On September 11, the Santa Clara University Institute of Sports Law and Ethics (ISLE) will present a symposium that will focus in part on match-fixing. Internationally acclaimed journalist Declan Hill will be the featured speaker for that portion of the symposium, and I would encourage you to contact Nancy Diaz at 408-554-4451 (ndiaz@scu.edu) for ticket details. Here is a link to information about the event, which we expect to sell out.
Hill, author of The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime, recently wrote two articles for the New York Times that I would encourage you to read if you are interested in gambling in soccer. Here is the link to his first article, and here is the link to the second article. Warning: this is not pleasant reading for anyone who loves soccer and who treasures the essence of sporting competition. Hill is as knowledgeable as anyone in the world about match fixing, so after reading what Hill has to say it is difficult to feel optimistic that positive change is imminent.
In addition to Hill’s articles, I recommend this article from Grantland written by Bryan Phillips in February of 2013, and this article from Grantland written by Bill Barnwell a week ago. Again, after reading these articles it is difficult to feel anything but anger over the extent to which gambling interests have damaged the sport of soccer.
Taken together, these articles present a compelling picture of gamblers and fixers attempting to influence the outcome of soccer matches played anywhere and everywhere around the world, most notably in areas where the players and officials are poorly paid. FIFA, soccer’s governing body, does not appear to be sufficiently staffed to investigate gambling allegations, nor does FIFA appear to be particularly interested in dealing with this issue.
German newspapaer Der Spiegel recently reported that notorious match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal had told one of its reporters prior to the Cameroon-Croatia World Cup group stage match, played on June 18, that Croatia would win 4-0 and that a Cameroon player would be ejected in the first half for a red card. Both the score and the red card ejection subsequently proved to be accurate, which of course raised concerns that Cameroon players had conspired with gamblers to fix the match.
It should be noted that Perumal denies talking with the journalist prior to the match. The communication between Perumal and Der Spiegel took place via Facebook, and there is some speculation that the newspaper may have been duped into thinking it was communicating with Perumal. As this is written, Der Spiegel is standing by its story.
It is far from clear to me whether Cameroon players in fact threw away their own country’s chances against Croatia. As this is written, no finding has been made either way as to the veracity of the Der Spiegel story. The reason I tend to doubt that the match was fixed is because the player sent off for Cameroon, Alex Song, plays his club soccer for Barcelona, one of the world’s richest teams. Song’s Barcelona salary has been reported as the equivalent of $120,000 per week. Song is 26 years old, with many more years of top-level soccer, and top-level wages, in front of him. If gamblers can coerce cooperation from an elite player like Song, then there truly is no hope.
In addition to the typical bets available in soccer (e.g., winner/loser/tie, total number of goals over/under) there are also any number of “proposition bets” that a gambler can get involved with, for example, time of the first corner kick, time of the first ball kicked out of bounds, over/under for the number of yellow cards in the first half and so on, limited only by the creativity of the house. For example, it was reported that a Norwegian bookie paid 167 bettors who correctly wagered that Luis Suarez of Uruguay would bite an opponent in the World Cup (the bookie paid off despite Suarez’s initial claim that he lost his balance and his mouth fell accidentally onto the shoulder of his opponent).
As the linked articles discuss, gambling interests from Asia, where gambling is largely unregulated, appear to have covered the globe in their efforts to find cooperative players and officials to bribe. One has to wonder how much betting interest there is in a Finnish league contest, but Perumal was attempting to fix games in that league when he was arrested.
Finally, to continue the unfortunate theme of this posting, here is a link to an article reporting that two officials who worked matches in the 2014 World Cup are alleged to have participated in match fixing prior to the World Cup. If true, that is more bad news.
What do you think? Is there hope for honest soccer on a global scale? I welcome your comments.
