Ninety percent of match-fixing in football is easy to prevent. One of the keys to a successfully fighting corruption is to recognize ‘choke point games’. These are games – 3rd match in opening round of the World Cup, 6th match in Group Stage of Champions League or any Italian game featuring a team in danger … Continue reading Why UEFA Should Monitor the FC Astana vs. Celtic Game
Tag Archives: UEFA
The High-Risk Week for the UEFA Champions League
This is the week for the Champions League fixes. The two matches to watch carefully (I do not say that they will be fixed, I am simply red-flagging the games) are Turkish champions Besiktas versus perennial no-hopers Dynamo Kiev and Juventus versus Dinamo Zagreb. Yes, the same Dinamo Zagreb of the infamous winking 7-1 loss … Continue reading The High-Risk Week for the UEFA Champions League
How to Fix the European Championship
This is an article that I hate to write. I hope that fixing does not happen at the upcoming European Championship. I hope that no teams, players or officials are involved in corruption. However, for all the football fans that are concerned for the integrity of the beautiful game here is the blueprint of … Continue reading How to Fix the European Championship
Requiem for a Football Legend: Michel Platini
So he is gone. Michel Platini’s drink at the last chance legal saloon of the Council for the Arbitration of Sport (CAS – the supreme court for sports) just ended. Here is the background. Michel Platini “advised” Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, between 1999-2002. Just before the 2011 FIFA Presidential election, where … Continue reading Requiem for a Football Legend: Michel Platini
Insider’s Paradise: Corruption Looms Large Ahead of FIFA Presidential Election
The FIFA presidential election will take place on Friday in Zurich, giving the game’s power brokers a golden chance to affect change. But there’s a catch. The 207 eligible presidents of the national football federations wield the power to vote, yet these officials are, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, steeped in a world where … Continue reading Insider’s Paradise: Corruption Looms Large Ahead of FIFA Presidential Election
The Elephant in the FIFA Room and the Caribbean Delegates
There are two unresolved questions here in Zurich with days to go before the biggest election in FIFA’s history. The two front runners are Gianni Infantino and Sheikh Salman. They both have the official support of two confederations: Salman his own Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the African Confederation (CAF). Infantino – Europe (UEFA) and … Continue reading The Elephant in the FIFA Room and the Caribbean Delegates
Potemkin Villages, Scapegoats and Fake Qatari Fans: 4 Things We Learned From This Week in International Sports Corruption
On the eve of FIFA’s executive committee meeting that is expected to rubber-stamp the decision of their ‘ethics committee’ (sic) to ban Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini from the international football world, four points: 1) Is the internal FIFA reform – a believable process? No. It is a Potemkin village of a battle … Continue reading Potemkin Villages, Scapegoats and Fake Qatari Fans: 4 Things We Learned From This Week in International Sports Corruption
Requiem for a FIFA President & More to Come
See below from last week, when a number of people close to the investigations showed me some of the documentation. The other stories from FIFA sources are, now, legendary. When Blatter heard of the arrests at the five-star hotel in the spring, FIFA-insiders claim he hid for several hours, mobile phone switched off in case … Continue reading Requiem for a FIFA President & More to Come
