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Corruption in Sport

Submitted by torontofan on Mon, 04/06/2018 - 01:10

With the recent disclosure of corruption and match fixing in Cricket is it possible that the same applies to football and in particular the Premier Division? Let's take this shocking documentary where three cricket matches were fixed - so watch it first:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/exclusive-cricket-match-fixers-ca...

Now if we reflect back to players like Payet whose game went downhill in his last few fixtures with the first team. Then there was a particular match where he moved into the left back position to cover for Cresswell who drifted into Payet's left wing position.
Payet should have thrown in a tackle as he was within that opposition player's range - maybe a foot or two away from him. But all he did was casually look at that player and walk away. That led to a goal and then West Ham's ultimate defeat. His falling out with Bilic led to a lot of speculation, and then within the January Transfer window, Payet departed. There were a lot of gambling bets over whether he would be targeted by Manchester United, Chelsea, and even Arsenal or Tottenham among the premier divisions. Then there was always previous speculation about Real Madrid or Barcelona and the clubs from Italy and China who were eyeing him as well. But in the end he ended the speculation by saying that he wanted to return to Marseille:

These were the final odds, so can you imagine the starting odds for Payet and the hundreds of millions of dollars involved:

https://www.smartbets.com/what-are-the-odds/dimitri-payet-next-club-odds/

Could there have been a situation where the player's agent acted to get a huge percentage of the profits from his underhand tactics?

This is only a coincidental speculation and not a fact, but could it apply to various players and clubs themselves involved with such speculation. This was a flip flop season for West Ham, where some players showed up for some games and then were total passengers in other matches. Same with numerous clubs around the globe including the Italian League. We have seen FIFA officials charged. But how widespread is it?

asheshammer's picture

especially in matters that DON'T affect outcome. Who takes a free kick, who gives a foul when, who sustains an "injury" and has to be substituted (and when). The culture in cricket was (is?) that these things don't really matter, so who gets hurt? And it's even easier in cricket (X bowls a wide in over # Y). I was deeply suspicious when Man City scored in extra time on the final game of the season to get their 100 points. Coincidence? maybe. So much money is laundered through gambling especially at lower levels and in leagues that are less avidly policed. I'll always wonder just exactly what happend to Brazil's Ronaldo just before the final in the 1998 world cup ...

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moore2come's picture

West Ham are the outlier. With Sully in charge they try to fix the games but he wants to pay the bet over 25yrs so they leave West ham alone, hence we seem to win every now and then when the opposition throw the game (Everton - how often do we beat them really?)
On the other hand maybe Sully is involved. I mean seriously how many times a season should a team concede 4 goals in a match!!!!?

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