Football, like financial capitalism, is systemically corrupt.
If the populace cease to accept the validity of these corrupt mechanisms, then each will collapse under the weight of their own absurdity.
Hence the critical importance of protecting the brand - that fake measure of value.
1) La Liga president Javier Tebas detected matchfixing at a 3rd Division match in Spain on the weekend prior to the international break.
Tebas: "We detected the problem and communicated it to the responsible authority, but they chose to hide it... because they don't want to recognise that this problem exists, even in the lower division."
So matchfixing took place, was profited upon by the insiders and few are any the wiser.
2) One of my colleagues reported two Premier League matches to a body that allegedly looks into matchfixing.
Fulsome evidence including recordings, betting patterns linked to private accounts, incriminatory emails and a variety of other evidence exists on these two matches (both involving Fulham when Roy Hodgson was their manager).
Reading were relegated as a direct result of one of these events.
My colleague was told to approach local police which was hardly feasible when one particular policeman refereed both of the fixed matches!
So we went elsewhere.
3) The Swedish Central Bank has just presented the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics to Jean Tirole, a man whose gross stupidity could only be overwhelmed by the value of this stupidity to the financial system that he attempts to support.
One should read William K Black's evisceration of this backing of the capitalist brand http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/10/hold-wallet-swedish-central-bank-prize-rewards-clever.html#more-8725
Black: "So the obvious question is how Tirole, in authoring his book on corporate finance theory and as the exemplar of “clever” approaches to financial regulation missed the [2008] crisis, missed the causes of the crisis, missed the causes of past crises, and advanced ideas on financial regulation that would not have prevented our banking crises?"
Ah! Branding again...
4) It has been exposed today that Arsenal charge their fans 10 times more than Barcelona and FC Bayern Munchen for season tickets.
Barcelona have won 6 La Liga titles and 3 Champions Leagues in last decade.
FC Bayern have won 6 Bundesliga and 1 Champions League in last ten years.
Arsenal have won the FA Cup.
Once.
Surely it is the Catalans and Bavarians who should be charging 10 times more?
In a desperate attempt to protect the brand, media releases were rushed out informing all fans of the Gunners that Theo Walcott will return for Arsenal U21's and may even play at the weekend versus Hull City.
Well, that's alright then - we've had to remortgage the house to fund the season tickets but at least Theo's back (with his £100,000 per week wages)...
The primary irony here is that John Colquhoun, Theo Walcott's agent, also had a very close affiliation with the two fixed matches involving Fulham that we mention above.
In Germany, corrupt referee Hoyzer was imprisoned; Italy targeted criminalities with calciopoli producing 3 prison sentences, numerous life bans and the relegation of Juve; Tebas is taking on matchfixing in La Liga including Levante versus Real Zaragoza which saw Deportivo La Coruna demoted in same criminalised fashion as Reading...
... but in Britain, people are just laughing all the way to the bank.
