Birkbeck College, University of London Off Torrington Square Lankaster Lecture Theatre London WC1 7HX Monday 11th November 2013 at 6pm The Insider’s Guide to Match-Fixing in Football: Declan Hill

Synopsis

In this public presentation, international investigative journalist, documentary maker and academic Declan Hill, presents his latest book, The Insider’s Guide to Match-Fixing in Football.

In his previous book, The Fix: Organized Crime and Soccer, Hill uncovered in an intriguing, riveting, and compelling way, some of the best kept secrets of the modern-day fixers and their accomplices.  In The Fix, an awards-winningandexplosive account of the widespread phenomenon of match-fixing, Hill exposed for the first time the deep, corrupt secret at the heart of international football.

Based on the doctoral thesis of Hill at the University of Oxford, The Insider’s Guide to Match-Fixing in Footballis an analysis of the motivations, the mechanisms and the methods within this modern form of fixing.

The book examines the following key questions, among others;

·      Why do football players fix matches?

·      Is violence used against referees and players to make them fix matches?

·      How is fixing different from cheating?

·      Why do some rich, strong teams bother to bribe poor, weak teams?

·      Why are some games fixed, but not others?

·      Why do some leagues have more match corruption than others?

While the final chapter examines the most important question:

·      How can an honest sports administrator prevent match-fixing?

The overarching thesis of the book is that most match-fixing is preventable.  Fixing comes from key specific factors. Remove those factors and we can win the war against match-fixing.

Reading

·      Hill, D. (2013). The Insider’s Guide to Match-Fixing in Football.

·      Hill, D. (2008). The Fix: Organized Crime and Soccer. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

·      Declan Hill’s Blog. Available at: https://declanhill.com/

Biography

Declan Hill is an investigative journalist, documentary maker and academic. He specializes in the study of organized crime and international issues. Before publishing The Fix,he completed documentaries on the killing of the head of the Canadian mafia, blood feuds in Kosovo and ethnic cleansing in Iraq. He has also made documentaries in Kurdistan, Bolivia, India, Mexico, and Turkey.

His programs and articles have appeared on BBC Radio World Service and BBC Radio 4, the Guardian and the Sunday Telegraph (London), as well as various new media outlets.

In the last few years, Declan was a Chevening Scholar at Green College, University of Oxford where he obtained his doctorate on the study of match-fixing in professional football.

He has testified about match-fixing in professional sports to the International Olympic Committee, the Council of Europe and a host of national sports organizations.  He designed the first anti-match-fixing education program used by Interpol.

In his spare time, Hill loves Latin dancing and is a keen sportsman, boxer and martial arts enthusiast. He regularly visits Havana, Cuba and trains with a Chinese boxing Dojo. He speaks four languages – English, French, Spanish and Italian.

Contact Details

Declan’s page on his website: https://declanhill.com/contact

Follow Declan on twitter @declan_hill

For further details on this seminar series contact:

Sean Hamil

Department of Management

Birkbeck College

Malet Street

London

WC1E 7HX

Tel: 020-7631 6763

Email: [email protected]