The curious cases of match fixing in the world cup, Champs League, and, well, generally

By Tony Attwood

The one time Uefa president Michel Platini who is now formerly known as the “disgraced former president” as if  most administrators of major football organisations are not still a disgrace, has recently admitted the draw for the World Cup in 1998 was fixed.   He called it what translates roughly as “a bit of mucking about” but he meant “fixed”, I’m sure.

The idea was that everyone in Fifa knew what they wanted as the showpiece World Cup Final, and so the draw was fixed to give these countries the greatest chance of meeting.  And so it turned out.

He didn’t get banned from football for that – after all when Fifa fixes something who is there to investigate?  Well, looks like it is Fifa and I am not sure I have too much confidence in them as the final arbiter of what is right.  Thank goodness America throws in the FBI when money is involved.

It is interesting that this comes out now after the story blew up about the draw fixing in the Champions League semi-final, in which the draw went up on some clubs’ web sites before it was made – and of course they got it right.

And so it is interesting to think of that situation in the light of Plantini’s comment about the draw in the World Cup, “There was a little trickery. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans. Do you think other World Cup hosts did not?”

Indeed in some regards draw fixing is sometimes openly admitted, as in the 1990 world cup where the six countries that most people wanted to see were called the top six seeds and were placed in separate groups before the draw began.  It certainly happened in the 1966 World Cup in which it was arranged that England would play all its games at Wembley.

There’s even a YouTube to commemorate draw fixing.

As for the Champions League,  Roma advertised tickets for their game with Liverpool on their official website 24 hours before the draw was made.  And then the live draw results were shown on the official Uefa site before the live stream.

It is what makes these international organisations so endearing I suppose.  They are all-powerful in football, answerable to no one except (as I suggested above) the FBI, and yet even when they do something as simple as draw fixing they don’t get it right.  “Blundering incompetents” is I think the general term – just like me with digital technology.

Of course match fixing is quite possibly going on at the same time but those who may be engaged in such activity have a great advantage.  Consider it like this:

Imagine you wanted to fix a match.  You might consider bribing the club officials – but that would be dodgy because a lot of people would know what was going on, and the club officials would have to get the players to agree, and players can be difficult buggers.

That is also why entire teams are not often thought to be bribed.  It did happen in 1915 with Liverpool and Manchester United, and almost certainly with Liverpool and Chelsea in 1913, but these days it is rare.  (Details of those match fixing events are explored in great depth on the Arseanal History Society Site in our article

So if you can’t bribe the club officials nor the players because there are too many people involved, who would you bribe?  The obvious answer is referees.  But even here a dodgy decision by a referee would stand out if there was a video assistant on the game, or indeed if referees by and large never made any significant errors.   So a scenario in which there are no video assistants and referees are often seen to make errors, is a perfect base line.

Add in the notion that anyone who ever suggests there might be something wrong with refereeing is considered a bad loser or a nerd or a flat earther or just a general nutter, and that dubious refereeing is just so boring, and has been discussed so often before that the media in general won’t touch it with a barge pole, then you have the perfect scenario for match fixing to take place.

Of course the suggestion that it could happen doesn’t mean it does, but maybe that’s not the question.  Maybe the question is, why not put in place a few basic changes which will ensure that match fixing doesn’t happen?  After all there is a fair amount of money floating about in the game.

Or so I keep hearing.

 

 

7 Replies to “The curious cases of match fixing in the world cup, Champs League, and, well, generally”

  1. This will decrease my interest in this World Cup sham even more, if that’s possible.
    My only hope for the tournament, as ever is that our players get something out of it and come back fit and healthy

  2. When it comes to obtaining a big TV audience not only do you deed big name clubs in the final you need them in the semi finals.

    Today’s cup final is between teams with a world wide following and catches the imagination of millions around the world.

    However if the match was between shall we say Burnly and Southampton. The game might pick up some north – south divide among neutrals in England but not around the world So the final would not have been the big football event it is with today’s game.

    There is talk of a European Club league with only the big clubs playing.

    We already have a league (at the moment unofficial) that is different from the present leagues set ups.

    We have a league of clubs that are either funded by countries, companies, consortia or individuals.

    These clubs should have their own league.

    Rules would need to be enforced to prevent them depriving the clubs in the present leagues of their best players.

    I

  3. The Champions League draw can’t be fixed, we always get an easy draw in the KO stages, we are just a poor team who cannot get past the last 16.

  4. Hmmm.Is it only football fixtures and games that are being fixed in the world? What about political election balloting, political appointments, tertiaries institution placements, employments, distribution of infatructures, social and economic amenities in a nation, political arrangement like states & local governments creation in a country, favours and wealths sharing in a county? Are all these not being fixed too?

  5. sheds a very interesting light on arsenal’s drawing either bayern, or barcelona, in the champions’ league, not to mention the nonexistent penalties given to the opponents, the existent penalties not given to arsenal, or again one of our best player being sent off (sometimes two of these “bits of mucking about” in the same half, as when we were 1-0 up in our latest confrontation with bayern at the emirates) … before the europa league semi-final draw, i had a small bet with friends; my guess was atletico, with the second leg in madrid …
    of course, the “pundits”, the “journalists” never take that into account when in their “expert” analyses of arsenal performance: arsenal are mentally weak, arsenal can’t defend, wenger is not longer apt tactically … we know the drill, the one the WOB mynah birds have sung along ’til they got what they thought they wanted: the loss, for AFC, of one of the greatets men professional football has ever known

    still gutted (and i have no prejudice whatsoever against arteta; as for virtually everyone of those who have had the honour of wearing the red and white shirt, i am very fond of the guy)

  6. I read Platini’s interview in L’Equipe. He said that France and Brazil would not meet until the final IF they both win their groups. He also said that it was a known fact, and that FIFA gave the organizing country (as usual) the choice of where the groups would compete, and that it included initially the eight top seeds. If anything, there was a tiny risk of either France or Brazil not finishing top of their respective groups. When you look at earlier World Cup editions, it was even worse, or more foolproof, to avoid other countries for an organizing country: two or three editions had four groups that produced an obligatory half of the board, with the other four groups producing the other obligatory half of the board after the group stage. In other terms, if a country wanted to avoid four heavily favored countries, they would have them in say groups A-B-C-D, while they would be in group E, with groups F-G-H having the less overwhelming football teams. If you go to Wikipedia, you can get quite an education about past editions of the World Cup, and how potential for rigging was even more ripe as compared to 1998.

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