Originally Published October 23rd 2023 for For Green Fields clients
Historically, players had their careers entirely demolished for breaking the rules on gambling (particularly on matches involving their own team). Indeed, all the way up until it was Wasserman clients and well known (yet strangely anonymised managers) who were guilty of breaches, there were fines and bans.
We now seem to be living through a normalisation process as the elephant in the room is that organised crime entities require such normalisation as managers, agents, club owners and referees all insider trade their private knowledge and we could, if we so chose, release watertight evidences of matchfixing from all of these groups.
So, Ivan Toney was banned despite his club owner being a bookmaker who trades on Brentford's matches while, in our new hyperreality, Sandro Tonali is lauded as some kind of hero for systemic betting abuses while his club owner is promoted as a football saviour despite the unfortunate fact that he murders journalists and orders the decapitation of women, gays and people who speak out against him on social media.
Obviously power corrupts but it is the shocking state of football journalism that turns a blind eye to this matter of integrity as these writers are, in effect, 'bribed' with details of matchfixing as part of their convoluted association with crime.
Be Careful What You Wish For
And it is organised crime that has been pushing for Sir Jim Ratcliffe to takeover Manchester United.
The original aim was to oust the Glazers and prevent the Qatari government taking control (even though this was by far the best option for the brand club).
The new structure sees the Glazers maintain control while Ratcliffe looks after transfers and playing matters.
This is not what organised crime groups wanted.
Captured journalists are now calling for a Sporting Director to take control of these areas rather than Britain's richest man who, we are told, intends to bring in his own psychopath.
And here lie the two main issues for this particular situation.
Firstly, none of these developments are to the benefit of Manchester United.
Secondly, the very rich take the piss out of the relatively rich in the same way that the relatively rich take the piss out of the poor.
It is reaching the stage where it might almost be worth us doing a blanket WikiLeaks' style data dump proving the systemic corruption destroying English football.
If the Premier League believes that it can take control of IREF then perhaps it is time to complicate the situation on the ground.
Our Network is in conversations with several entities checking the zeitgeist and, even though not all these entities are kosher, it is certainly interesting how this zeitgeist of corruption is evolving.
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