OT: The criminal side of international soccer
I just read an article in ESPN magazine about the prevalence of international crime syndicates fixing soccer matches (online article is here). Since I am not an avid soccer fan at all, this was the first I had ever heard of this, and I was pretty shocked. The craziest thing to me in the article was this:
and in an under-21 friendly, Turkmenistan reportedly beat Maldives 3-2 in a "ghost match" -- neither country knew about the contest because it never actually happened, yet bookmakers still took action and fixers still profited.
For those of you who are more avid fans, how widely-known are these practices? From the article, it seems like most of this is taking place in Africa, Asia, and Scandanavia; have they infiltrated the US scene at all? I feel like it would be difficult to see an MLS game take place with 7 goals, all from PKs, and nobody get suspicious about it. But when someone's offering you more money than you would otherwise make on a game, I can see why refs would be willing to do that.
Depending on the sport, this isn't anything too new... take a look at this article about a horse race that never happened (complete with imaginary horses) at a racetrack that never existed in a TOWN that doesn't exist: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1087348/1/in…; That happened way back in 1898. Unreal.
It's all over the place! There even was match-fixing in the second highest league of Switzerland where "my" club plays!
There's one going on right now, too. Italian soccer is a mess. Of course, after the match fixing scandal in 2006, Italy won the World Cup. In 1982, there was also a match fixing scandal in Italy, and they won the World Cup. Maybe they'll win the Euro Cup this time?
the criminal side of international soccer is spelled F-I-F-A
What do you mean by that? I'm assuming that's a knock against FIFA. From the article, it seems that they are doing what they can to contain the problem, but like the NCAA, they don't have legal authority to do anything.
FIFA is a slime pit of bribery and corruption; whether they are actually trying to deal with match-fixing (quite possible) or not, FIFA and the IOC are the dirty underbelly of sports. Their leaders are untrustworthy, their practices are unseemly, and their decision-making processes have so much traffic under the table that they need stoplights.
My comment is not in relation to this specific article, just general commentary on how corrupt an organization FIFA is.
What are some instances of this? I'm genuinely curious about this. In my uninformed soccer mind, I've had a pretty neutral opinion of FIFA.
Well, there's this for instance:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/11/fifa-caribbean-officials…
There's the selection of Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, which involved bought votes. FIFA and Sepp Blatter are incredibly corrupt.
Bill Archer's blog over at Big Soccer (http://www.bigsoccer.com/soccer/bill-archer/) is a pretty comprehensive compendium of FIFA corruption, especially the nefarious goings-on in our region (CONCACAF) spearheaded by former CONCACAF head Jack Warner and his various toadies throughout the Caribbean. Warner, you may recall, was at the center of a bribery scandal over payouts distributed at a CONCACAF meeting which were intended as "thank-you" gifts for supporting Mohammed bin Hammam in his contest against Sepp Blatter for FIFA president. Once Chuck Blazer blew the whistle, the scandal couldn't be swept under the rug -- as a result, bin Hammam withdrew from the race and Warner was suspended from his position as FIFA vice-president (though getting rid of Warner completely is about as difficult as killing Nosferatu for good).
Just google Sepp Blatter corruption. I'm specifically thinking of things related to the last FIFA presidential election and the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Qatar. If you want to learn more about the corruption inside FIFA, you also need to look at the regional organizations, primarily CONCACAF and Jack Warner. Bottom line: it's a cesspool.
The 2018 WC is going to Russia (which may or may not have also involved some chicanery). 2022 is the one going to Qatar.
We have the opposite problem in American Football; hundreds of thousands of people claimed to witness Ohio State play football in 2010, but no official record of those games seems to exist.
Cheat for 10 years but only lose 1.
I'll bet you that every Ohio fan would take going 8-1 officially,(9-1 in games played on field) against Michigan even if it means losing 1 year each decade.
So the punishment does not deter the crime. I expect the toys for tats program will be up and running again in no time.
But I was there! I had some words with drunk Ohio fans in their fifties who had lost their ability to speak in sentences! DONT YOU TELL ME THOSE GAMES DIDNT HAPPEN.
The Korean Volleyball Federation made the announcement by
I can understand corruption in most everything, but not vollyball. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Please get here soon, Football Season!
The bigger issue here is that there are degenerates who will bet on Maldives-Turkemenistan soccer games.
And not even their senior national teams - they bet on their Under-21 teams.
junkie???
Don't bet on obscure foreign sports game is the theme I took from this article. If you can't get enough action at a Vegas sports book, you should seek help.
But Vegas sports book don't have lines on ESPN 8 games, I mean it is the Ocho.
Everything said above is peanuts compared to this instance... I still remember reading this and being amazed: http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5572079/togo-official-says-team-played-bahrain-was-fake
Yes, a fake national team (for Togo, a tiny west African nation) played an international friendly in and against Bahrain. I still giggle like a school girl everytime I think about this, it is just so outlandish.
-Herm
Big sport (in Japan) that is rife with match-fixing, though, from what I understand, it's limited to matches that are meaningless for one of the parties. For example, if a super-favored guy has already wrapped up first place, he'll lose to some nobody who needs to complete certain norms to be a big deal in the sport.
Of all the sports I follow, I've never heard of match-fixing in chess.