8 replies to this topic

[Titans Bastard]

There aren't many details out there yet, but this seems large enough that it might have legs.  Shady behavior in Eastern European leagues is pretty commonplace, but from the sounds of it this is much more widespread,

 

A Champions League tie played in England is one of 380 matches across Europe investigators say was fixed. However, European police did not reveal the identity of the match they believe was corrupt in England.

Speaking in The Hague, Europol said that they had uncovered an organised crime syndicate based in Asia that was co-ordinating the operation, with around425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals under suspicion.

Europol believes a crime syndicate based in Asia was liaising with criminal networks throughout Europe. It believes match-fixing has taken place in 15 countries and 50 people have so far been arrested. Officials said they feared this was the "tip of the iceberg".

He added: "The focus has been on other countries, not the United Kingdom. However we were surprised by the scale generally of the criminal enterprise and just how widespread it was.

 

Soccer authorities are great at sweeping problems under the rug.  This is the latest challenge.

[Spacemans Bong]

It'll be interesting to see what the English game is and who's involved. The English are very good at deluding themselves into thinking the values of fair play mean nobody here would ever take a PED or fix a game.

[DLew On Roids]

I'd be surprised if there were English club players involved, simply because the amount spent on bribes (2 million euros total) wouldn't be enough to effectively bribe players who are making over 100,000 euros per week.  It seems much more likely that the bribery was of a visiting club or match officials.

 

Declan Hill's excellent book, The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime, mentions that often bribes are paid to ensure the expected outcome or affect goals scored.  So a gambling syndicate could have paid a little to make sure that the team playing Man U or Chelsea rolled over, or to make sure that Arsenal were allowed to score at least four goals.  That seems a lot easier than spending the hundreds of thousands of euros it would take to convince Rio Ferdinand or John Terry to risk their careers.

[teddykgb]

It'll have to be officials.  There's just so many of them, it would be unsurprising if there were a dozen who could be influenced.

 

It also comes as no surprise that all those asian individuals visiting Old Trafford for the last decade were actually investors checking in on their investment. 

Edited by teddykgb, 04 February 2013 - 02:30 PM.

[inter tatters]

The English CL game is apparently Liverpool vs Debrecen of Hungary at Anfield in 2009

[biollante]

What was the result ? Did the Hugarian team lose by too much ? Or the other way around ?

[sachmoney]

What was the result ? Did the Hugarian team lose by too much ? Or the other way around ?

EDIT: At Anfield, Liverpool won that 1-0 as well.

Edited by sachmoney, 05 February 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[SoxFanInCali]

Nobody has accused Liverpool of any wrongdoing.  The story is that the Debrecen goalkeeper was contacted about letting in at least 3 goals to beat the 2.5 goal spread.  It turned out Liverpool only scored once anyways, with Kuyt getting a goal in first half stoppage time.

 

This was our last season in the Champions League, when we didn't get out of the group stages.  Liverpool finished 3rd in the group and Debrecen 4th.  This was the first game of the group stage, however, so nobody realized that Liverpool would be that poor at that point.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Nobody has accused Liverpool of any wrongdoing.  The story is that the Debrecen goalkeeper was contacted about letting in at least 3 goals to beat the 2.5 goal spread.

 

I think this is the sort of thing, in general, to look for: stuff more along the lines of point shaving (massaging results to be more or less extreme than expected) than outright flipping the results.