Don't say I didn't warn you...

Matches at the 2010 FIFA World Cup Will Be Fixed

(Did you know that Lord Triesman, who was the head of the English Football Association, resigned his post in May 2010 due to being secretly recorded speaking about how Spanish football authorities were attempting to bribe referees in the now-in-progress World Cup?  By the way, it was a Spanish referee that red carded a German player, costing the heavily favored team a 1-0 loss to Serbia on June 18th)

"Match-fixers will be at the World Cup in South Africa. They will be there approaching players, referees, and team officials and trying to bribe them to fix matches. They will be there because they have been at almost every international football tournament — the Under-17 World Cup, the Under-20 World Cup, the Olympic Football tournament and the Women’s and Men’s World Cups — for the last 20 years. They will be there because there has been no effective action on the part of FIFA to clean up this problem."

So began a letter I received from my colleague Declan Hill, author of the book The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime. Hill is no conspiracy theorist. His book reveals not just which soccer matches have been fixed, but how it is done and who is involved. He even witnessed matches being fixed first-hand.

Soccer fans everywhere should heed his warning.

Americans may not realize just how big of an event the World Cup is due to soccer's lack of popularity in the U.S. While the Super Bowl holds all 10 places in the top 10 most watched television events in U.S. history, the 2006 World Cup was watched by 5 percent of all humanity who ever existed.

It is also the most wagered upon sporting event in the world. Betting on the World Cup — both legal and illegal — will generate likely over $40 billion in wagers. Due to the vast amount of money exchanging hands, the possibility of a fixed match is highly probable.

How is that possible?

For one, most people believe players should take the pitch with a pure heart and play for their homeland. Yet seeing how much money surrounds them —from sponsorships, in the stands, at the concession stands, on television —the players rightfully want a taste.

The problem is that players are not paid directly for their participation in the World Cup. Each nation's soccer association receives money from FIFA, yet the players do not know how much or even if they will be paid for their efforts. This sets the stage, especially with the poorer nations that participate in the event, for players to accept bribes from gamblers (Hill details in his book how gamblers often bribe bad teams to ensure they lose by a particular score).

FIFA's counterargument to the idea of match-fixing resides in its "Early Warning System." This is a system set up to detect "unnatural" money on games, hinting at a potential fix. There are two huge holes in this program: one, the system is maintained by legal sports books while a majority of the money wagered is done illegally; and two, with over $40 billion being wagered worldwide, no one — even the legal sports books — would likely notice an extra $1 million being bet on a fixed match.

Foolishly, Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for the legal British bookmaker William Hill, was quoted in a marketwatch.com article saying, "There have been proportionately fewer 'rigging scandals' in football, I would suggest, than in some U.S. sports in recent years. Bookmakers are the potential targets of any attempted match fixing, [but] we have no concerns whatsoever about the integrity of the World Cup."

Of course Sharpe, like all bookmakers (and sporting leagues), doesn't want people to consider that games may be fixed —it negatively affects their business. But the truth is, soccer games —and World Cup games —have been fixed in the past and will likely be fixed in 2010. Sharpe can do nothing to stop it from happening, nor can he and his fellow bookmakers detect it.

Unfortunately, the situation is the same for FIFA. While the organization could do more —much more —to combat the problem, they perfer to stick their collective heads in the sand. FIFA has even gone so far as to allow bookmakers to set up shop directly outside the stadiums in South Africa where the World Cup matches will be played. Match fixing? What match fixing?

FIFA seems to have a very short memory. For literally hundreds of players, coaches, and referees have been arrested, charged, and convicted for fixing soccer matches across the globe.

To think that the gamblers and criminal organizations that fixed those games won't attempt to do so in the 2010 World Cup is ludicrous.

You have been warned.

Everywhere but in America

It’s not surprising that this website has many detractors. People who think that my beliefs are pure poppycock, or to be more exact, conspiracy theories. I have even been supposedly “debunked” by none other than film critic Richard Roeper in his book of the same name.

Most people hold steadfast to the notion that today’s professional sports cannot be fixed. Everyone has their own theory as to why this should be true. Some claim athletes are paid too much in this modern age to be bribed to throw a game. Others state that if a particular game was fixed, so-called "unnatural money" would be spotted by bookmakers and gamblers alike, tipping off said fix. Still others simply cling to the false ideal that sports are pure and if a game was somehow rigged, those in control of the game or authorities such as the FBI would catch the criminals involved.

Unfortunately for sports fans these are the unrealistic beliefs; not mine.

In October 2006 Bloomberg reported that online sports wagering was up over 20% from the year before to nearly $80 billion gambled yearly worldwide. The number of online wagering sites now top 2,500.

American fans naively believe that though $80 billion is being wagered worldwide on sports – including the games of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB - game fixing does not exist. Their collective cry is: where are the headlines if these incidents are occurring?

Headlines are in fact being made. They simply exist in foreign newspapers. These stories are not propagated here in the United States, yet they have been occurring for decades. They include incidents in professional tennis, baseball, hockey, auto racing, and even the world’s most popular sport, soccer.

Athletes have not just been suspected of throwing games in these international cases, but have been caught, expelled from the sport, arrested, thrown in jail, and even murdered because of it. What follows is a brief rundown of these recent events that have taken place across the globe.

1970s-80s – During the height of the Russian hockey program, its greatest team was known as the Moscow Red Army (TSKA). During this time, the team’s skate sharpener, the president of Sparta Moscow (TSKA’s chief rival), TSKA St. Petersburg team president, and the president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation were all murdered by the Russian mafia. Most believe all of these murders were linked to gambling and game fixes.

1996 – 18 players, a team manager, and two bookies were arrested, convicted, and jailed for fixing games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (the CPBL).

2003 – Belarus goalie Valery Shantolosov was arrested for attempting to fix two 2004 Euro qualifying matches. Though Shantolosov did not play in either game, he was connected to Russian gamblers and accused of attempting to bribe and otherwise influence the outcome of these games. His team lost both contests.

July 2005 – The Chinese Professional Baseball League (the CPBL) witnessed a player and a coach from its La New Bears arrested for game fixing. In total, police caught 10 people including gangsters and bookies in their sweep. This group, police claimed, collected over $3 million during this time.

It was revealed that coaches and players were often blackmailed, terrorized, and offered sex in exchange for throwing ball games. Favorite targets were foreign players from Panama and the Dominican Republic who were offered upwards of $5,000 to fix a game. As a result, a team translator who acted as a go-between for gangsters and players was arrested as well.

May 2006 – Juventus of Turin was the powerhouse of the Italian Serie A soccer league. The “Yankees of Italian soccer” had won 29 national championships. However in 2006, after winning their second national championship in as many years, the team fell apart due to accusations of game fixing, dragging much of the Italian soccer league with it.

As rumors swirled, Italian federal investigators conducted twenty months of wiretapping, attempting to sort out the twisted world of the soccer league. What they discovered was shocking. The revelations included players gambling on games in which they participated, coercion, physical threats, and even a possible kidnapping.

Juventus of Turin’s general manager Luciano Moggi was accused of being the mastermind of a system that appointed “favored” referees to his team’s key games. Moggi also held considerable sway over the sale and trade of players throughout the league. After winning the ’06 title, Moggi resigned his position with the team. When the Italian investigators got a hold of him soon afterwards, Moggi broke down during questioning, claiming he had to defend himself from the “real powers” that ran the game.

Moggi’s former team, Juventus of Turin, was owned by the Agnelli family who also own the Fiat Motor Corporation.

Investigators also discovered that Juventus’s goalie Gianluigi Buffon had a serious gambling habit. He gambled well over $2.5 million on various sporting events during their monitoring of Buffon. They could not however pin Buffon down on gambling upon soccer. Despite this, Buffon was later selected as the goalie for Italy’s World Cup team.

In Naples it was believed that an “elite group” at the very top of the Italian soccer world formed a criminal organization with the aims of influencing the outcome of several games. Investigators pinpointed 19 specific games which were in question, and investigated 41 people involved in those contests.

Three teams – Lazio of Rome, Fiorentina of Florence, and AC Milan (which was owned by the Italian Prime Minister) – were targeted for game fixing in these incidents.

When all was said and done, Juventus of Turin’s entire board of directors were forced to resign. The Italian soccer federation’s President and Deputy resigned as well. Two top officers in the league’s referee’s association also quit in disgrace.

The league continues to operate today despite these revelations.

July 2006 – It was alleged that France paid Brazil $25 million to throw its quarterfinals match in the World Cup. An email was supposedly leaked reading in part “The Brazilians have taken compensation from the French that exceeds the winners’ trophy prize, so they’re now very cautious.” Suspiciously after the loss, none of the Brazilian star players would speak with the press.

2007 – Russian tennis star Nikolay Davydenko had one of his matches declared "null and void" in European sports books because he may have taken a dive during his match. The 4th ranked Davydenko lost to the 87th ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello due to an “injury” Davydenko sustained in the match.

Since then, others in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) have stepped forward with claims of bribes that were offered to them. At the end of 2007, two players, 31st ranked Potito Starace and the 258th ranked Daniele Bracciali, were subsequently fined and suspended for gambling on tennis matches.

December 2007 – European soccer’s governing body, the UEFA, called Interpol to investigate game fixing within the sport. Five UEFA officials handed police a 96 page document with suspicions regarding 26 games, including three in the 3rd preliminary round of the 2008 championships, two in the UEFA Cup, and one in the qualifying round of the 2008 Euro.

Millions of dollars were involved, much of which was supplied by Asian syndicates which are very active in both gambling and game fixing. Teams from Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Croatia were suspected in cooperating.

2008 – The UK newspaper the Independent ran an investigative article into players gambling. Substantiated by the nation’s foremost clinic for treating athletes with addictions, the Independent claimed there was an “epidemic” of players gambling which had undoubtedly led to on-field incidents due to players needing to pay off debts with bookies.

March 2008 – A writer posted the outcome of a Japanese soccer league game prior to the game taking place. This was not a prediction, but a warning that the game was fixed for a particular outcome (a 2-2 tie which would be won by a certain team during the penalty kick shootout). The game’s result was exacted as described.

September 2008 - It was in a Formula One race in Singapore that Nelson Piquet Jr followed orders from Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, the Renault team’s managing director and director of engineering respectively, to intentionally crash his car. Piquet’s teammate Fernando Alonso ultimately won the race. While this investigation by FIA continues, Piquet and the Renault team is still allowed to compete.

December 2008 – China’s professional baseball league (CPBL) saw one of its teams, the T-Rex, completely disband due to game fixing revelations.

February 2009 - British writer Nick Harris writes in the UK Independent that two 2008 soccer matches were closely examined by the FA (Football Association) for possible match fixing.  The FA, of course, found nothing.  Read his highly interesting article here.

February 2009 - Another British writer, Lawrence Donegan, also tackled the question of match fixing in an article in the UK paper the Guardian.  Donegan went one step further than Nick Harris, documenting not just soccer games that may have been fixed, but snooker and cricket matches as well.  It's a recommended read here.

March 2009 – Three players in the Italian soccer league Serie A, Franco Brienza, Salvatore Aronica, and Vincenzo Montalbano, were under federal investigation for match rigging in 2003. The three players were reportedly paid $270,000 by the mafia to throw a particular game which their team lost 2-1 on a late goal.

April 2009 – It was revealed that since 2005, Polish police have detained nearly 200 people for suspected soccer game fixing. This included members of the Polish Football Federation, coaches, referees, and players. In early 2009, 17 people associated with the league were found guilty of fixing games and sentenced to prison. The harshest sentence was 4 years.

April 2009 – Bulgarian bookies stopped taking bets on several games in the nation’s soccer championship for fears of games being fixed. A game that had already taken place was suspected of being fixed when a specific result (a 3-1 victory) was heavily bet upon. The game ended in that exact score.

May 2009 - The 119th ranked tennis player Mathieu Montcourt was suspended for five weeks and fined $12,000 for gambling on tennis. Supposedly, he only gambled $3 per match, ringing up a grand total of $192 bet in 36 matches. Whether true or not, in early July 2009, Montcourt was found dead in his Paris apartment building's stairwell. Investigators are still looking into the suspicious death of the 24-year old tennis player.

June 2009 – Author Marc Bennetts wrote a book titled Football Dynamo – Modern Russia and the People’s Game in which he claims at least one to two games each season in Russian soccer are “suspicious.” One game in particular involving a 3-2 loss by the team Krylya Sovietov was accompanied by irregular betting. The president of the nation’s soccer union later stated he was “ashamed” of the team for the game in question.

October 2009 - The WTA looked in to suspicous ending of a tennis match between U.S. Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki after she unexpectedly retired from a match winning 7-5, 5-0 (meaning she was a single game away from winning).  Wozniacki claimed afterwords that she was injured early in the first set and her father instructed her to quit when she did, afraid of her further injuring herself.  Betting on the match had swung heavily to her opponent prior to Wozniacki quitting. 

July 2010 - Interpol conducted raids on nearly 800 illegal gambling dens spread across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and China (including Hong Kong and Macau).  All told, over 5,000 people were arrested and $10 million seized.  In the one month operation, over $155 million in illegal soccer bets were booked by these organized crime rings.  Prior to this series of raids, Hong Kong police reported that they destroyed a vast, international bookmaking operation that had booked over $1.3 billion in illegal World Cup soccer bets.

Author and investigator Declan Hill, whose own website digs into the treacherous world of soccer game fixing, wrote a book on the subject titled The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime. In his 2008 book, Hill exposed soccer games that were fixed in the 2004 Olympics, the 2006 World Cup, and the 2007 Women’s World Cup among others.

He also issued a warning about the 2010 World Cup.

On top of those revelations, Hill claims that soccer’s worldwide governing body FIFA is aware of these incidents and very well may complicit in their occurrences.

While none of these events have made an American newspaper or were seriously covered on ESPN, the fact is sporting contests of every sort are being fixed world wide. Often times by mafia members willing to do anything and everything to get players and coaches to bend to their wills. What was covered here may just be the tip of the iceberg.

The situation has become so serious that the International Olympic Committee is to set up a special panel to look for suspicous betting patterns and activities during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.  Of course, it doesn't help that FIFA allowed bookmakers to set up shop directly outside the South African stadiums hosting the World Cup matches.

If this can happen in the “world’s game” of soccer as well as in these other sports covered above, how is it not possible that similar incidents of game fixing are not occurring within major sports leagues of the United States?