A question of integrity, and other stories

[dave.woodhall]

Stacy Murphy looks at some unsavoury incidents past, present and future.

https://heroesandvillains.info/2022/03/30/a-question-of-integrity-and-other-stories/

[Hookeysmith]

 What an excellent and informative read.

was Grobellaar not muted to have been done for betting / fixing? And there was a game between Everton and Wimbledon that (IIRC) ended 3-2 and was shrouded in dodgy bits and pieces

As for unconscious bias  - 100% agree is exists but 4not totally sure it is unconscious

[Chico Hamilton III]

Keith Curle’s handball at Villa Park in 1993.

Rumours on the Holte before KO that Curle had told a Villa player that we would get a penalty (we needed the points to maintain our challenge to Man United). Sure as shit, Curle handled the ball in the box and we got a pen. I remember staring in disbelief at Alex Alex Cropley from here when it happened. Good luck from the City of Manchester….

[Risso]

Keith Curle’s handball at Villa Park in 1993.

Rumours on the Holte before KO that Curle had told a Villa player that we would get a penalty (we needed the points to maintain our challenge to Man United). Sure as shit, Curle handled the ball in the box and we got a pen. I remember staring in disbelief at Alex Alex Cropley from here when it happened. Good luck from the City of Manchester….

Was that the match when the City fans were all fighting amongst themselves?

[Chico Hamilton III]

Keith Curle’s handball at Villa Park in 1993.

Rumours on the Holte before KO that Curle had told a Villa player that we would get a penalty (we needed the points to maintain our challenge to Man United). Sure as shit, Curle handled the ball in the box and we got a pen. I remember staring in disbelief at Alex Alex Cropley from here when it happened. Good luck from the City of Manchester….

Was that the match when the City fans were all fighting amongst themselves?

It was when they unfurled that banner

[simboy]

Keith Curle’s handball at Villa Park in 1993.

Rumours on the Holte before KO that Curle had told a Villa player that we would get a penalty (we needed the points to maintain our challenge to Man United). Sure as shit, Curle handled the ball in the box and we got a pen. I remember staring in disbelief at Alex Alex Cropley from here when it happened. Good luck from the City of Manchester….

Was that the match when the City fans were all fighting amongst themselves?

It was when they unfurled that banner

 3-1

[Chico Hamilton III]

It was 1-1 when Curle punched the ball in the box

[Clark W Griswold]

Remember that banner. What a season, some great football.

[LeonW]

Interesting and important discussion here. As Stacy has said, fixing results is difficult. As much as anything, suspicious betting patterns help with detecting this. But fixing matches is not difficult and does not need many people to be in the know. Sometimes it just takes one person to have the necessary impact; most efficiently, the referee.

There have been numerous cases in many different countries over the past 80 or so years where this has happened and continues to happen today. Charges have been brought as recently as last week in Belgium against referees and other individuals.  These are just the cases we know about.

Not so sure that the mechanisms in place to prevent corruption could be considered 'watertight' mind. There’s plenty of wriggle room under Bribery Act for manoeuvre whilst staying within requirements before anything real murky has to happen. How much in depth due diligence is done when accepting work, hospitality or engagements; probably about as much as is done as part of the 'fit and proper owners' test. And in terms of VAR, we all know that it’s a closed shop for any real scrutiny and is likely to remain that way despite the logical arguments for why it shouldn't.

[algy]

My own delving in to the world of sports corruption was I was once offered £5 to referee a Subbuteo match favourably to one of the players.  I was 12 or so, I wanted some sweets & fizzy pop but hadn't brought any money with me, and had fewer morals than I do now.  So I accepted it.

I'll call the 2 players 'Dirty Denzel' and 'Honest Joe', for the sake of this.

I thought better of it even just after I'd taken (and spent) the money, but by then was in too deep.  I was also, weirdly, too honest to take the money then not referee it unfairly.  I didn't give anything blatant, it was just basically 50:50 decisions tended to go more like 80:20 in favour of Dirty Denzel.

Dirty Denzel - the one who'd given me money - had worked out what I was doing pretty quickly, so intentionally played faster than he normally would.  The faster play, meant more 50:50 decisions, which meant it pushed the game his way more.  In the end he won 3-1.  It was 2-1 up until the last minute or so, then Joe pushed up the field in a last gasp attempt at an equaliser, fluffed it, and Denzel promptly played a long ball down the other end and scored.

It'd be so hard to actually say that the match was fixed.  Nobody watching picked up on it, neither did Honest Joe.  Spoke to Joe after the game, and he was a bit miffed but said he'd only himself to blame.  My internal guilt went off the scale at that point.  Wasn't picked up when the results went in because it wasn't a particularly weird score, and nobody involved thought there was anything 'wrong' with it bar me and Dirty Denzel.

All this, I justified to myself that Dirty Denzel was the better player (IMO he was), that he had more chance of progressing to the latter rounds than Honest Joe (he got to the final, beating a very good player in the semis who I don't recall Honest Joe ever beating), and that had Honest Joe played well, he would've won - it'd have only made the difference in an already close game.

--
With the way the game [real football] works now, it's ripe for that kind of thing.  You don't need anyone at the ground to be in on it.  One person on VAR - which deals specifically with 50:50 decisions - can make sure that more decisions go one way than the other.  Over the course of a season or two, those players will pick up that they can, let's say, attack or defend more aggressively because they'll know, maybe not that the game is rigged, but that VAR 'favours' one approach over another.

Now, I wouldn't for one minute suggest that VAR is actually corrupt.  But you can see how you've actually only got to 'influence' one person, and they're detached from the game at hand.  You can see from the way I justified it to myself back then, that it's pretty easy to convince yourself that it doesn't matter and that somehow you're not being a massive corrupting influence when, in reality, you are the embodiment of that.