Europol Press Conference on Match-Fixing First, the good news. This is good news! Forget the ‘black day for European Football’ comments. Fixing and corruption has been going on in football for a long time. Long before ‘The Fix’ revealed the existence of this network, these fixers have been working throughout the sport to destroy its credibility. Finally, there are serious, good police investigators taking a long, hard and critical look at the dark centre...
In the room, there will be good police officers who have done excellent work. They should be commended. However, if an official does not specifically stand up and state that the Singaporean government must serve the international arrest warrant against Dan Tan, then they become part of the problem, not the solution. The networks that the police have identified in superb investigations is, for the most part, linked to Asian fixers. Dan Tan is the alleged leading figure of these...
It is a farce, a bureaucratic cone of silence and it comes dangerously close to a cover-up. I write of Interpol’s ‘efforts’ to fight match-fixing. You see the articles all the time in the media – as Interpol holds yet another press conference to tout their efforts against fixing from ruining the beautiful game. I do not say these things lightly – but from my recent experiences with Interpol, this is a warning to the world’s press that they are being bamboozled...
The Good, the bad and the Very Ugly Interpol Conference on Match Fixing, Rome, Italy Sports Corruption Industry – part III Rome: It was the good, the bad and the very ugly. To be a speaker at an international match-fixing conference organized by Interpol is to see the sports corruption industry close up. It was a moving , depressing and shocking vision. First, the rules of the next few blog postings: there is much that I cannot discuss;...
It was one of the times that I have felt most proud to be Canadian. It occurred in a hot, sweaty Cuban boxing gym on the outskirts of Havana. Today, however, is a day that I am shaking my head in exasperation about our nation. The two events are linked, here is why. For those readers who follow this blog regularly, you will know that in the last few years I have taken up boxing. I...
10,000 Hours and the Enigma of Chris Eaton To review – there is a now an anti-match-fixing industry. It is like the post 9/11 anti-terrorist-complex in the United States, a self-generating, commercially motivated phenomenon. So in the same way it did not benefit the anti-terrorist industry for Osama bin Laden to be captured (rather they want terrorists to be out there, uncaptured – something vague and ill-defined to allow the industry to continue) – so too is...
Dear Friends and Colleagues, A very bad flu hit me over the last few weeks. Only now, after some great care at Brock University where I was a visiting scholar, am I slowly staggering back to my feet. I will pick up the series ‘The Sports Corruption Industry and the Great Cover Up’ very soon. However, for the moment, I wanted to offer my support to the Turkish supporters who protested at Nyon appealing for UEFA to give more help in...
Cayman Islands, October 2012: Down in the Caribbean to moderate a conference on anti-money laundering. The islands, concerned about their declining reputation are trying to spruce up their banking practices. One of the highlights of the conference is the speech by the charismatic Vince Cookingham. He is a tough ex-cop – former New York Police Department – and was involved in a number of high-profile investigations, like the Son-of-Sam serial murders and the French Connection drug trade case. During...
For the last two weeks we have had to endure a wave of noise about Canadian athletes drive for excellence. The usual clichés have been spouted about our country "punching above our weight". We have even had the unseemly sight of an executive for a PR company telling us that all this good feeling around the Olympics was the result of the Stephen Harper government. The problem is that it is not true. It is not true that...
It was a bizarre accident that started the investigation. On a road in northern Italy a driver fell asleep. No big deal. Except the driver was a soccer player from the local team who could not stay awake, no matter how hard he tried. When the police tested him, they discovered he was not suffering from narcolepsy; but a gambler had drugged him and some of his team-mates to ensure that they played so badly they lost the game,...
