officials say organized crime has infiltrated the highest levels of european soccer

Hi

sry if this has been posted


I am not a big soccer fan but I know its the most played sport in the world. If I found out all the NFL games were fixed Id be fuming

They say the people in on the fixes made several million $.. I wonder how much people who werent in on it lost?


www.nytimes.com...

THE HAGUE — Criminal organizations have infiltrated the highest levels of European and international soccer, threatening the integrity of the sport, global law enforcement officials said Monday as they disclosed the results of a 19-month investigation that indicated that hundreds of people had been involved in match-fixing.

At least 425 people from more than 15 countries — including club and match officials, and current and former players — are suspected of conspiring in nearly 700 matches in recent years on behalf of Asian criminal syndicates that made millions of dollars in profits by betting on the results, they said.

...and they're just finding this out?

Gets kind of hard to fix team sports at that high level though. Simply too many people are required to pull off a fix.

I suppose you could buy out the goalie but you never know who is going to make a big play. It just gets risky from a cost benefit point of view.

Now games like Tennis or boxing would be much easier to fix since its really only one person you need to worry about. A game like baseball would take a lot more money invested among multiple people.

However, that's not to say it isn't happening, I would just say its a bit harder.

The main trick is not to bet on the overall outcome but for events such as a penalty in the 80-90th minute which only requires the ref to point at the spot for some silly action in the area and the ref can probably via gifting free kicks and playing advantage get the ball into the area

Some 425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals are suspected of being involved.

At a news conference in The Hague, Netherlands, Europol claimed:
The fixed Champions League tie in England took place in the "last three or four years";
The identity of that match cannot be revealed due to "ongoing judicial proceedings";
Other "corrupt" matches included World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and "several top football matches in European leagues";
In Germany-based matches alone, criminals wagered £13.8m (16m euros) on rigged matches and made £6.9m in profits. Officials fear this is as the "tip of the iceberg";
In total 380 suspicious matches were in Europe and a further 300 in Africa, Asia and south and central America.

As someone who plays football myself, i would say the only people that can be paid are, the referee, goalkeeper, linesman and possibly the 4th official. After that it becomes very hard to get a game thrown as to many people are involved.

The one that gets me the most being in England is "The fixed Champions League tie in England took place in the last three or four years". This may have been in the early stages of the tournament as it would be easier to pass off, whereas a quarter final or semi-final or even the final would be very risky for the person/people involved.

So, it turns out the English match in question is Liverpool's 1-0 home win over Debrecen from Hungary in the Champions League group stage in 2009, Dirk Kuyt scored the winner that day.

Also, this investigation has been on-going for 18 months and Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said: "This is the work of a suspected organised crime syndicate based in Asia and operated with criminal networks around Europe."

Somehow i think nothing will come of this investigation, it seems very widespread and might be hard to pin anyone to the crime unless there is a paper/digital trail.