Football – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

16AugAugust 16, 2019

’Sometimes we fixed more games than we could bet’

In an exclusive interview with Play the Game, a former match-fixer tells how effectively criminal syndicates are still manipulating sports results despite all initiatives against it. The whole approach against match-fixing could be wrong, Declan Hill reports. This was first printed at: https://www.playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2019/0584_sometimes-we-fixed-more-games-than-we-could-bet/ ** The knock came late at night. Marko Stanovic – whose name has been changed to help protect him from the mob – was in one of the world’s great match-fixing gangs. A group whose criminal ties stretched deep...

15SepSeptember 15, 2015

Dead Catting, Image Laundering and Why You Should Have Nothing to Do with the ICSS

No independent, intelligent or credible person should have anything to do with the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) – the Qatari sponsored organization on sports governance and integrity. The ICSS is like the great Yiddish joke: what is the definition of chutzpah? The man who kills his mother and father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. To review: the Qataris are the people who ushered in yet another chapter of FIFA integrity...

24AprApril 24, 2015

Media Spin, the Qataris and Chris Eaton

It is called ‘media spin’. If you missed the story, a man who is involved in the Qatari anti-corruption agency for sports – Chris Eaton – is now claiming in the media that he is shocked about a new book that investigates whether the Qataris may have been offering bribes to win the rights to host the 2022 World Cup. Eaton has even said FIFA should investigate “if there is new evidence whatever it shows and whoever it implicates, then FIFA...

07JunJune 7, 2012

Two Crises, One Continent

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,...