Attention: Please take a moment to consider our terms and conditions before posting.

Betting and corruption in Football

edited September 2010 in General Charlton
Recently we've had the cricket betting scandal. Some of my friends who follow cricket have said that they had often seen strange events in cricket but had never really questioned them until the latest test scandal. They always thought decisions were down to human judgement.

I've always thought the same about football. Partly because, having refereed matches, I believe that you do your best but that you might not see an event or misinterpret something on the pitch. Professional referees will make similar mistakes. The other reason why I believed that match-fixing would be difficult in football, as with any team game, is that it would require too many people to be involved - you'd need to bribe the players from both teams and the match officials.

In the light of the cricket scandal, the thing that worries me, is not result fixing, but event fixing for the purpose of gambling. This could include awarding/disallowing goals, fouls, free kicks, penalties, throw-ins, corners or foul throws in a match. Any of these events could influence the result of a match but this would not necessarily be the aim of the fixing. Ray Winstone appearing at half time on televised matches with the plethora of bets that you can place is worrying because it shows the sorts of things tha people are betting on.

Players are paid a lot of money so it would need a lot of investment/bribes to change their behaviour. More worrying is the role of match officials. They are relatively low paid (particularly in our division and below) and so a smaller amount of money could in theory be used to induce them to take certain decisions. I am not suggesting that the penalty given against us today was associated with betting but it could plausibly happen - only the referee can award a penalty (or not) - it might not necessarily affect the match result but that's not what people are betting on.

Also an increasing number of bets are placed on matches that don't get Sky or BBC levels of coverage. Indeed, reserve and academy matches have been subject to betting.

We were subject to a betting scam. remember the floodlight incident?

I'm not paranoid about this, it will sound like the usual moans from a football supporter, but does anyone in football/FA look for patterns or do they think (like cricket used to) that football is incorruptible and that every other sport has the problems?

Comments

  • It's fair enough. Kitson booting the ball out for first throw was no worse than the no-ball scandal. Some of the nonsense during the world cup in Korea was clearly bent. Every time I see Stuart Shatwell I think "I hope someobody is paying that clown, because otherwise this is an embarassment", but the FA keep him on. I imagine though, that until it's in the News of the World, it's "paranoia".
  • The only place you can get a proper bet on silly bets is in asia .....
    English bookies are a joke they don't call them bet£3.65 for nothing
    So I don't think there's much of a chance of corruption in footy at a highish level
    End of last season in a non league fixture people backed in from 25-1 to 6-1 one team to be winning at ht but losing at full time shock horror it happened and I don't think the bookies paid out
  • edited September 2010
    .
  • [quote][cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]It's fair enough. Kitson booting the ball out for first throw was no worse than the no-ball scandal. Some of the nonsense during the world cup in Korea was clearly bent. Every time I see Stuart Shatwell I think "I hope someobody is paying that clown, because otherwise this is an embarassment", but the FA keep him on. I imagine though, that until it's in the News of the World, it's "paranoia".[/quote]
    Spot on Mortimerician.The infamous Equadorian referee Brian Moreno suspended for 20 matches after the Korean World Cup has just been caught at JFK Airport New York with 20kgs of Heroin hidden in his underpants.
    Please note that when someone turns a blind eye its because they are taking their cut.The money in Football is so big that nothing makes sense anymore.
  • Ahh Moreno. Played 10 minutes injury time in a match with no major stopages until Quito got the result he wanted... but stayed sanctioned by FIFA. Statight after the World Cup Gazetta did an expose about how he took a holiday that cost over 10 times his annual income and had no explaination about where the dosh came from. Still he kept the reffing gig. I'm not surprised he tried drug running. He must have thought he was untouchable.
  • The Italian keeper Buffon said about this ref last week ""I think Moreno already had the heroin in 2002, but not in his underwear, in his body,"
  • He got Italy knocked out by South Korea ruling out a Daniel Tommasi Legit golden goal and sending Totti off for diving when he clearly slipped.Italians hate him but then you might say a taste of their own medicine.
  • [cite]Posted By: oohaahmortimer[/cite]The only place you can get a proper bet on silly bets is in asia .....

    Funny, I've often wondered why so many Asian business people have become involved in British clubs.
  • Few years ago I was a member of a horse racing syndicate. You'd call at a pre arrange time each day to fin out if they had any fancied horses running from 'their' stables.
    Occasionally they'd pass on info about other sports and the only time I recall this being on a football match was the Scottish League Cup final. Can't remember who was playing (deffo not Celtic or Rangers) but the tipped side ran out 2-0 winners!
  • I imagine though, that until it's in the News of the World, it's "paranoia".

    How very prophetic!
Sign In or Register to comment.

Roland Out Forever!