The NYT has a pretty decent article on the brains behind the multi-million dollar gambling syndicate that has spread its tentacles over every interface in the sport, in every league, involving players, officials, administrators, and created suspicion about every result. Did Barca really have an off day at Milan? Mmmmmm.
One suspects that this is not the only gambling syndicate in the business of match fixing, although it might certainly be the biggest one in Asia and Europe. Most of these cartels have strong local offshoots or collaborators and in Dan Tan's case, it was the Eastern men, who handled Europe.
Thanks for letting me know. My oversight. Keep up the good work and been meaning to say glad to have you back after the hiatus/downtime.
Mo, good article. IMO, this phenomenon is akin to the credit default swap and other shadowy financial instruments the unregulated derivative markets used to take advantage of overheated housing sector to make trillions of dollars. The same people who set it up bet on their failure to get paid out. Lots of institutional investors across the globe thinking this would be a safe investment got fleeced leading to the financial crisis that we are still digging out of. Soccer is in the same dire straits. Betting now crosses borders and people pay millions of dollars in matches all around the world. Some of it is open, in other places, it is controlled by cartels.
Kev, I did post an article on Declan Hill and the book last month when the matchfixing story broke.
One of my friends has simply stopped watching soccer matches, and by the measure of this repugnant match-rigging catastrophe it sounds like the sane thing to do.
Another 'brutal' article here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8924593/match-fixing-soccer
Brian Phillips asks "...when Champions League matches aren't above suspicion, how are we supposed to trust the outcome of any game we see?..."
http://www.howtofixasoccergame.com/
I've recommended this book before at this site but I figured I would do it again.