By Tony Attwood
Naturally, like all supporters, Untold looks first at the club we support – Arsenal FC. But Arsenal are of course part of a bigger picture, for being members of the Premier League, the club is automatically subservient to the Football Association, Uefa and Fifa.
Now we have long been critical of the Football Association for various reasons, and that criticism can only be redoubled by the finding that the FA can’t even bring cases of match fixing to the regulatory commission without being heavily criticised and having the case thrown out for utterly obvious reasons. If you continue and read what’s below, as I hope you will, I would ask that at the end, would you hire people like this to run the oversight organisation in the industry you work in?
The case in question is that of Lucas Paquetá who was charged with being involved in spot-fixing. The case appeared quite straightforward forward but the FA completely failed to provide the tribunal with an independent assessment of the relevant data that was being cited in the case which was to do with the number of yellow cards being issued.
The commission hearing the case cited what it called “an obvious flaw” in the prosecution’s case, “namely the lack of an independent assessment of the data”.
Now, in all such cases, the provision of an independent assessment of the data on which the prosecution relies is utterly fundamental. To give an example, one might argue that because of match fixing, Team X had eight draws in ten games. That by itself is not enough to show match fixing, but it raises the question, “What is the normal figure we would expect from a run of ten games of a club in that league?”
One would then call in a statistician whose reputation is unchallenged, who might say that the average number of draws for a club in a run of ten games is two, the highest number seen in the last five years is six, and the lowest number zero. Therefore, the chances of eight draws in ten games is less than one in a thousand. Further, the chance of someone who has not placed this kind of bet before placing a bet on there being eight draws in ten games for those specific games is one in a million – in fact beyond the bounds of possibility. Therefore, match fixing to get these results is extremely likely to be found as the root of this situation.
Of course, that example is invented, but it makes the point. One has to analyse the likelihood of a situation existing through the normal course of events before one starts suggesting some sort of illegal action.
In this case, it was alleged that the player appeared to be linked to a number of individuals who placed suspicious bets, but that of course is not an offence. I am not guilty of housebreaking just because I know a guy who was found guilty of housebreaking.
In this case, the commission found the betting patterns were probably due to individuals who had fantasies of having inside knowledge, passing that “knowledge” as ‘hot tips’ to others who were silly enough to believe them. That does not make those who placed the bets guilty of match fixing.
Indeed, among other things, the FA apparently did not find any discussion of betting on mobile phones which belonged to the player. In most cases involving match fixing, discussions take place on mobile phones and are used as evidence.
For the FA the prime witness was their own “betting integrity investigator”. But neither he nor the Association offered any independent analysis of the case in terms of match results and betting patterns, while apparently at the same time contradicting its own chief witness!!!
Worse for the FA, the defence called ex-referee Mark Clattenburg as a witness and he said that the player’s activities across four matches that were called into question were “entirely within the normal range of actions for this player.” It also appeared that the number of yellow cards he got over the time in questiion was completely consistent with the number of cards he got through the previous and the next season. In short, there was no evidence. It also turned out that the FA’s “expert” witness (the word “expert” is used in its lightest form here) failed to take into account the player’s conduct in terms of cards in matches beyond those in which he was charged with match fixing! In other words, was his performance in the period in question unusual? No.
The FA, however, always ready to put the boot in, especially where it has failed to ride roughshod over any player it doesn’t like, has now found the player guilty of “failing to co-operate with the FA.” The player’s legal team however, argue that the player did offer to answer any questions the FA had, but that the FA failed to ask any!!!!
In fact the evidence showed the player was not in any way interested in gambling, and had co-operated with the enquiry throughout!
Not surprisingly, the FA has said it won’t appeal. But really, we ought to be asking about the conduct of the FA in this case and the money (supplied by clubs) they wasted in bringing this case.
What clubs ought to have as members of leagues governed by the FA is the ability to kick out the FA and replace it with a body that is fit for purpose.
