UEFA – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

09MarMarch 9, 2018

Poor, Old Qatar: labour conditions and the compromised fight against match-fixing

The timing could not be better. Just as the sporting world endures another hot-air session a.k.a. an international conference on match-fixing sponsored by the Qatar 2022 World Cup Committee, out comes a new report on labour conditions in Qatar and the building of the World Cup infrastructure and stadiums. The report, by the external company charged by FIFA to monitor workers' conditions, makes for sobering reading. It seems – no surprise – that despite all the words, all the clichés, all the high-level negotiations...

05DecDecember 5, 2017

Suspicious Games in the Champions League & the Great Olympic Scandal

Interesting week in international sports. Lets start with the Champions League where once again we have a ‘choke-point’ where games are regularly fixed. Here is the scenario. You are a UEFA investigator. The rest of the world thinks that you have unlimited resources and money coming out of your elbows. You know that if you’re lucky, the system will give you a bent paper clip and an elastic band for resources to stop corruption in Europe’s premier competition – the Champions...

17AugAugust 17, 2017

Why UEFA Should Monitor the FC Astana vs. Celtic Game

Ninety percent of match-fixing in football is easy to prevent. One of the keys to a successfully fighting corruption is to recognize ‘choke point games’. These are games – 3rd match in opening round of the World Cup, 6th match in Group Stage of Champions League or any Italian game featuring a team in danger of relegation from April onwards – where one team has a lot to gain, while the other has very little. This week’s home-away games of the...

06DecDecember 6, 2016

The High-Risk Week for the UEFA Champions League

This is the week for the Champions League fixes. The two matches to watch carefully (I do not say that they will be fixed, I am simply red-flagging the games) are Turkish champions Besiktas versus perennial no-hopers Dynamo Kiev and Juventus versus Dinamo Zagreb. Yes, the same Dinamo Zagreb of the infamous winking 7-1 loss to Olympique de Lyon in the same round of the Champions League in 2011. The conditions that make me red-flag these games are: 1) Neither of the...

10JunJune 10, 2016

How to Fix the European Championship

This is an article that I hate to write. I hope that fixing does not happen at the upcoming European Championship. I hope that no teams, players or officials are involved in corruption. However, for all the football fans that are concerned for the integrity of the beautiful game here is the blueprint of how match-fixers go about corrupting a big international football tournament. I write this because the only way to find proof of match-fixing is to mount proper investigations....

09MayMay 9, 2016

Requiem for a Football Legend: Michel Platini

So he is gone. Michel Platini's drink at the last chance legal saloon of the Council for the Arbitration of Sport (CAS - the supreme court for sports) just ended. Here is the background. Michel Platini “advised” Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, between 1999-2002. Just before the 2011 FIFA Presidential election, where Michel Platini chose not to run against Blatter, he received a payment of 2 million Swiss Francs from Blatter. Their story was that this payment was in recompense...

25FebFebruary 25, 2016

Insider’s Paradise: Corruption Looms Large Ahead of FIFA Presidential Election

The FIFA presidential election will take place on Friday in Zurich, giving the game's power brokers a golden chance to affect change. But there's a catch. The 207 eligible presidents of the national football federations wield the power to vote, yet these officials are, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, steeped in a world where brazen criminals have repeatedly milked the sport for their own personal profit. ** This is a feature article for Bleacher Report. You can read below or at...

24FebFebruary 24, 2016

The Elephant in the FIFA Room and the Caribbean Delegates

https://www.declanhill.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/X-Fifa-vice-president-Jack-Warner-is-caught-on-tape-offering-_gifts-of-25_000-to-Caribbean.flv.mp4 There are two unresolved questions here in Zurich with days to go before the biggest election in FIFA's history. The two front runners are Gianni Infantino and Sheikh Salman. They both have the official support of two confederations: Salman his own Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the African Confederation (CAF). Infantino – Europe (UEFA) and Latin America (CONMEBOL). Most of the discussions, media spinning, rumours, etc in this city is about whether Salman's support is declining and Infantino is gaining: or,...

30NovNovember 30, 2015

Potemkin Villages, Scapegoats and Fake Qatari Fans: 4 Things We Learned From This Week in International Sports Corruption

On the eve of FIFA’s executive committee meeting that is expected to rubber-stamp the decision of their ‘ethics committee’ (sic) to ban Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini from the international football world, four points: 1) Is the internal FIFA reform - a believable process? No. It is a Potemkin village of a battle against corruption. From far away, it seems good. Once you get close, the obvious conflicts of interests emerge. What is occurring now is a frantic effort by FIFA...

25SepSeptember 25, 2015

Requiem for a FIFA President & More to Come

See below from last week, when a number of people close to the investigations showed me some of the documentation. The other stories from FIFA sources are, now, legendary. When Blatter heard of the arrests at the five-star hotel in the spring, FIFA-insiders claim he hid for several hours, mobile phone switched off in case someone came for him. Here is the official statement from Swiss Prosecutors: Criminal proceedings against the President of FIFA Bern, 25.09.2015 – The Office of the Attorney...