and in land deals, the state was (and is) rotten to the core.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was one of the lead journalists analysing the Panama Papers which revealed extensive offshore tax evasion by our global elite at just one offshore operation Mossack Fonseca.
Among those exposed were numerous senior figures in Maltese business and politics including Prime Minister Muscat, Schembri and former health and energy minister Konrad Mizzi. For example, Muscat's wife is the beneficial owner of a company in Panama and large sums of money were moved between there and the Aliyev proto-fascist state of Azerbaijan while senior members of the Labour Party had money hidden through a web of companies in Panama and trusts in New Zealand.
Caruana Galizia's final blog post focused on Schembri and the former leader of the opposition Simon Busuttil.
These leaders are responsible for the development of these gruesome conditions.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung: "Multinational companies are passing on profits to their Maltese subsidiaries, which then pretend to be doing business on the island. But in fact, all they do there is pay less tax ('letterbox companies'). According to calculations by the newspaper Malta Today, those European member states in which the profits were really generated lose 3.5 to 4 billion euros a year in taxes because of this system... Unconditional discretion and sedated bureaucracy: that is what protects the very special holiday paradises like Malta."
Malign and criminal interests have turned Malta into this mafia state...
... a mafia state tax haven within the EU.
It is a strange state of affairs when the EU offers subsidies to a member state which deprives other member states of tax revenues.
Much Italian mafia activity relating to money laundering has been exported to the island in recent years following numerous crackdowns by the authorities in Italy. There were 15 mafia style assassinations and car bombings in the decade prior to Caruana Galizia's murder.
The Maltese government offered a one million euro reward and full protection for anybody with information regarding this murder although why any sane human being would trust the words of these state charlatans is another matter entirely. Matthew Caruana Galizia (one of Daphne's three sons) didn't trust the police to properly investigate her death stating "... there has been a takedown of the rule of law here. There has been a capture of the state by corrupt and criminal corporations. The institutions do not work. There is a climate of impunity." Another son Paul adds that "if the government don't want to be investigated, it won't be investigated."
Island locations have become the crime centres of choice for global mafia networks, money launderers and corruption merchants. Whether it is bookmakers in Singapore, Gibraltar, Isle of Man etc, or tax evasion in Jersey, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Isles etc, or the development of mafia client states in Cyprus and Malta etc, the island with its defined boundaries geographically, legally and financially is the ideal locus.
Aside from the heinous nature of this crime, Caruana Galizia's death should also serve as a warning to what is happening in numerous other EU countries where mafia are influencing the state.
In Sicily, Nino di Matteo unearthed collusion between the Cosa Nostra and deep levels of the Italian state and, as a consequence, is under armed protection 24/7 as mob boss Tito Riina (prior to his death in November 2017) had announced a death sentence from the safety of his jail cell.
The mafia never kills non-mafiosi just for vendetta. There is always another aim - to eliminate a person who has discovered something that must not be discovered. When a mafia infects a state, it is still the state that orders the murders. But the mafia, above all, is an entity that wishes to exhibit power in place of the state.
Malta has a population of 442,000 (about the same size as Kirklees in West Yorkshire) and yet has over 500 betting operations housed on the island. The betting sector is worth over a billion euros annually and represented 13.2% of GDP in 2019. Malta was the first country in Europe to ease the entry process for online gambling firms in 2004. According to Europol, the 'Ndrangheta uses this online betting hub for large scale money laundering related to their domination of the global cocaine trade.
Caruana Galizia: "Money launderers are being forced out of Italy's gaming market because regulation there has become so tight in the fight against organised crime."
In June 2017, as a result of research by Caruana Galizia, 1128Bet had their license suspended due to Italian mafia infiltration.
Previously, several members of the 'Ndrangheta were arrested in Malta in 2015 and extradited to Italy because they were caught laundering money through remote gaming companies.
Betuniq and BetSolution4U had their licenses suspended on July 22nd 2015 having been undertaking money laundering in Malta for four years. But these suspensions were only due to the actions of Italian police and not any Maltese authority. Two billion euros of assets were seized from the 'Ndrangheta.
In transcripts of telephone conversations between two Camorra clans, Bastian Dalli (the criminal brother of former Malta Cabinet Minister and European Commissioner John Dalli) is described as "the brother of the Maltese Prime Minister" and is named as the Camorra contact for Malta - "he is the one you should contact to set up a gaming company in Malta for money laundering purposes". In Italy, 1500 betting shops, 82 online gambling sites, 60 other companies and quantities of real estate were seized as evidence of this mafia-led tax evasion.
John Dalli's henchman Iosif Galea, a former employee of the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (a precursor to the Malta Gaming Authority) was the key official for BetSolutions4U. When this scandal broke he left the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) for a comfortable position within government.
A regulator was responsible for the corruption rather than working against it.
In November 2009, Italian police were closing in on Bet1128 in the UK. This company was owned by ParadiseBet. The family of Vito Martiradonna, who was convicted of being affiliated to Sacra Corona Unita in 2007, had hidden assets by taking advantage of Malta's lax online gambling regulations. ParadiseBet successfully sold 1128Bet and 11 other assets to Malta-based CenturionBet for £10 million - a figure that does not appear anywhere in ParadiseBet's accounts. Michele Martiradonna was the main shareholder in ParadiseBet and the sale of the assets left nothing in the UK for the police to seize.
Research by the Organised Crime and Corruption Research Project (OCCRP) showed that the Martiradonna family were linked to CenturionBet (and other related betting companies operating from the same Maltese address). CenturionBet's ownership moved repeatedly between different British Virgin Isles companies with the stated beneficial owner being Antonio Buontempo (a former employee of ParadiseBet).
In the summer of 2017, the licenses of CenturionBet and 1128Bet were finally suspended by the entirely inadequate MGA. Operation 'Jonny', an Italian anti-mafia sting carried out in May 2017, linked CenturionBet to the 'Ndrangheta who earned £1.3 million over 18 months after the betting company allowed access to its systems to Kroton Games (another 'Ndrangheta company) who successfully laundered huge amounts of money via the structure.
Bet1128 were a rogue company from their formation in 2008 and the strategy from day one was money laundering and the refusal to honour winning wagers by punters.
The laissez faire approach of the MGA has attracted all the usual major European betting firms to the island including Ladbrokes and Betfair. A SIGMA (Summit in I-Gaming in Malta) press release in 2014 gushed over the "... strategic confluence of financial, legal, technological and cultural factors which successive administrations moulded over the years, and which ultimately tipped the odds in favour of gaming companies deciding to locate here [in Malta]".
Time to focus a little bit more on Keith Schembri, the chief of staff to PM Joseph Muscat at the time of Daphne's killing. Schembri's remote gaming interests allowed him to channel gaming profits into secret companies in tax havens.
In April 2016, the Australian Financial Review focused on Schembri's links with gaming companies (as well as his involvement in Camorra and Cosa Nostra-backed recycling and waste management in India and Dubai - a favoured money laundering structure). Schembri completed a full house by the benefits he gained from 'Ndrangheta control of betting on the island.
A chief of staff in any government should not engage in business interests at all let alone interests linked to all three primary Italian mafia entities.
Daphne Caruana Galizia's exposure of Schembri was backed up by the Financial Investigation and Analysis Unit (FIAU), a Maltese government agency, which as a result of this support was left without a director for seven months hence halting all money laundering investigations against senior members of both the main political parties on the island. Under its previous director, Manfred Galdes, the FIAU had closely investigated Schembri and his secret offshore dealings in the British Virgin Isles, Gibraltar, Cyprus and Panama, and bank accounts in other territories. The illicit trusts were used, among other things, to launder money received as kickbacks from Russian mafia to gain Maltese passports (at a cost of 650,000 euros fee to Maltese government plus 150,000 euros invested in government bonds and purchase of a property of minimum value 350,000 euros).
After Galdes resigned, purely by chance, so did the Police Commissioner, the latter being replaced by a Muscat ally, Lawrence Cutajar.
Caruana Galizia: "... the chances that the police will do their duty in acting on the investigation results presented to them by the FIAU recede even further. At this point, it is safe to assume that there is a very high risk of the FIAU investigation report into the Prime Minister's chief of staff and Minister Konrad Mizzi, that is in the possession of the Police Commissioner, being destroyed or otherwise disposed of."
Claudio Antonelli and Gianluigi Nuzzi from their book 'Blood Ties: The Calabrian Mafia' interviewed former 'Ndrangheta member Pasquale Barreca about collusion between the Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and the state: "... the most important point remains the union between the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the Sicilian mafia in sending out these signals [requesting dialogue with the state]. Through interlocutors, including members of state organs, it is certainly possible to create the necessary mediation... In my day Cosa Nostra had far more power at the political level, without a doubt. Today that's no longer the case. The Calabrian bosses have found a way into the organs of government... the 'Ndrangheta has penetrated deep into the social, and even more the political, fabric, by consolidating the economic power it has gained."
Former Maltese international footballer Darren Debono (who played 52 times for his country) was arrested on Lampedusa relating to the diesel smuggling operation the day after Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder after having his phone tapped for two years by Italian authorities.
Debono played against England in a fixed Friendly International in 2000 (an England squad including Michael Owen, Steve McManaman, Robbie Fowler, Martin Keown, Phil and Gary Neville, and managed by Kevin Keegan). England won 2-1 in a non-trying event with keeper Richard Wright giving away two penalties. Wright is represented, unsurprisingly, by the Stellar Agency.
Daphne Caruana Galizia had proof that political, business and criminal elites are one and the same entity in Malta in much the same way as Football is Fixed would describe the systemic template undermining and corrupting British football - there are very senior members of government, rogue Deep State operators, mafia groups, tarnished or coerced individuals, certain businesses using mafia methods to garner market (and corruption) control, all interacting in an environment where the mainstream media actually helps to orchestrate the scam.
And all of these corrupted structures feed through to sport itself.
Take Juventus.
On September 25th 2017, Juventus club president Andrea Agnelli was banned for one year for selling tickets to hard-core ultras and admitted meeting Rocco Dominello (an 'Ndrangheta mafia man who has now been jailed for eight years). The revenue streams arising from the scalping of tickets went straight into Calabrian mafia coffers - the president of the Serie A champions profited a mafia entity.
Less than a month later, Juventus were proud to announce a regional sponsorship deal with SE Asian online betting firm F66.com.
And all this after the incredibly suspicious betting patterns linked to Juve's alleged underperformance in the Champions League Final against Real Madrid.
Or take ██████████ an English team who, already under external rogue ownership, were sold to a Chinese entity operating through Malta with no company website and seemingly no history for any of the individuals involved. And, interestingly, the UK broadsheet that reported these links altered the article with no addenda at the conclusion - the paper simply withdrew the news and turned it into fake.
Why would a UK establishment newspaper do this thing?
Or take the fixed Malta versus England friendly.
These holistic structures are becoming a geopolitical football norm - the Albanian mafia influencing Austrian football (according to our research and in the opinion of a senior former FIFA man), Russians controlling the football in Cyprus and a whole array of bookmakers scrambling for the ultimate control of markets via rogue referees and players around the continent.
Football club owners.
Rogue footballers.
Mafia entities.
Illicit bookmakers.
Insider trading.
Matchfixing events.
Money laundering.
Links between Malta, Gibraltar, Italy and the UK.
Football.
Mafia.
Betting.
Alain Badiou: "For as Saint-Just asks: 'What do those who want neither Virtue nor Terror want?' His answer is well known: they want corruption."
The gambling and money laundering matrices of the UK and Malta want Terror and Corruption.
Just months after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Slovakian anti-corruption journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova were murdered seemingly on the orders of businessman Marian Kocner.
Football Is Fixed exposed Kocner on the day after the deaths although Kocner avoided prison (allegedly by buying off senior police contacts in the country)..
Within one month of these crimes, the Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and his entire cabinet had resigned.
Political things move more imperceptibly in Malta.
When Fenech was eventually arrested by police in relation to Caruana Galizia's murder on November 20th 2019, Schembri was forced to resign after Fenech accused him in court papers of being the mastermind behind Caruana Galizia's death. Muscat resigned in January 2020 after the scandal threatened to bring down the entire government and he was finally interviewed by police on August 21st 2020 (just 1040 days after the murder). Fenech claims that he and Muscat discussed sensitive details of the murder case.
On resignation Muscat said that he wished to focus on sports and, within a week of his resignation, he had entered talks with the Malta Football Association (MFA) over injecting a Maltese team into Italy's Serie C. But the MFA president Bjoyn Vassallo blocked this move as sitting MPs cannot have any role in the association.
Furthermore, Muscat oversaw extensive corruption and matchfixing of Maltese international matches during his time as Prime Minister.
Our research over the last quarter of a century has always revealed one infrastructural reality in criminal states: whatever the holistic of corruption - oil, drugs, arms, tax evasion, financial market abuses - the criminalities always spread over to matchfixing and corruption in football (and other sports on occasion).
Fraud forensics of the global betting markets reveal that systemic matchfixing of Malta international matches began after Joseph Muscat was made Prime Minister in 2013.
This systemic structure is robust and reveals an inner core of three bookmakers and a penumbra of other market operatives who understand where the matchfixing information resides.
Maltese government links with 'Ndrangheta over the betting sector on the island are widespread with officials oscillating between business, mafia and government with impunity.
Linkages were made initially with Bookmaker A after a friendly game between Gibraltar and Malta in June 2014 before being superseded by arrangements orchestrated via Azerbaijan to bookmakers B and C (based in the Philippines and Gibraltar). A third Maltese-based bookmaker (Bookmaker D) was added to this cartel controlling the matchfixing of Malta's games.
This new cartel was established following a Euro 2016 Qualifier between Azerbaijan and Malta in March 2015. Bookmaker A were then cut out of the deal.
Out of 43 international matches during Muscat's reign, we detected successful matchfixing and insider trading at 84% of events.
Prior to Muscat becoming Prime Minister, there was no evidence of systemic matchfixing in Malta games.
All market professionals are aware of this systemic structure.
The information feeds through the primary bookmaking mafia to derivative bookies who piggy-back the corruption for financial gain.
Although B from Philippines, C from Gibraltar and D from Malta orchestrate the matchfixing, other firms in Britain, Gibraltar, SE Asia demonstrate their knowledge of the matchfixing via their market positions.
Roberto Saviano: "Mafia organisations were the first western businesses to develop long-term relationships with communist regimes and used them to gain a foothold in the east. Although they could not buy property during communist rule, the mafia could rely on two other things: political corruption, to facilitate their illegal traffic, and a near monopoly on the black market in western goods illegally smuggled into eastern bloc countries."
This power only increased post-1989.
Bookmaker D, for example, ran slots and casinos in eastern Europe but, from 1986 onwards, the 'Ndrangheta moved in imposing huge losses leading to an eventual liquidation of all operations in the east in 1992.
The first fixed match of the Muscat era was inevitably the battle of two Commonwealth crime islands - Gibraltar versus Malta on June 4th 2014.
We have been reliably informed that the control of future Malta international matches was discussed in Gibraltar during this dalliance and passed to a major UK bookmaker.
This control only lasted for nine months however.
The cartel created in Baku in March 2015 was far more resilient and long-lasting, featuring bookmakers from Malta, Gibraltar and the Philippines. Our primary broker has shown a member of our network details of the structure put in place.
Matches against 'associated' countries and linked associations were particularly sought - the events against Gibraltar, Estonia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Ukraine spring to mind.
Of particular interest are the links to Britain.
Bookmakers A and C were initially established in Britain.
A Premier League club owner is involved in betting on these fixed Malta internationals via Bookmaker C.
A matchfixing football agent has very close consolidated mafia links both in Britain and Malta and, we understand, ████████████████████████████████████████.
This same agent utilises Malta for third party ownership illegalities relating to players and to gain EU passports for players who otherwise would be excluded from EU countries.
Timeline of Corruption
2004 - Malta eases entry for online gaming.
Bookmaker D gains gaming licence in Malta.
2008 - Joseph Muscat becomes leader of the Maltese Labour Party.
Mafia bookmaker Bet1128 formed and located in London.
2009 - Italian police close in on Bet1128.
Bet1128 illegally taken over by Maltese-based 'Ndrangheta bookmaker CenturionBet.
2010 - Bookmaker D open a Development Office in the Philippines.
2012 - April 12th: Azerbaijan develops stronger ambassadorial links with Philippines.
2013 - March 9th: Joseph Muscat is elected as Prime Minister of Malta.
A friendly football match is arranged between Azerbaijan and Malta for August 14th.
2014 - April 20th: Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo met with top Maltese officials during a two day state visit.
June 4th: After a friendly football match between Gibraltar and Malta which was a rigged match, control of matchfixing of future Maltese Internationals is given to a UK bookmaker (Bookmaker A).
December 15th-16th 2014 - PM Joseph Muscat visits Azerbaijan to sign oil and gas agreement with Ilham Aliyev.
2015 - March 28th: Following a match between Azerbaijan and Malta in Baku, an arrangement is reached for future control of matchfixing of Malta international matches to pass to a Philippines-based bookmaker (Bookmaker B) together with Gibraltar-based firm Bookmaker C, and Maltese-based Bookmaker D.
April 28th-29th: PM Muscat attends the Baku Global Forum and was received by Aliyev.
July 22nd: BetUniq and BetSolutions4U have their Maltese licences rescinded for money laundering and members of the 'Ndrangheta are arrested and extradited.
September 6th: An agreed draw between Malta and Azerbaijan in a Euro 2016 Qualifier where the outcome was in the market pre-match.
Muscat is made Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George by Queen Elizabeth II.
November 27th: Muscat becomes Chairperson-in-Office of the Commonwealth.
2016 - March: ████████████████████████████████████████
March 24th: A matchfixing event and agreed draw between Malta and Moldova.
April: The Australian Financial Review focused on Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri's links with gaming companies (as well as his involvement in Camorra and Cosa Nostra-backed recycling and waste management in India and Dubai).
August 31st: Another agreed draw and matchfixing operation in match between Estonia and Malta.
2017 - A sevenfold increase in Filippinos living in Malta in the 3 years since 2014.
April 9th: ██████████████████████████████████████████████
May: Operation 'Jonny' an Italian anti-mafia operation links 1128Bet and CenturionBet to money laundering by 'Ndrangheta. Their licences are revoked in June.
June 3rd: Muscat is reappointed as prime minister of Malta.
June 6th: An insider trading fixed match sees Malta win 1-0 in Ukraine with the Bookmaker Cartel (B, C and D) cleaning up financially. Ukraine's price was 1/25.
June 6th: Following Muscat's re-election, SkyBet apply for a Maltese betting licence alongside two other major global betting brands.
October 15th: Neville Gafa, of PM Joseph Muscat's office, follows Daphne Caruana Galizia around throughout the day photographing images of her that were later posted on Facebook.
October 16th: Daphne Caruana Galizia is assassinated mafia-style in a massive car bomb near her home,
October 17th: Italian police arrest former Maltese international footballer Darren Debono over a mafia-based diesel smuggling operation from Libya - his phone had been tapped for two years.
November 21st: A complaint is made to Maltese police over the trailing of Caruana Galizia by Muscat on the day prior to her death. The police bury the complaint and no action is taken.
2018 - January 18th: The Maltese government announces that relations between Malta and the Philippines have reached "unprecedented levels of interaction and cooperation".
January 29th: ██████████████████████████████████████████
February 25th: The bodies of Slovakian investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kusnirova are found after their exposure of corruption.
March 12th: Three Slovakian government ministers resign following the assassination of Kuciak.
March 15th: Robert Fico resigns as Slovakian Prime Minister.
2019 - November 20th: Arrest of Yorgen Fenech over murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
November 26th: Keith Schembri resigns as chief of staff to Prime Minister Muscat.
2020 - January 13th: Joseph Muscat resigns as Maltese Prime Minister.
January 17th: Muscat holds talks with Maltese FA over involvement in a Malta team competing in Italy's Serie C.
January 31st: Malta FA president Bjorn Vassallo prevents Muscat's involvement in the project.
August 21st: Muscat formally questioned by Maltese police over assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
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Wee, Sleekit, Cowrin, Tim'rous Beasties
Edward Snowden (on the early days of covid-19): "We need to know whether our hospitals are safe. If we can't even prevent retaliation against healthcare workers for warning of hazards during a pandemic, 'whistleblower protection' is a cruel myth"
Covid-19 was never going to go away quickly.
The UK state chose to enter the twilight zone of reality suppression.
Medics in the UK (and USA) were threatened by their 'superiors' if they publicised the lack of PPE, the absence of ventilators, the invisibility of testing, the fake government disclosures that didn't tie in with the reality on the ground, the distortion of data and real totals of excess deaths, the absolute failure of track-and-trace, the awarding of contracts and posts to insiders without tender etc.
Whistleblowers in the NHS are treated the same as whistleblowers in football.
Threaten them, Undermine them. Doxx them. Spread rumours. Terminate them (or their contracts) as a last resort.
It's like a latter day version of "Mr Smith Goes To Washington".
Whistleblower protection is an Art of War.
One of the reasons that Daphne Caruana Galizia was able to be assassinated with limited fallout to the Maltese mafia state is that she disclosed and made public all of her evidences - her enemies knew the full extent of her arsenal.
Similarly with Julian Assange.
Despite Wikileaks using a random number generator related to the weekly news cycle with regard to the timing of press releases, virtually no content was withheld. So the structural benefits of the Wikileaks Stochastic Terminator algorithm were undermined by disclosures.
Andy Greenberg: "By introducing randomness into the process he [Assange] hoped to make it impossible... to adjust to the problem, to spin, to create antidote news beforehand."
Meanwhile Edward Snowden elected to filter press releases alongside an accommodating Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept. Despite this, Snowden is still able to claim that "I am more than willing to risk imprisonment than the curtailment of my intellectual freedom... the internet ought to be a medium to actualize unhampered exchange of ideas and free thinking."
Not censorship then.
George Orwell - The Freedom of the Press: "One publisher accepted the book [Animal Farm], but after making preliminary arrangements, decided to consult the Minister for Information who appeared to warn him against publishing. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship... If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion... Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban... The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics... At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question... Anybody who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness... The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment... intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted a principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others that do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice... I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves... If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In our country... it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect."
Of course, the UK media is still owned by a few very wealthy men and a couple of highly opaque offshore secretions.
But, nowadays, the state want to intercept disclosures far earlier in the chain of publication.
Sub-Media - Trouble #5 - You Are Being Watched: "Ours is an age of historically unprecedented state and corporate surveillance. Our society's growing addiction to social media, smart phones and other forms of digital communication has ushered in a more interconnected society, but one that is almost entirely dependent on the technological infrastructure of massive telecommunication, software and IT corporations. The rise of surveillance capitalism has also granted state intelligence networks like the NSA with an unfathomably intimate snapshot into our personal lives. These days, everything we do or say online is collected and stored in massive server farms, accessible to intelligence analysts and state security forces at any time of their choosing. These enhanced surveillance capacities have, in turn, revolutionised more traditional methods of gathering intelligence on political dissidents, by helping local and federal police departments map out the networks they hope to infiltrate, and identify prospective targets that are most vulnerable to being flipped and / or coerced into betraying their supposed comrades. Yet even with all these tools at their disposal, states around the world are finding it harder and harder to control the explosion of popular anger provoked by their increasingly severe policies of ecological destruction and capitalist exploitation."
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state under Bunker Boy (and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency): "We have to go after these folks [Wikileaks]. We've got to think how we run against them. How we monitor their capacity. They run spies. They hire people. How we make sure they're not getting inside our organisation. When I used the phrase 'non-state hostile intelligence services', I meant that as a rubric to think about. They try to perform counterintelligence for themselves. So when you stare at them for a while they look all the world to be an intelligence service. They have all the central functions. They do intelligence collection. They run operations. They have support structure. They look and smell like an intelligence service and we should treat them as such. These are free-range chickens."
Said the factory-farmed hen.
Sweet.
5th Estate journalists are forced to balance the value of information versus the risk of termination - the degree of disclosure is tilted around the fulcrum of the particular hyperreality being exposed.
This template produces ludicrous imbalances in the case of systemic corruption structures - the power of the state is massively against the whistleblower while the power of the information is markedly in their favour. These two near 90-degree inclines oppose one another and yet achieve an uncertain equilibrium...
... that is how the Football Is Fixed Network developed the Iceberg Effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
Cause and effect becomes effect and cause in corrupt structures, representing the circularity of corruption.
What goes around comes around, clockwise and anti-clockwise.
So insider trading produces matchfixing and, in turn, matchfixing solicits insider trading.
One discloses full details of a fixed Premier League match and threats are received from the offices of the football agent orchestrating the matchfixing; this football agent is exposed as a mafia operative and there is an assassination attempt via a hit-and-run on your vehicle; you are 'trained up' to accept a limit to your journalism.
Jean Baudrillard: "Just as the vital electricity of the storm seeds the earth, so the energy of the accident or the catastrophe trickles out over many years. For that to happen, however, you have to escape death - to practise coitus mortalis reservatus or the Chinese-style post coitum mortalem. But it is difficult to begin all over again every day."
And, the 'in extremis' here is that, in the reality that British football now resides, there is no "saving the game" and so there ceases to be any point in continuing the fight to the same rules.
The systemic corruption matrix in football leaves no route to authenticity...
... so what is the point other than to document the theft of a sport by those who deconstruct legitimacy in favour of their insider trading and transfer market abuse revenue streams.
Too many insiders are compromised or cowardly.
Mike Ehrmantraut: "You let things slide and you look the other way... You took a taste. So did everyone else. That's how you knew you were safe. It's like killing Caesar. Everyone's guilty... you go along to get along."
Daphne Caruana Galizia knew that her disclosures could improve the political situation in Malta away from corruption.
Jan Kuciak knew that exposing business-based corruption could make Slovakia more democratic.
Julian Assange knew that the global population had a right to know the war crimes and inappropriate collusions being committed by western states.
Edward Snowden knew that state surveillance had to be shared with those being illegally monitored.
Cause and effect.
Ian Buchanan: "Dark precursors are those moments in a text which must be read in reverse if we are not to mistake effects for causes."
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The Rest Is Silence
J.B. Priestley: "To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is much paper and ink"
Priestley's words have evolved since 1929 to the format described by Jean Baudrillard's 'Phases of the Image' - football is indeed so much more than 22 men kicking around a ball.
But aside from the corruptions perpetrated to the templates of insider trading and matchfixing, there are also corruptions relating to powerful teams working in concert together to achieve trophies and championships without any annoying inputs from meritocracy.
An example would be the Liverpool Cartel of teams that grew from four sides in 2018/19 to six sides in 2019/20. With two more additions for 2020/21, the Liverpool Cartel attempted to remain in control via suitable sharing of results, selected doping, referee control and other illegitimate activities like the 'hacking' of Manchester City Analytics (in fact an inside job by captured entities within the Manchester club). Some integrity has been recovered in more recent times by the splintering of this cartel in a football turf war.
So it is with the G14(18) grouping of European power clubs who have won every single Champions League Final (apart from two) since the competition was rebranded in 1992/93...
... and the two exceptions that prove this rule came when Chelsea defeated Bayern Munich in the 2011/12 tournament at the Allianz Arena in Germany despite the Germans being awarded an extra-time penalty that Arjen Robben proceeded to miss and when Chelsea beat Manchester City courtesy of an error by Wasserman's John Stones in 2020/21.
The other 28 Finals were G14(18) controlled and this despite the elite body allegedly being disbanded when the European Club Association (ECA) was formed in January 2008.
Worse still for the integrity of the Champions League competition, Tier One G14(18) teams (Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus and AC Milan) have won 24 of the 30 Finals!
And to complete a corrupt matrix, 24 of the losing finalists were also from the G14(18) cartel.
In total, out of 60 finalists since the onset of the Champions League, only 6 have been non-G14(18)!
The first chairman of the ECA was Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern Munich being succeeded by Andrea Agnelli of Juventus on September 5th 2017.
This latter appointment was highly questionable.
As touched upon above, in 2014 some of the Juventus senior management (including Agnelli) were investigated by Turin's Public Prosecutor's Office (PPO) over the sale of tickets for Juve matches and about alleged infiltration by the 'Ndrangheta mafia in the commercial management of the club's ticket sales.
On March 18th 2017, following the opening of a lawsuit by the Turin PPO, Agnelli was referred by the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) Attorney General along with three other club executives.
On September 25th 2017 (less than three weeks after being appointed chairman of the ECA) Agnelli was banned for one year and fined 20,000 euros while Juventus were fined 300,000 euros for selling tickets to ultras. On December 18th, Agnelli's ban was lifted but his fine increased to 100,000 euros while the club's fine was doubled.
It was in September 2015 that Rui Pinto (the blackmailer behind 'Football Leaks') began to be coerced into releasing documents to the benefit of a cartel of British football agents. These documents and contracts had been physically stolen from an array of European clubs who were foolish enough to employ operatives linked to these agents.
So began the bifurcation of UEFA into a northern group of countries (primarily England, Scotland, Germany and France) and a southern one (particularly Spain, Portugal and Italy).
We call this template ESGFvSPI.
It was on September 14th 2016 that Aleksander Ceferin became president of UEFA.
By complete fluke, this exact date also witnessed the development of a unique corruption template on Champions League games based on the bifurcations related to ESGFvSPI.
From the first round of Champions League Group matches in 2016/17 until the fifth round of Group Matches in 2019/20, there was systemic corruption related to referee selection and biased performance in the competition.
The holistics of this template are outlined below (we analyse the differential from the average betting market price on the game to the match outcome or qualification i.e. a team under-performing against the market is registered as a 'loss' while a team over-performing against the market is logged as a 'win'):
- ESGF Referee on ESGF Team - 14 'wins' in 16 Matches
- ESGF Referee on SPI Team - 1 'win' in 17 Matches
- ESGF Referee on ESGFvSPI Games - 9 'wins' for ESGF in 10 Matches
So, out of 43 matches where referees from the northern cartel of countries officiated on games featuring teams from other ESGF countries or on SPI countries or on both, only 4 games saw the average market price veer against the ESGF interests.
This is referee-based corruption.
And it was replicated in response by the SPI countries who quickly realised that shenanigans were at play. The equivalent SPI template here is shown below:
- SPI Referee on ESGF Team - 1 'win' in 8 Matches
- SPI Referee on SPIvESGF Games - 7 'wins' for SPI in 7 Matches
Entertainingly, due to the competitive nature of football in southern Europe, there was no bias exhibited in favour of, say, a Spanish team by an Italian referee unless the opponents were ESGF teams!
In total, out of 58 matches, 53 outcomes were accommodating to this corruption template.
As market analysts, we refused to disclose this template initially choosing instead to trade it on the markets to help cover our overheads.
We eventually decided to go public with our knowledge prior to the 6th round of Group Phase matches in 2019/20 season and, as if by magic, this corruption template immediately ceased to exist.
Such systemic reactions and contortions are always an indication of corruption.
This ESGFvSPI structure has now evolved into something else entirely.
Corruption evolves.
There have been new developments featuring the same cartel of British / American agents who oversee 'Football Leaks' in 2019/20 - the enhanced linkages between certain owned and/or coerced footballers with selected German and Italian clubs, for example.
Corruption evolves.
The UEFA campaign alongside 'Football Leaks' orchestrators continues against the Gestifute family of clubs.
Corruption evolves.
The Professional Game Match Officials Board (pgMOB) undermine Gestifute-linked entities in the Premier League - particularly the targeting of Manchester City and any club linked to Jose Mourinho.
Corruption evolves.
The combined UEFA, 'Football Leaks' and mainstream media made efforts to get Manchester City banned from the Champions League for two seasons for no reasons in particular - if UEFA rules had been applied historically then Real Madrid and their intriguing finances would have been outed and we can't have that.
Corruption evolves.
Salvador de Madariaga: "One Englishman, a fool; two Englishmen, a football match; three Englishmen, the British Empire."
Football Is Fixed: "One football agent, a fool; a cartel of football agents, a crime syndicate; a co-ordinated systemic corruption featuring institutions, clubs, referees, agents and players; the state of the football nation in 2020."
On these battlefields of war, where is there any room for integrity in sport?
Football has died.
The fix has won.
Football has died.
The fix has won.
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Robert Burns:
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a pannic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
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© 2023 Football is Fixed
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