02-12-2014, 01:57 PM
Malcolm John Wrote:Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Most English fans are adamant that the English Premier League is entirely free of match fixing.
I don't share their absolutist position.
I do to be honest, there's no way that games in the English Premiership are fixed, absolutely no chance whatsoever that has ever gone on, even in the Championship its extremely unlikely to the point of being impossible, I don't doubt there is match fixing in English football, but no way in the top two leagues absolutely no chance whatsoever, thats the biggest sport in the world on the biggest domestic stage of all, its just not possible for a variety of reasons. Do you know what these guys earn btw? You would need to pay them so much to fix a game it would make it economically unviable, and betting patterns would be picked up etc, the whole game is under so much scrutiny at that level its simply not plausible at all that any match fixing has ever gone on, lower down sure, the Premiership no chance.
::laughingdog::
Thanks for that Malcolm. You cheered my day up. I'm grateful.
I admit to cynicism.
In your Scotland thread (which I hope is not bleeding though to this post) you seem to think fixing national elections makes sense, but fixing top level football is impossible?
It's a big stage and the players earn too much to make corruption viable, you argue. Despite a great many of them being gamblers. And vote-rigging, ahem, I mean match fixing betting patterns would be picked up. But by whom exactly? Do the FA or interpol have access to far east black pool betting where the odd couple of billion of dollars are routinely placed on top premier league games weekly? I think not. The FA would have to be clean for one thing.
As arguments go, one might justifiably reason that national elections are far more important than sports matches - and are by far the greatest stage spectacle of all- and the money involved in having relatively unfettered access to a national purse that is measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars strikes me as the more significant of the two, in terms of chances of enrichment.
Our beloved Saint Tony of the Blair - who the Queen refused to honour with a Knight of the Garter when he left office - a very unusual move for a British prime minister btw - was offered a Thistle knighthood instead, much to St. Tony's chagrin. I mention this in passing - selling knighthoods for cash isn't favoured in Buckingham Palace, I suspect. But the point here is that our sainted one requires £15 million a year to break even... and does considerably better than that as he privately jets from one five star hotel to another, flicking holy water from his fingers on to the faces of the poor, meek and those deserving of his munificence, the world over. His predecessor, John Major, does even better, albeit with a measly $96 million in earnings. Major's predecessor. Herr Margaret Thatchler also did very well, thank you - thanks to a large alleged payoff from the massive multi-billion dollar Saudi Al Yamaha arms deal. How much is not exactly known, but it has been asserted by knowledgeable insiders of the international arms trade that it was somewhere between $200-250 million.
Anyway. In contrast, the top paid British footballer, Wayne Rooney, lives high on £12 million a year. And Wayn'e father and uncle? Arrested a couple of years ago for alleged match fixing in the SPL. But that all went away in the same way that vote rigging goes away. The police dropped their charge. Poof! This doesn't mean there was no viable evidence, of course...
Some things are too important to allow to be besmirched by the truth. "A nice little earner" doubtless being one of them.
Makes you think, no?
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14