Football's Cancer

Match-fixing is a cancer that is eating away at the game of football that we love and cherish. There have been numerous examples across the globe over the years but it's spreading. Last week half a dozen men were arrested in the UK, the home of football, on suspicion of fixing non-league matches in England. God forbid, is nothing sacred any longer? It was only a few weeks ago that four English players were suspended by FIFA for conceding goals in Australian football while last year three match officials from Lebanon were found guilty of accepting sexual favours before an AFC Cup game in Singapore. But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Match fixers target players and match officials to rig the result of games so that they can earn hundreds of thousands of pounds by betting or allowing others to bet on the predetermined outcome. The bet will usually be for a minimum number of goals and the fixer will often pay players to concede goals deliberately and lose a match. The gambling takes place in Asian betting markets.

So how does it work?
Covertly recorded conversations with a fixer from Singapore by The Telegraph newspaper in the UK, who claims he could rig games and that potential gamblers would make hundreds of thousands of dollars by using the inside information on Asian-based betting websites. He offered to target two football matches ... this month. He said he planned to tell players how many goals he needed to be scored in total. “So I talk to them. Double confirm. I also tell them, I tell … this [is] what I want … Because simple, I commit myself and they commit. So you tell me how many goals … Give me at least five … either 3-2, 4-0 or zero, … for me four is enough. So, the first 45 minutes, the result must be two-zero or 1-1. That’s two goals. In the second 45 minutes, so two-zero. Total, the whole game must be have four-zero or 3-1 or 2-2. As long as the total.” He also claimed that he would pay one player an extra £5,000 to take a yellow card at the beginning of the game as a signal that the match’s result was likely to be manipulated. Other ways to fix matches will include paying just one or two players in a team to deliberately concede goals to rig the result of cup or play-off matches. Alternatively, match officials are targeted to give penalties and decisions that influence the outcome of games.

I covered this topic in a blog post in August 2011, when The Telegraph carried a story that hit close to home, Cambodia's World Cup exit at the hands of Laos. It's repeated below. 

The Stench of Match-Fixing

One of the UK's biggest-selling and most influential newspapers carried a story of football match-fixing allegations in Cambodia in their edition today, though it hasn't been deemed interesting enough for the Cambodian press, aside from a one-liner in the Phnom Penh Post a few days after the 2nd leg match was played. Here's what The Telegraph had to say about the recent World Cup matches between Cambodia and Laos.
World Cup 2014: Shadow of alleged match-fixing allegations already haunting competition - by Paul Kelso, The Telegraph. The preliminary draw for Brazil's World Cup took place on Saturday but already the shadow of alleged match-fixing has touched the 2014 qualifying tournament. The threat of fixing was highlighted by Fifa president Sepp Blatter prior to the draw in Rio and Telegraph Sport can disclose that one of the early rounds of Asian qualifying has been internally investigated following allegations of manipulation. Fifa investigators have been alerted to unusual betting patterns in connection with the two-legged tie between Cambodia and Laos in the first round of the Asian Football Confederation qualifying zone. Both countries were eliminated before the preliminary draw in Rio, but the case highlights the rash of match-fixing allegations that have touched teams in more than 50 countries.

The first game in Phnom Penh on June 29 was won 4-2 by Cambodia, with the return in Vientiane on July 3 won by Laos 6-2 after extra time, enough for them to progress to the second round. The second leg was followed by accusations in Cambodia that the game was manipulated, and Telegraph Sport understands that data from betting monitoring software, including the Early Warning System used by Fifa, has highlighted unusual patterns, particularly in the first game.

The last goal in that game, scored by Cambodia in the 88th minute, attracted highly unusual betting patterns. With 86 minutes gone Cambodia were five-to-one on to score again on Asian handicap markets, an extreme price. According to footage of the game on YouTube, Cambodia had two goals disallowed in the last six minutes, after 84 and 86 minutes, and Laos had a penalty appeal turned down in the 88th minute shortly before Cambodia’s Samel Nasa scored.
The second leg finished 4-2 to Laos after 90 minutes, with two further goals in extra time sealing their progress to the second round, where they lost to China 13-3 on aggregate. Fifa would not comment on whether the case was part of its ongoing investigation into match fixing. In a statement Fifa said: “We cannot confirm or deny any specific investigation taking place on these matches”.
The Football Federation of Cambodia carried out an internal investigation after receiving allegations that the games might have been manipulated, but has found no evidence of match-fixing. In an emailed response to questions May Tola, the deputy general-secretary of the FFC, said that it had heard “unconfirmed rumours” about the tie, and that supporters had made accusations after the disappointment of the second-leg defeat. Some had accused players of result manipulation,” Tola wrote. "Immediately after the team returned home, our FFC leadership has instructed the federation to form an investigation commission to find out if there is any irregularities as rumoured accusation [sic]. After thorough examination and discussion, the Commission has found no substantial evidence or suspicion that the match had been manipulated by players or whosoevers [sic] within the team.”
The acting president of the Asian Football Confederation told Telegraph Sport that while he was not aware of any direct evidence that the Cambodia v Laos games were “not genuinely contested”, the allegations underlined “the destructive nature of match-fixing”. Zhang Jilong, of China, who became acting president when Mohamed bin Hammam was suspended by Fifa, described match-fixing as a “pandemic” in world football, and is hoping to open a dedicated Fifa security office in Asia next year.
Jilong said: “There is no doubt that match-fixing is a real danger to football’s ethical values and needs to be completely eliminated to preserve the sanctity of the sport. AFC will not rest until this plague is completely stamped out in Asia.”
Asia is considered the hub of match-fixing and Jilong is in talks with Fifa’s security department to open a dedicated security office in Asia by the start of 2012. The latest concerns come as Fifa prepares to take disciplinary action against six match officials involved in two notorious internationals staged in Antalya, Turkey, in February, in which all seven goals were penalties. The referees, from Hungary and Bosnia, have been summoned to appear at a disciplinary hearing in Zurich next week, though none is expected to attend having already been banned for life by their home federations.

Lofty ambitions

Scott with some of India's youth players of the future

Scott O'Donell is currently working for FIFA in India, guiding that country in developing their players of the future. If the Cambodian football federation had got their act together he could've been doing the same for Cambodian football.

O'Donell Excited by Indian Potential (FIFA.com)
Scott O’Donell has a big job on his hands. Appointed in November 2011, the 45-year-old Australian is FIFA’s Technical Director of regional academies in India, a vital position in reviving Indian football in the short- and long-term and in building a competitive national side for the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, a tournament the country is aiming to host. “I’m setting up regional training centres, which involves identifying candidates, selecting them and training the coaches,” he said, explaining his duties. “The Mumbai centre opened in May, in Bangalore the kids are arriving right now and the programmes getting under way, and we’re just about ready to get going in Kolkata.
“That means we’ll have three centres up and running this year, with five others scheduled to open next year along with the country’s first elite academy, where the national U-16 team will be based.”

O’Donell ran out for several clubs in Asia in his 16-year playing career, which ended in 2000, at which point he devoted his energies to coaching. As well as taking charge of Cambodia’s national team and being named Singapore’s coach of the year in 2003, he has worked as a FIFA instructor and a coaching course director for the AFC. Proving his ability in the process, he was then handed a new brief by FIFA, one that visibly excites him. His first task is to select young candidates for the academies. It is a vital job and not without its difficulties: “There’s talent all over India. There’s no doubt about that. The thing is you have to be able to pinpoint and find players, and that’s where the Indian states can help an awful lot. They choose the players and we come along and select the best ones. We had tried to do it all ourselves, but when we went to Kolkata 1,400 youngsters turned up. There were only three of us and it was an impossible job.”

Scouting key for success
From the off O’Donell has been trying to set up an efficient regional scouting network. “The scouting process in each state has to be effective for the academies to be a success. It takes time but I’m convinced it’s the right way.” As he went on to explain, he is pursuing more than one objective: “The first goal is to raise standards. As far as we’ve been able to see, Indian football’s weaknesses are a lack of technical skill and a low standard of play. I’ve watched youth matches and the central defenders are happy just to clear the ball, as are the goalkeepers. It’ll take time but we’re trying to put the emphasis on building play from the back and on possession, because that style of play is better suited to the size and stature of Indian players, who aren’t the biggest.”

The short-term aim is to build a competitive U-17 team for 2017. Though that deadline is only four years away, there is a very well thought-out plan in place for achieving it. “Next year we’ll have three academies with 19 players born in 1999 and two academies with 19 players born in 2000,” explained O’Donell. “The latter group could form the basis of the team that could well play in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2017 on home soil. After that we’ll have another four academies of players born in 2000, which will give us an even bigger pool for putting a competitive team together.” The challenges he faces are also considerable. Aside from the problem of detecting players, infrastructures and the training of coaches are two other key areas.“Take states like Goa or Mumbai, for example, where you need to have artificial pitches because you can’t play on grass at all during the monsoon season,” he commented, before explaining that there is also a need to change mindsets among coaches. “Some of the older coaches are authoritarian and frighten the youngsters, who often freeze and choose to clear the ball and not make a mistake. We want the opposite. We want young players to feel at ease, to take risks and be creative. That’s something we’ve made a point of stressing in our coaching courses.” Other obstacles include the difficulty of ascertaining players’ ages due to the fact that births are not always registered, and the near-total absence of youth players at the clubs competing in the I-League.

An ambitious Australian
Undaunted, the Australian has lofty ambitions and would ideally like his academy teams to play at least one competitive match a week, for grassroots football programmes to grow and make the work of scouts easier, and for other private academies to work together more closely. Whatever the concerns and frustrations he faces along the way, O’Donell is deriving genuine satisfaction from his job and is full of hope for the future: “It’s a real pleasure to work with young Indian players. They are disciplined, do everything you ask them to, and they listen. They really want to improve. When we started to work on the principle of keeping possession, you could see straightaway that they enjoyed it more and that they welcomed it. They learned very quickly.”

Though there is no question of him getting carried away with himself, O’Donell’s eyes start to twinkle when talk turns to the future, five years and beyond. “If India does host the U-17 World Cup, it will be a huge source of motivation for players, coaches, staff and administrators alike. It would be a great opportunity for the players, and would allow us to recruit more Indian coaches and to create better working conditions etc. It’s very exciting because it would give everyone a medium-term goal to work towards, not to mention a long-term one, because these players could well go on and form the team that will fight it out for a place at the 2022 World Cup.”