Tales of a Match-Fixer

Good read that.
Not pointing fingers but it does often feel like there are too many baffling refereeing decisions week in week out.
One's you'd expect VAR would have rid us of if implemented well.
 
Very interesting read.

I wonder if match fixing has ever found its way into the PL, and if so, to what extent?
 
Top_Bins said:
Good read that.
Not pointing fingers but it does often feel like there are too many baffling refereeing decisions week in week out.
One's you'd expect VAR would have rid us of if implemented well.
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That’s been a strong suspicion of mine since VAR came about.
 
There is so much money involved that there will always be someone doing it, but I kinda doubt it in PL or other top leagues. They have so much money already...

I saw a pretty good documentary about something like this a few years ago, in basketball. College or high school (unsure) where it was about shaving points of the result, they got paid for winning with less than 15 etc, even harder to notice than the matches in this article
 
Interesting read but there’s no mention of the syndicate members being caught, was there ever a bigger case against those who ran this scheme? 4 months in prison for that player is a bit laughable considering he’s been fixing the matches fully consciously and without any blackmailing, plus he’s been doing it for years.
 
Yakuza_devils said:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cd05385k722o

Interesting read albeit it happened at the lower tier of English football.

It makes one wonder if the same happened at the higher tier of English football? Europe? Even World Cup?
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This bit …
Swaibu has worked with football's world governing body Fifa, industry organisation Sport Integrity Global Alliance and the Premier League to understand the psychology and strategies of match-fixers.

He also works with these groups to identify and safeguard individuals who are vulnerable to becoming involved in corruption.
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:lol: Just call it what it is. “Understand the psychology of match fixers” Gimme a fecking break. They want quick and lots of money and don’t want to work to get it. It’s that simple.
Being a failed top flight footballer in your late teens and ending up in the national league is no remit to committing large scale fraud. I’d hazard a guess that 99% of people on this forum are failed footballers.

“Safeguard individuals who are vulnerable to becoming involved in corruption” .

What next ? Safeguard individuals vulnerable to defrauding grannies?
 
Interesting article. This bit stood out to me though:

"They [bookmakers] were seeing floods of money on certain teams' games from newly-opened accounts located all over the world - tipsters who would bet exclusively on the English sixth tier and with unerring accuracy."

Surely it's just basic common sense to make sure you weren't always accurate? As in deliberately bet on games without fixing them sometimes, so the bet would be lost. Then it looks like wealthy people in China, or wherever it may be, just like gambling on football matches and don't care if they lose.

When you consider the complexity of arranging something like this, it seems staggeringly naive to fall down on such a basic detail. As if bookies aren't going to notice.
 
Ludens the Red said:
This bit …

:lol: Just call it what it is. “Understand the psychology of match fixers” Gimme a fecking break. They want quick and lots of money and don’t want to work to get it. It’s that simple.
Being a failed top flight footballer in your late teens and ending up in the national league is no remit to committing large scale fraud. I’d hazard a guess that 99% of people on this forum are failed footballers.

“Safeguard individuals who are vulnerable to becoming involved in corruption” .

What next ? Safeguard individuals vulnerable to defrauding grannies?
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I wish. They'd know a bit more about the sport then.
 
Good read - always makes me wonder why companies even take bets on such low-league football where the markets are so open for manipulation - but then, even if it was outlawed in this country - you couldn't stop Asian betting firms from having bets on those games I suppose.
 
I can understand the ease of fixing things like own goals and bookings, but actually fixing a score I would've thought was nigh on impossible due to so many variables that can occur in a game of football. Apparently not!
 
Ludens the Red said:
This bit …

:lol: Just call it what it is. “Understand the psychology of match fixers” Gimme a fecking break. They want quick and lots of money and don’t want to work to get it. It’s that simple.
Being a failed top flight footballer in your late teens and ending up in the national league is no remit to committing large scale fraud. I’d hazard a guess that 99% of people on this forum are failed footballers.

“Safeguard individuals who are vulnerable to becoming involved in corruption” .

What next ? Safeguard individuals vulnerable to defrauding grannies?
Click to expand...

Should have been banned from the sport for life.

But when the top level has gambling all over it, sponsorship, TV adverts etc etc.. what do they actually expect? The amount of bets you can place on football from, throws, corners, cards and all that shite just leaves it wide open to this kind of thing, especially at the lower levels where players won't make in a year what they'd make in a week at a top club.
 
miked99 said:
Interesting article. This bit stood out to me though:

"They [bookmakers] were seeing floods of money on certain teams' games from newly-opened accounts located all over the world - tipsters who would bet exclusively on the English sixth tier and with unerring accuracy."

Surely it's just basic common sense to make sure you weren't always accurate? As in deliberately bet on games without fixing them sometimes, so the bet would be lost. Then it looks like wealthy people in China, or wherever it may be, just like gambling on football matches and don't care if they lose.

When you consider the complexity of arranging something like this, it seems staggeringly naive to fall down on such a basic detail. As if bookies aren't going to notice.
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If you were in it for the long haul then sure, you'd want to have the odd loss in there to make it believable. But that seems like a poor way to do crime.

You want to rinse it for everything it's worth as quickly as possible and get out before anything can be traced back to you. Judging by the fact that they never got caught, it looks like that's exactly what the syndicates did. And they still managed to keep the fixes going for about 9 months before any investigation was actually launched.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Good read - always makes me wonder why companies even take bets on such low-league football where the markets are so open for manipulation - but then, even if it was outlawed in this country - you couldn't stop Asian betting firms from having bets on those games I suppose.
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I remember an ex-colleague mentioned about betting on the early rounds of the Scottish cup. Sometimes the bookies wouldn’t pick up on kick off times properly for lower ranked teams and you’d be able to bet on a match that had already kicked off.
 
Oranges038 said:
Should have been banned from the sport for life.

But when the top level has gambling all over it, sponsorship, TV adverts etc etc.. what do they actually expect? The amount of bets you can place on football from, throws, corners, cards and all that shite just leaves it wide open to this kind of thing, especially at the lower levels where players won't make in a year what they'd make in a week at a top club.
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This is exactly the problem. I play with a few guys who get contracted by stats companies who sell their data to gambling companies. They go and watch lower league games and report on everything form goals and assists to number of corners, throw ins, cards, etc.

Because they watch so many games for these stats, they say within 15mins they can get a sense of if a player(s) is a bit off or if there is an upset etc.

Again, I agree with your point if the betting agencies stopped betting on 'minor' things (spot betting we call it), and on lower leagues then I think a lot of this problem could be avoided.
 
Flanders Devil said:
This is exactly the problem. I play with a few guys who get contracted by stats companies who sell their data to gambling companies. They go and watch lower league games and report on everything form goals and assists to number of corners, throw ins, cards, etc.

Because they watch so many games for these stats, they say within 15mins they can get a sense of if a player(s) is a bit off or if there is an upset etc.

Again, I agree with your point if the betting agencies stopped betting on 'minor' things (spot betting we call it), and on lower leagues then I think a lot of this problem could be avoided.
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Yeah, they should have a league cut off point, especially for online betting and also cut off the nonsense of throws, corners, cards etc.

I had a look and right now on PP you can put bets on a Czech 2nd division game and an Israeli 3rd division game.
 
Oranges038 said:
Yeah, they should have a league cut off point, especially for online betting and also cut off the nonsense of throws, corners, cards etc.

I had a look and right now on PP you can put bets on a Czech 2nd division game and an Israeli 3rd division game.
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Yes - totally agree. And for what it's worth, there guys were doing the equivalent of 3rd Tier Australian Leagues, where local supporters/players wouldn't give two hoots. Yet anyone can bet on it.
 
Lower league players with lower wages are easy target when they faced financial difficulties.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/money-troubles-raises-corruption-risk-football-095029591--sow.html

"A month or two is not a problem but I did not get my wages for a full year," he told AFP. He owed the state about 35,000 euros (dollars) in taxes and social contributions and did not want to ask friends and family for loans anymore. "You lose your dignity and become an easy target," he said, revealing how the organisers of the match-fixing worked on cultivating susceptible players for months.
 
Here's a write up of the year, 84/85, that Hellas Verona won the Serie A, a feat comparable to the Leicester City miracle. Was extra special as I was living in Italy at the time and happened to be in Verona for the celebration, which meant getting hammered, swimming in fountains and waking up in a park in the grass.

Coincides with the only year that Italian football referees were randomly chosen, and not previously chosen by a "commission." After Verona pulled this off, they went back to the commission choosing the refs, and coincidently a small, unfashionable Italian side hasn't won the Scudetto again. Italian football was and is very corrupt.

https://www.worldsoccer.com/world-s...rona-and-the-triumph-of-egalitarianism-359989
 
Gerrard was clearly match fixing when he passed the ball back to Drogba, how has that not been mentioned yet?
 
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