MATCH FIXING E-Book

Daniela Giuffrè

• Herausgeber: Minerva Edizioni
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

“978-88-3324-087-9”

Passi di: “MATCH FIXING”. iBooks. Who is behind MATCH FIXING? How is it done, and to which aim? In 2015 we wrote for Minerva Edizioni Game Over: a report targeted at practitioners, and more specifically at investigators.  Since we did not want the book to be too ponderous, we provided a succinct description of a few topics that might have been interesting reading material even to  “non-professionals”.
These topics are dealt in depth in this volume: the history of MATCH FIXING, odd anecdotes and current state of affairs, the profile of its main characters and the explanation of the mechanisms (and complex motives) behind the swindle as well as the role played by the mafia.
You will not find any footnote: instead, the bibliography, at the end of the book, will provide you with book references as well as internet links, all relevant and interesting, although some of them, in our opinion, are a “must” for those who really wish to acquire a deep knowledge of the topic. This is why we highly recommend them to you.
The Fix by Declan Hill (2007) is a comprehensive book on the birth of modern MATCH FIXING and its close ties to the mafia. In 2014 Brett Forrest published The Big Fix where he recounts the never-ending fight between law enforcement and match fixers.  
But the real masterpieces on the subject are a book and... a very long judicial document. The book is the autobiography of one of the most notorious match fixers in the world: Wilson Raj Perumal, Kelong Kings, written by two Italian scholars, Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano. The judicial document is the ordinance issued by Cremona judge, Guido Salvini, in the maxi investigation on Scommessopoli that took place a few years ago (no doubt a less casual reading, yet dramatically concrete): hundreds of pages packed with wiretaps, explanatory notes of criminal mechanisms and charges that brought to its knees, at least for a while, MATCH FIXING in the Italian peninsula.
The only sources that we left in complete anonimity are those players, who over time have become our friends: they described to us the insider’s point of view, the existing dynamics in the dressing rooms, the problems and weaknesses of the athletes themselves, the ongoing MATCH FIXING techniques. At the beginning of this long journey we took their stories with a grain of salt, “perceiving” them as the fruit of their imagination...but this is not the case anymore! 
In reality football is not the only sport (nor was it the first) where MATCH FIXING took place: actually, in recent years other sport disciplines were targeted by match fixers. In this book we only hint at the story and trends of the swindle outside of football pitches, and yet it is in the world of football that the mafia invests massively its own resources, and where MATCH FIXING is not the sole objective of this criminal enterprise.   
One last remark: this is not a diatribe of a book, and where it was possible to report an event without mentioning the name of players who were disqualified or investigated, we did so: the only difference between them and many others (just as guilty as they were) lies in the simple fact that they got caught.

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ISBN VERSIONE E-BOOK: 978-88-3324-157-9

ISBN VERSIONE CARTACEA: 978-88-3324-087-9

Daniela Giuffrè

Antonio Scuglia

MATCH

FIXING

The big

mafia

business

English edition by

PF Grody

Introduction

I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Giuffré last year when she was giving a lecture in Frankfurt. I was fascinated to find out that she was taking part in a project run by Interpol on the phenomenon of match fixing. Such an unsuspecting lady running a project for Interpol on such a maschilistic world!

A couple of years back, when I lived in Italy, I had already heard of match fixing therefore this was no news to me. At the time, “Scommessopoli” was a big scandal involving many famous players which had struck a chord in the Italian Football world.

After her lecture, we spoke during our lunch break and she told me what she had discovered over time: absolutely unbelievable! A woman who has the courage and the stamina to fight the dark side of the world of sport. After reading this book, I was amazed, and at the same time despaired, to see that this phenomenon is indeed big business, especially in both Eastern and Western Europe, via the Asian continent.

Match fixing concerns everyone: players, referees, managers and coaches alike.

This book is written in such a way that it makes it very comprehensible as of the “how” and “why” match fixing exists.

The psychological element should not be underestimated: in fact, these major “criminals” play an important part, applying pressure on their victim’s fears, trapping them, and practically eating them first alive, to discard them later in a corner, once they have served their purpose.

The victim’s role consists in being played and manipulated. Betting can develop into (and becomes) a disease which starts a downward spiral process that leads the victim into a bottomless pit, often marked by violence.

Match fixing is an easy way to make money, to launder money but also a way to climb the social ladder in the world of sports.

Being a former athlete who had the joy and honor to compete at the highest competitive levels, I must say that the beauty of any sport resides in the uncertainty itself of the final result of any competition, where rules have to be followed. There’s an unwritten “law” that all athletes follow. As we all know, during a competition anything can happen, at any given time, which makes that moment, when the athlete gives his/her best to beat the odds, simply spectacular.

Match-fixing is a reality not only in Football, but also in other sports such as Rugby, Tennis and even Table-tennis. It rips out the spirit of sport, the foundation of Fair Play and self-respect.

Reading this book will definitely open your eyes to the reality that sport has indeed become big business. Sport brings such positiveness in many lives but there is also a darker, negative side to sport where individuals are taken advantage of: this is something that we cannot ignore if we wish to eradicate this disease.

This book is up to date, citing various cases that are still pending and which describes the reality of this phenomenon that unfortunately has become part of our daily lives.

Fiona May

Why this book

Who is behind match fixing? How is it done, and to which aim? In 2015 we wrote for Minerva Edizioni Game Over: a report targeted at practitioners, and more specifically at investigators. Since we did not want the book to be too ponderous, we provided a succinct description of a few topics that might have been interesting reading material even to “non-professionals”.

These topics are dealt in depth in this volume: the history of match fixing, odd anecdotes and current state of affairs, the profile of its main characters and the explanation of the mechanisms (and complex motives) behind the swindle as well as the role played by the mafia.

You will not find any footnote: instead, the bibliography, at the end of the book, will provide you with book references as well as internet links, all relevant and interesting, although some of them, in our opinion, are a “must” for those who really wish to acquire a deep knowledge of the topic. This is why we highly recommend them to you.

The Fix by Declan Hill (2007) is a comprehensive book on the birth of modern match fixing and its close ties to the mafia. In 2014 Brett Forrest published The Big Fix where he recounts the never-ending fight between law enforcement and match fixers.

But the real masterpieces on the subject are a book and... a very long judicial document. The book is the autobiography of one of the most notorious match fixers in the world: Wilson Raj Perumal, Kelong Kings, written by two Italian scholars, Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano. The judicial document is the ordinance issued by Cremona judge, Guido Salvini, in the maxi investigation on Scommessopoli that took place a few years ago (no doubt a less casual reading, yet dramatically concrete): hundreds of pages packed with wiretaps, explanatory notes of criminal mechanisms and charges that brought to its knees, at least for a while, match fixing in the Italian peninsula.

The only sources that we left in complete anonimity are those players, who over time have become our friends: they described to us the insider’s point of view, the existing dynamics in the dressing rooms, the problems and weaknesses of the athletes themselves, the ongoing match fixing techniques. At the beginning of this long journey we took their stories with a grain of salt, “perceiving” them as the fruit of their imagination...but this is not the case anymore!

In reality football is not the only sport (nor was it the first) where match fixing took place: actually, in recent years other sport disciplines were targeted by match fixers. In this book we only hint at the story and trends of the swindle outside of football pitches, and yet it is in the world of football that the mafia invests massively its own resources, and where match fixing is not the sole objective of this criminal enterprise.

One last remark: this is not a diatribe of a book, and where it was possible to report an event without mentioning the name of players who were disqualified or investigated, we did so: the only difference between them and many others (just as guilty as they were) lies in the simple fact that they got caught.

Chapter 1

What does match fixing exactly stand for?

In a fair game, the player is at a disadvantage compared to the bookmaker, a situation similar to gamblers at the casino who bet at the roulette table against the house. The only way to be reasonably certain that the bet will be successful is to fix the match: the aim of this book is to explain how the scam works. In fact, match fixing consists in fixing a match, by usually corrupting players or referees, so that a bet can safely be placed. There are naturally other reasons why matches are fixed, and we will refer to them, but let us not forget that this book hinges mainly upon the phenomenon of match fixing.

Nowadays, bets are placed not only on 1 X 2 (i.e. the win by one of the two teams or a draw), just as was the case of Totocalcio or even the first “Totonero”. These days, bets are placed also on the numbers of goals scored, who will score first, and, with some bookmakers, even on who will kick-start the game: as you might recall, there was a sensational case on such a bet during the Olympic Games’ finals!

In the past match fixing was simply considered an illegal sports act, irrelevant from a legal perspective: when caught cheating, the individual was disqualified – for a time or forever – but with no other consequences. Nowadays in many countries match fixing is considered a crime, punishable also by imprisonment: such is the case in Italy since 1989 (Law 401/1989), and the latest amendments to this law contemplate up to nine years imprisonment and one hundred thousand euros fine for both those giving and receiving bribes. Still in Italy, between 2006 and 2016, 900 arrests and 9000 complaints for match fixing were recorded, leading to seizures for a global value of 36 million euros.

Yet harsh sentences, even the most draconian ones, are not sufficient to dissuade the “match fixing professionals” nor the unwary who fall readily in their trap. Match fixing is “BIG” business: every week millions of football matches are played, and on thousands of them bets can be placed (legally or otherwise). According to Interpol, each year around one thousand billion dollars (around nine hundred billion euros) are placed in sports: millions of people in the world spend their money hoping to win (a lot or just a little) since they believe they are experts or inspired enough to be able to foresee how the game will end. In Italy alone, the volume of sports betting in 2016 was equal to 350 million euros.

Yet a match can be fixed also for other reasons.

The most classic example is a team in need to reach a certain result and its club pays, directly or indirectly, money to the other team. I must win or score in order to stay in this league or be promoted, as you, on the other hand, are already on safe ground: I am paying so that your players “will look the other way”. In this case it is clear that we are facing a real crime of corruption, punishable by the Italian penal code, although it might not be necessarily linked to “calcioscommesse”. In most cases not all players are involved: it is in fact much safer (and less expensive) to keep the lid on, instructing and reaching out only to a few key players that can make the scam succeed.

Not always does money change hands: at times the team simply commits not to try too hard, keeping a non-compromising league position against an adversary that needs a certain score in that match which, in turn, commits to return the favour in a future game.

There can also be an agreement “not to hurt one another”, often reached as the game progresses: a certain score is agreeable to both teams, therefore both decide to do everything to keep it unaltered. In this case it is clear that everybody on the pitch, or at least a good number of players, must know how to behave and what is expected of them. The moment the “correct” result is reached, both sides fiddle about, waste time, keep the ball, lose it intentionally, without trying to score… generally in this case all players know what to do and not to do. When in doubt, the coach will take the attacker out and replace him with a midfielder, the other coach will make the same move or will take the midfielder out and put in a defender. The centre-forward are left alone in two empty areas, and whoever dares to launch an offensive will be name-called by his coach “Where the hell do you think you are going?”.

A great deal of “fixed” matches (and there are thousands of them, from the World Cup to amateur league championships) fall under this category. There is no real corruption, but rather an agreement that is convenient to all parties. A ground-breaking statement was issued in May 2012 by the goalkeeper of the National Italian Team, Gianluigi Buffon: «Those who know football and are involved in it on a daily basis, are well aware of what goes on. In some cases one might say: better to have two injured players than a dead one”. Yet this was and still is obvious. Buffon was accused of what he had denounced eight years earlier, following the notorious “fraudulent deal” during the European football cup in Portugal, when Denmark and Sweden tied the score (2-2) which allowed both teams to qualify at Italy’s expense. More behind-the-scene facts can be found on a very juicy post on Calcioromantico.com listed in the bibliography: before the match, the quotation by the English bookmakers on a final 2-2 score had resoundingly fallen from 16/1 to 5/1 and in the stands the banners were adorned with slogans such as “2-2 Bye bye Italy” and “2-2 Nordic Victory”... “This is shameful – Buffon denounced at the time. – Everyone talks of loyalty, fair play and a lot of bullshit, and then this happens. We are confronted with a scandal of global proportions...”. In fact, what was truly shocking was the presumed agreement between two countries that ranked first in the world for their fairness and professional ethics, whereas no one was truly shocked by the “fraudulent deals” involving other national teams. In an interview published by the daily newspaper Stadio in January 2018, the journalist (and also former Vice-Premier and Minister) Walter Veltroni recounted that two former football players in the Italian national team had told him of the inconclusive attempt to find an agreement with Poland for a tie game during the 1974 World Cup: the Polish team won 2-1 and the Azzurri were eliminated.

Other matches are not fixed based on an agreement between the main stakeholders, but a team can give up and decide to be beaten simply out of fear. In February 2018 Douglas Costa, player on the Brazilian football team and the Juventus, granted an interview to Youtube Pilhado on the Flamengo-Gremio match played in 2009 in Maracanã which had caused quite a stir. In order to win the championship, Flamengo needed to beat the team for which Douglas Costa played: Gremio from Porto Alegre. Otherwise the other team from Porto Alegre, the Internacional, historical adversary of Gremio, could have, in extremis, won the national title. “This is why some players were changed. But could front row players beat the best Brazilian team of the year? I was dribbling here and there, but always away from the goal.” Moreover: “during the interval the president told us that we were free to do as we pleased, that it was up to us. If we won, he stated, the Gremio supporters would have invaded the airport runway and we would not have been able to leave, because they would have wanted to kill us. It would have been a ‘blot’ for the Gremio to hand over the title to the Internacional. At the end, the Flamengo won, 2-1, so all is well that ends well, don’t you agree? Everybody was happy. If we had won, I would probably be dead by now”.