OTHER EVENTS

The Leader Column

Authoritative, independent and hard hitting, the weekly column on the business of football tackles some of the biggest issues of the week. Click here to sign up for your weekly fix from the Leaders in Football.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE DRESSING ROOM

3:00pm Thursday, 26th November 2009

Lots of people make good money out of football. BSkyB have grown rich on their subscription based business broadcasting live Premier League games. Stadium designers - and builders - have had a very productive couple of decades; major sponsors, from Coca Cola to Barclays Bank have grown their businesses in partnership with the game, and players at the top have all become multi-millionaires.

Betting companies have thrived too. With the growth of the internet and mobile phone technology, many betting and gambling firms have grown rich on the intense public interest all round the world in football matches and results. As noted in our earlier column (03/09/09), some of these companies have stepped in to fill the spaces on football shirts once largely occupied by alcoholic drinks manufacturers, taking up club sponsorships of some of the biggest and best in Europe.

But the really big money is elsewhere; hidden, disguised and unaccounted. No one knows how much illegal betting on football is worth annually but everyone agrees it is massive. Some estimates indicate it could be more than a trillion dollars a year - equal to the entire value of the football industry itself, and then some. Unregulated and unlawful gambling is the elephant in football's dressing room.

The news this week from Uefa that a couple of hundred football matches in nine different European countries have been implicated in gambling-inspired corruption - specifically, the 'fixing' of games - will have shocked many. In the West, we tend to think of football related corruption as endemic in certain parts of the world, especially China, parts of South America and Africa, though we also recognise that Eastern Europe often mixes criminality with football ownership. But here in the West? Surely not?

Yet the German authorities, working closely with Uefa, have indicated hundreds of people - and dozens of players - have been involved in match-fixing. Over fifty police raids were made; more than one million euros worth of cash and kind were seized and a few dozen arrests followed.

When you unpack the details, it turns out that, rather than big games in Europe's high profile leagues - though there are some - the fixing has largely been at matches at lower league levels (third, fourth and below) which involve very much less scrutiny by television or anyone else. It is here that the new technologies have unwittingly provided opportunities. You can now get a bet on SV Babelsberg 03 v FC Energie Cottbus II from a bar in Chonquing at the push of a few buttons. And if you've got some 'inside knowledge', you can place many more bets too.

Of course, patterns of legal betting - with legitimate companies - can be closely monitored, and unusual activity triggers alarm bells. But legitimate betting may be only a minor part of the overall activity. Gambling is a highly regulated business; tightly controlled (and often simply illegal) in many countries across the globe. But that often just ensures that a shadowy network of gangsters or other powerful people run it, and no one can easily 'monitor' what goes on there. The internet also allows ordinary citizens to place bets even if it is strictly illegal in their own countries.

It's only a few years ago that the China Super League collapsed as a direct result of a massive loss of confidence brought on by endemic 'black whistle' - the descriptive Chinese term for corrupt referees. The top half dozen clubs literally walked off the pitch in unison and refused to play ball at all.

The big problem with elephants in confined spaces is when they move they break things.

back