On occasion, I will read the blog of sports integrity author Declan Hill (The Fix) and his continuing efforts to expose, root out, and eliminate match-fixing in world sport.
Today, he posted an article to his blog stating what he's up against.
It's big. Really big...
He has five words to sum up the war against game-fixing, and gave them in a recent Interpol match-fixing conference in Rome. He has identified a, if not THE, central figure in Asian match-fixing. This is a man who is rumored to have fixed matches (or have had people associated with him do it) on four continents, perhaps five if it got as far north as into North America.
His five words: Dan Tan must be arrested.
In those five words, Mr. Hill identifies Tan as effectively the kingpin of sport, to one extent or another, on 4-5 continents, including fixing matches in no fewer than 13 European countries, including deep involvement in the continuing problems in Italian football.
What Declan is saying is that any match, at any time, can be controlled by Dan Tan or his associates. He runs the show, not FIFA, certainly not the national leagues... Tan has no fewer than three arrest warrants against him, but he's still allowed to continue his operations, because he bases them in Singapore -- which has no extradition agreements.
And, for speaking truth to power, Hill is disinvited from more such forums.
Why?
Because the business of sport demands that the proper ring be kissed, and Dan Tan is basically an acceptable kingpin for sport in the eyes of the likes of Sepp Blatter and FIFA.
Remember, these are the same Asian sports circles which held the farcical 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, leading to the complete discreditation of the World Cup due to the officiating benefitting South Korea in the knockout rounds.
These are also the same Asian sports circles in which operate the likes of the badminton scandal which basically brought down the credibility of the sport in the London Olympics.
Anyone who honestly believes that these things happen in a vacuum is the kind of sheep that Tan, Blatter, $tern, Goodell, $elig, Nike, Tiger Woods, etc. and so forth and so on... rely upon!
Hill is very correct in stating that, if Tan is not forcibly arrested and removed from public, that we will lose the war on sports match-fixing. It is naive to think that there is any competition out there in Asia (Hell, last year, they revealed Korean video-game leagues not to be immune from match-fixing -- the very same leagues which populate the Twitch streaming site today!!) that Tan does not have his tentacles in.
And that means power, influence, muscle, and protection. It certainly extends into Interpol -- the actions taken against Declan Hill prove this beyond all doubt. I would openly state that I believe that Tan and Sepp Blatter himself are in collaboration, especially given the number and reach of fixed matches in every conceivable league, on 4-5 continents, plus Blatter's continued stubborn insistence to take actions to even attempt to placate those of us who believe that certain games are officiated in a crooked manner!
(Another piece of evidence to that: Hill states in his blog that he believes that there are powerful people which provide Tan protection and money. This probably means the level of heads of state and almost every conceivable South-East Asian corporate sponsor you can think of!)
Think of this the next time you watch League of Legends on Twitch!
And I think this is far beyond simple political or even sponsor scandal.
Firstly, from what I read in Hill's blog, it appears that Tan may well be getting money funneled to him from FIFA and Interpol themselves. FIFA and Interpol, according to Hill, are opening a $20,000,000 match-fixing education center -- in Singapore! And, next year, Interpol is opening a "Global Complex for Innovation" -- ALSO in Singapore!
Does anyone want to try to convince me that some of this money is not going to Tan for the express purposes of influence, power, and protection? Especially if the metaphorical whistle were blown on Tan, one might have to wonder what his associates might have in mind for a "nuclear option" against the sports events they and Tan have worked so hard to fix!
There's a second reason that I believe this goes beyond simple politics and sponsor money:
From my experience in the United States, the corporate sports machine truly believes that no publicity for the sports is bad publicity. If the people are talking about it, no matter how bad it makes the league look, it makes you tune in next week.
It's "The Honky Tonk Man Effect".
(My name for it. Roy Wayne Farris was a highly-skilled entertainer in professional wrestling. Not the world's greatest or best-looking wrestler, but he took an Elvis gimmick, The Honky Tonk Man, to new heights during his run as the "Greatest Intercontinental Champion of All Time". Honky Tonk Man would often cheat like Hell, lose by disqualification, but would never lose the belt. This made the fans so angry that they paid their money to see him the next time the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) was in town -- to see him get his ass kicked!!)
I'll give you one example of this to drive the point home: What was Sports Illustrated's Best Moment of 2012?
The Olympics? Nope, it was on US soil.
The Giants winning the World Series? Not Major League Baseball.
Anything to do with their Sportsman of the Year, LeBron James?? Not only not the NBA, but nothing to do with any of the major championships in 2012.
The Freeh Report? Not college sports.
The #1 ranked Best Moment of 2012, as ranked by SI...
The Fail Mary.
(#2 was actually Lin-sanity. LeBron and the Heat were #3, Usain Bolt was #4. The Hollywood Ending of last year's EPL was #8. The World Series was #13, the Super Bowl #11... The release of the Freeh Report didn't even make a list of 112 moments.)
My point is that the corporate nature of sports effectively requires pre-determined outcomes.
Be as pissed-off that you got screwed over week to week, but you'll be back next week to see if YOUR TEAM wins! And that means money -- billions and billions of it.
They don't care that it's dirty cash. It's cash, and spends the same way, dirty or clean!
That's the other reason that Declan Hill is being silenced, much like FIFA's own match-fixing expert being forced out the door.
Declan, if you ever read this: Keep up the good fight. Please. We need more like you.
Yep it's all rigged. The NBA, I think that's why Stern wants out. Everybody seen it coming when LeBron went to Miami, that the NBA was going to rig it for him to finally win it just like they did the Lakers back in 2001, 2002, and the Heat back in 2005. When you follow the money, and then put everything together, the NBA is basically the blue print to league rigging.
ReplyDeleteHow does LeBron win sports man of the year? That's a total joke. It always bothered me how they pumped him up to the next poster boy of the NBA and that's where we are at now. In 2011, it took tons of free throws in every series just to get that average ball hog team in the Finals, and the refs left them out to rot against a better team. Then in 2012, I felt like the Spurs got screwed out of a title in game 7 against the Thunder. They wanted that Thunder/Heat championship so bad. Not to mention the Celtics totally got screwed even worse in game 2 against the Heat, and how they basically let Wade and LeBron nearly kill guys out there and give them free throws for it.
I really wasn't surprised when it was all said and done, that most people finally opened their eyes and seen the NBA was rigged. I don't think people even watch it much anymore. Those 2 series Thunder/Spurs and Heat/Celtics were 2 of the most rigged series I ever watched. It was not even funny that Vegas predicted Thunder/Heat Finals before the season started and then it happened, with the Heat winning it as they wanted, like the saying goes "The House Always Wins"
To my own belief, the NFL is about to be extremely exposed as being rigged. I think that whole "bounty scandal" was just to make sure the Saints were not a playoff team this year. That whole thing made no sense at all. I would not be surprised if something happened to the Giants next year since they are hosting the Super Bowl, but then again I wouldn't be surprised, cause they really protect their big market teams.
If $tern wants out now, it's because his legacy on sports is solidified -- AND that I believe that Roger Goodell has taken his model of pre-determined entertainment to new heights in the era where the NFL went from The National Game to The National Religion.
DeleteThe NBA has been the blueprint of all of this since at least 1985 and the infamous Patrick Ewing draft! It would've actually been more legitimate in the practices of sport to actually allow the NBA teams to deliberately lose to get Patrick Ewing than what we ended up with. The whole matter was on camera in front of the nation -- several clips abound on YouTube.
As for LeBron and the Heat: People could've seen this coming when LeBron, Bosh, and Wade colluded to get on the same team (and this was true as early as the summer before LeBron's final season in Cleveland!!).
The saddest thing of it all is that, when you look at the legal situations and precedents, you, as a sports fan, have NO RIGHT to a legal, lawful, or legitimate contest. You simply (if you have a ticket) have a seat to a performance -- no different than if you were on Broadway or the like. And if you don't have that, you have even fewer rights.
(Mayer vs. Belichick, New England Patriots, and National Football League)
As for the NFL, all you have to do is get out the book "Interference", and you'll see hundreds of pages of why Dan Moldea's father told his son on the dad's death-bed never to publish the book.
The book killed Moldea as a journalist because he effectively got blackballed.
All it would take to "expose" the NFL is a cursory reading and exposition of it's history.
Some examples: The owners who formed the league, stories like how Georgia Frontiere got the Rams and what happened to her husband, the 1979 Monday Night Football games which Moldea learned that the FBI _proved_ were rigged, and the story of why Joe Namath could make The Guarantee.
Joe Namath was in league with seedy gamblers who frequented a restaurant he co-owned in New York (and the league didn't like this fact!!), but word is that it was from _those gamblers_ that he got the information that he could make The Guarantee.
And the whole fable of it was convenient to the league: The NFL had already effectively approved the AFL merger for after the next season, and the only way the AFL could be seen as merging into the NFL credibly was that they would start winning World Championships (the game was not The Super Bowl until the next one!).
Yeah you're right and I seen the Heat thing coming the day they did that big parade in Miami. Not to mention the NBA had it all fit for them. The Heat had the most games on ESPN, the most prime time games, they still do. It was rigged to start with for them to win it all. If you really look into statistics, the Heat shot the most free throws in 2011, and in 2012, they pampered BOTH the Heat and Thunder with free throws, they basically had to push both those teams into the Finals.
DeleteI think Goodell learned a lot from Stern. I've seen QB's that are lesser known get absolutely mauled, and no flags, but oh god if you touch Brady or Manning or Rodgers, the flags are flying. The top QBs in the NFL get the most pass interference and roughing the passer called on them. In 2011, the refs basically handed the Packers at least 6 of their wins when they went 15-1. Also the Saints too, part of the reason Brees broke Marino's record that year was the help they got. I think the Saints went like 8 total games in a row without having one flag called on their offense.
When it comes to Goodell's NFL it's all about points, points, points. They WANT those high scoring games, like the Chargers and Packers game back in 2011 that was a huge shoot out. Gone are the days of defensive games that were basically chiseled out by defenses, they are replaced by super high scoring match ups. It's also hilarious that every one of those super passing teams in the NFL have crappy defenses.
I also think Goodell really held the spy gate from getting out of hand. There is no telling just how much the Pats benefited from that.
I've been looking for that book, I'd love to read it one day. I always believed the Jets/Colts Super Bowl was rigged. You have to remember Earl Morrall won the MVP that year as QB. How did he just turn into crap like that when he was tearing it up all year long? There was a player on that Colts team that swore to his death bed that it was rigged. When watching that game, I think there was a specific play where Morrall forced a ball into double coverage when he had a wide open receiver waiving his arms on the right side of the field.
How did Joe Namath win that MVP anyway? That Super Bowl was rigged to the core. I just don't buy that a juggernaut Colts team like that would just get out matched by a less superior Jets team. When you watch it, you can just tell something was wrong with Morrall. my personal belief is, that he was paid off to blow that game. If the Jets lose that game, is there even a merger after that? Yeah, they had to have the Jets to win for money.