match-fixing – Page 2 – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

10NovNovember 10, 2015

7 lessons from the IAAF and Russian Doping Scandals

So now we know. Now we know that the Russian anti-doping system in sport was largely a sham: a Potemkin village of a program designed to give the appearance of an effective fight but in reality enabling widespread doping among their athletes. Now we know that at the very heart of athleticism and the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) that was a deeply corrupted system that enabled doping athletes and coaches. Here are the lessons that we can learn: 1) The myth...

23OctOctober 23, 2015

Match Fixing 301 Course

Dear Friends, The lectures will be controversial. The material will be accurate. There will be shocking videos. Please see below my thoughts on the upcoming Play the Game conference in Denmark. If you’re a conference participant I guarantee that you will not leave unshaken. Introduction It was a dramatic and surprising announcement. Ten years ago at the Play the Game conference in Copenhagen, I announced that European sport would be hit with a wave of Asian-style match-fixing. It was the first time that...

23SepSeptember 23, 2015

Requiem for a Fixer

He was one of the best. Yet in the end, he was brought down in a futile attempt to fix a little team in a forgettable tournament. For those readers who do not follow the intricacies of the Singaporean legal system, you may have missed the story this week, that one was imprisoned for four years for match-fixing. The actual case involved Pal bribing the coach of the East Timor national team and some of his players with 15,000$ How Pal...

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...

24JunJune 24, 2015

The ‘Sports’ Farce in Washington

To my American colleagues who went to the seminar on ‘sports integrity’ at the National Press Club on June 24th, You saw a presentation by a man with little credibility in sports integrity and two other men who have failed. You attended a presentation sponsored by the Qatari sports establishment. This is a group that is suspected by sports fans around the world of corruption in securing the rights to the World Cup tournament of 2022. This is a group that...

01JunJune 1, 2015

Loud Booing, Bridge of Lies & South African Fix

What to do if you're a Canadian soccer fan. It is very simple. Cheer the players: Boo the soccer officials. Anytime a FIFA official walks on the pitch or addresses the crowd: boo and jeer them. For good measure, make signs that denounce them. At these international events, FIFA officials’ usual trick is to make sure they are only seen on the pitches accompanied by fashion models or small children in costumes. Ignore the models, respect the children, but jeer the FIFA officials. Remember, this...

21MayMay 21, 2015

Murdered Bikers, IOC/FIFA and Dead Men Walking

The links between organized crime bike gangs and the IOC/FIFA Okay, everyone calm down. This blog is not about Thomas Bach’s previously unknown (and utterly fictional) history as a Hells Angels member or Sepp Blatter’s non-role as a Bandido drug enforcer. Rather it is about the reason why those nine motorcycle gang members were murdered in Waco, Texas and how it is linked to a key issue around international sports organizations. Brand protection. The superficial reason for the killings last weekend was...

15AprApril 15, 2015

The Devil is in the Details

To start with the important point: it is a good idea. This is the proposal that came out of a meeting of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) sports integrity forum last weekend. The IOC’s reputation has suffered so much damage over the years that the words – ‘meeting, ‘sports integrity’ and ‘IOC’ - immediately plant in many people’s heads the image of a conclave of mobsters chatting with Monty Burns from The Simpsons. The truth is more prosaic. The committee meetings of the...

07AprApril 7, 2015

The Wrong People using the Wrong Tools in the Wrong Way

It is a tale of two reports. The first was released last month by the investigators of the Cycling International Report Commission (CIRI). They examined the actions of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) who govern elite cycling. Their report is a review of the colossal failure of anti-doping efforts in cycling over the last twenty-years. This failure came about despite tens-of-millions of dollars being spent on anti-doping and the deaths of a number of riders. The former cyclist Nicole Cooke brilliantly described...

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,...