Match Fixing in Football
Match fixing is widespread in almost all sports. Some sports are free from this tarnishing element but even the great sport of football isn't exempt from this sordid and illegal practice. Match fixing in cricket is widely known about and authorities and organising committees are trying to put an end to it or minimise it to a level where it isn't damaging to the overall game. A few high profile incidents have taken place in football recently which give us a stark picture of just how deeply entrenched this problem is. The recent World Cup game between Spain and Switzerland seemed to be a bit off but no one can ever know for sure. Match fixing can never be eradicated from the world, it can only be minimised and it has to be seen how this is achieved.
So many incidents of match fixing have come to light recently that recounting them all would take too long to recount here. But a few of the more recent and most troubling ones should be looked at more deeply. In 2006, the Italian football leagues; Serie A and Serie B, were involved in a huge scandal that rocked the football world. "The scandal was uncovered in May 2006 by Italian police, implicating league champions Juventus, and other major teams including, Internazionale Milan, Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina when a number of telephone interceptions showed a thick network of relations between team managers and referee organisations. The teams have been accused of rigging games by selecting favourable referees." That is one way to do it; bribe referees. A team that is able to bribe a referee has a distinct advantage over its rival because almost all of the decisions will go its way.
Another way to do it is to pay off an entire team to lose a match. We have to go way back into the history archives to find this story. In 1915, a match between Liverpool and Manchester United was fixed. Liverpool accepted money to lose the match and they bet on themselves to do so. They lost 2-0 and in the investigation that followed seven players in total were banned for life from both teams.
There is another way to fix a football match and that is to pay off the goalkeeper. "Liverpool keeper Bruce Grobbelaar was caught on videotape discussing match-fixing with members of a known gambling syndicate. Specifically, he was accused of taking £40,000 to ensure that Liverpool lost to Newcastle.” The goalkeeper, being the rock in the defence of a team, if bought, can easily sway the result of a match by purposely missing easy saves and making uncharacteristic mistakes. This way of fixing a match is harder to do because even if a goalie is bought, the rest of the team can still play very well and can score goals to make up for the goalies 'mistakes.'
Yet another way that fixing takes place is to try and buy out an entire league. This happened in 2009 in European club level football when a massive scandal was uncovered. "Prosecutors believe a 200-strong criminal gang ha[d] bribed players, coaches, referees and officials to fix games and then made money by betting on the results." The article goes on to say that 200 football games are under investigation for being fixed. That is a huge number of games and they constitute almost an entire season of football.
This brings us to looking at how match fixing is done and what lengths people go to ensure that a match is fixed. The amount of money involved in football makes the game an easy target for unscrupulous individuals who want to make massive amounts of money on betting on a game. If they can fix the outcome to be in their favour, they stand a good chance of making some serious cash in the process. These dodgy dealers use fixers to try and sway a person to agree to throw a match. "The fixers are spoken of in whispers by frightened players and sports officials. There are stories of gang attacks, a poisonous cobra being put in a player's car and of a goalkeeper dying in a “mysterious” car accident." By using intimidation they don't even have to pay a person to throw a game; all they have to do is threaten them with serious violence or threaten their families with dire consequences if they don't fix the game to go in the fixer's favour.
Match fixing ruins sports for everyone involved. It makes the matches very bad to watch for the spectators, it can ruin the career of the players involved, brings a bad name to the entire sport and fuels other criminal activities to take place. The only way it seems that match fixing can be stopped is by heavy policing of games and players by governing bodies and police authorities of different countries. Coaches need to be allowed to have a firm hand in disciplining their players who are found out about any sort of involvement in dodgy practices. Only then can the game of football be on path to staying as great as it is and match fixing can be lessened.
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