Sport is made for betting

It's getting rather messy in South Korea, the imaginatively named K-League has been infested with match-fixing and now the government is getting involved. K-League faces shutdown threat over match-fixing scandal SEOUL, Jun 30 (Reuters) - South Korea's government has threatened to "shut down" the country's professional soccer league after losing patience with an embarrassing match-fixing scandal, which is in danger of spiralling out of control. Clubs whose players are found guilty of being involved in match-fixing have been warned they face expulsion from Korea's domestic competition, local media reported on Thursday. "If K-League players are caught trying to throw matches from this July, their teams will be forced out of the league," Park Sun-kyoo, Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We will also consider shutting down the K-League in the worst-case scenario." I was quoted i...

Two games played in an international friendly double-header at a Turkish resort, none of the teams involved are ranked in the FIFA Top 50, and no local representation either. Gee, doesn't sound fishy at all. Oh, and all SEVEN goals across the two matches were from penalties.... FIFA to probe friendly matches FIFA have opened an investigation into last Wednesday's international friendly double-header in Antalya after heavy betting was discovered following the award of seven penalties in the two games. Bulgaria and Estonia played out a 2-2 draw hours after Latvia had beaten Bolivia 2-1 at the Turkish resort, with all seven goals coming from the spot.

Take it with a pinch of salt though, after all, it comes from the Daily Mail.. Gambler in spot-fix claim is linked to England stars A gambler with close social ties to Premier League and England footballers is among those under investigation for involvement in an alleged ‘spot-fixing’ betting sting. The Gambling Commission and the Scottish FA have been passed details of multiple ‘irregular’ bets and attempted bets, many of them allegedly emanating from Merseyside, on a red card being shown during the game between Motherwell and Hearts in the Scottish Premier League earlier this month. Several betting firms have offered evidence. Motherwell’s Liverpool-born midfielder, Steve Jennings, who was sent off during the game for swearing at the referee, has denied any involvement in improper betting. The investigation has been described to me by some involved in the ‘integrity process’ as ‘a test of how seriously the Commission and sporting bodies want to take these issues’. . . ...

Worrying signs north of the border as Scottish football has had some very unusual matches of late, backed up by suspicious betting patterns. The common denominator in both matches: Hearts. Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings is in the spotlight this week after his red card in Tuesday night's match against Hearts was predicted by a lot of punters, particularly new ones, wanting to have bets well above the average for this usually trivial market. Several bookmakers have reported clusters of bets being placed on 'A Red Card to be awarded' at 10/1 on this match, far and above the average for a televised SPL match, with a widespread of accts, lumpy bets and numerous new accounts, particularly from the Liverpool area, where Jennings has links from one of his previous clubs, Tranmere. SPL - Jennings in betting probe over red card Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings has denied any wrongdoing after bookmakers began an investigation into betting patterns over the red card he ...

There's not much left to say on the farce that was the World Cup bidding process. We know they are as bent as a three pound note, so why pander to them and waste millions in doing so? I don't have a problem with Russia winning the 2018 bid. The country has made rapid progress in hosting big events in recent years, there's plenty of money in local football so facilities are improving all the time and presentation was well organised. I'm quite excited by the prospect of going there. It's the Qatar one which defies all logic. Good luck to them if they can pull it off, but little regard seems to have been paid to fans when they are not inside the air-conditioned stadiums. Getting into a major event stadium can often take over an hour, and in 50C, that's potentially lethal. Are they going to build 200 hotels to accommodate and provide liquid refreshment for foreign fans? Will there be a market for hotel boats moored 2km offshore where all the alcohol is served? And...

BBC 5 Live are running a programme on Sunday evening devoted to match-fixing in football. Not a lot of new ground by the sound of this article, but to those who don't follow it closely, it will be an eye-opener. Football Match fixing - how betting gives the game away Some 300 football games a season are fixed in Europe's top leagues, according to experts. The BBC's Tim Mansel gains exclusive access to Sportradar, which tracks betting on football matches all over the world, looking for evidence of suspicious behaviour. The former German football manager Sepp Herberger once famously said that people go to football matches because they do not know who will win. I have just watched a match in the almost certain knowledge not only of who would win, but with a fairly shrewd idea of what the score would be.

Spain leading Scotland 2-0 after 55mins, you'd think there was no chance of the best team in the world giving up that lead against a relative minnow like the Scots.... £166k matched at 1.01 is a lot of money sweating a result now that Scotland have scored two goals to equalise. And just as I post this, Spain have again taken the lead, but there's still plenty of time on the clock. Belgium scored twice in the closing minutes to come from behind against 10-men Austria, and looked like they pinched the game 4-3... but someone forgot to tell Austria, who scored in injury time to level it up at 4-4. That's a lot of cash at short odds down the drain. Short-odds layers are grinners once again.

Sometimes a decent break from the sport is good for everyone.... we're not likely to ever see it though....

After the debacle of the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley yesterday - Chelsea should have had two men sent off, John Terry's tackle on James Milner was a leg-breaker, but the referee could be described in no other terms as gutless. No balls whatsoever, can't send off a Chelsea player in a Cup semi... John Inverdale wrote a great piece in the Evening Standard on Friday about how (field) hockey has introduced video replays in its elite club competition which concluded over Easter. It's not hard, it's quick, takes the pressure off the central referee and removes the effect of blatant bias or basic incompetence... or even the occasions they are genuinely unsighted. Hockey hasn't got it perfect just yet - only one challenge per match is a bit silly, especially if you get your challenge upheld, and in a game of rolling substitutions, only allowing the captain to call for it doesn't work as well as it could. But it does improve the game a lot. Football - the 'beautifu...

Is there any other sport ruled by a bunch of more overpaid, self-righteous pompous gits out of touch with the modern day? We see cheating pricks like Thierry Henry cost the Republic of Ireland tens of millions of pounds because the referees couldn't see what every person and every camera in the stadium could. We see Birmingham today beaten in an FA Cup quarter-final because the blind bastard posing as assistant referee couldn't spot what was blatantly obvious from the same position - daylight between the goalpost and the ball as it crossed the line. If it was Pompey in the same position, it could have spelt the end of the club. In amateur days, it mightn't have made much of a difference. This is when what happened on the field, stayed on the field, all the players shook hands and had a drink together after the game. The game is a long, long way from that in 2010. Poor decisions can cost players, teams and countries millions, and hoping the guilty player will hold his hand u...

Lyon 5 - 5 Marseille Not quick enough to get the Betfair graphs, but these were the prices and amounts. Lyon - matched for £170k at 1.10 and below Marseille - matched for over £40k at 1.06 and below Draw - matched for over £50k at 1.07 and below Wow! And if it wasn't for Twitter, I wouldn't have even noticed all the excitement. Managed to get in late and get a nice three-figure green book :)

On the last day of the season, Brazilian club Viana were going for the Maranhão State League championship. With rivals Moto Club also banging in the goals in a 5-1 win, there is some suggestion Viana might have got a helping hand with their late goal glut. Nine goals in nine minutes! Needing to win 11-0 to clinch promotion from the Second Division, Viana found themselves leading Chapadinha by just 2-0 with 81 minutes played. A bit of fatigue might have been setting in, of course, but surely not enough to see them ship nine goals in the final nine minutes! Blimey, even Hull defend better than this...

The FA haven't called this match-fixing YET but when a bunch of players bet against their team and they are in the match, well that's what it is. Players charged over gambling An investigation into a betting scandal has led to charges against four players for staking thousands of pounds on their own team to lose. A fifth player has also been charged by the Football Association for breaching betting rules over the same game - Accrington Stanley v Bury in Coca-Cola League Two in May last year. An FA statement said: "All five are alleged to have placed bets on Bury to win this match. Mannix is alleged to have placed stakes to the value of approximately £4,000; Mangan £3,500; Harris £2,000; Williams £1,000; and Cavanagh on a £5 accumulator." -- Rumours about this match being suspicious had been around for quite a while. Throw the book at them. This isn't an innocent £5 bet, this is organised deceit of the club, fans, bookmakers and other punters. Three players in the ...

So many games tonight, not enough time to analyse them all if that's your thing. Can't say I really get into the game, just way too many games to get excited about it, but when all else fails, lay England, either for the result, or just to trade out when the price drifts because they don't score early.

Bwin's quest for global domination continues. After legal issues in France and Germany in particular, they have tried the same tactic in Argentina by acquiring a regional licence and then expecting that to work nationally. Fair enough you say, but the Argentinian government are very anti-sports betting, so don't expect them to give this one up lightly. The Argentinean Football Association wasn't too happy about it either. South America is massive on football and other sports such as motor racing, tennis and horse racing are pretty popular as well. It's a big market if someone manages to crack it.

If you ever want to witness how much punters over-react to media speculation, take a look at a Next Manager market on Betfair. The current Next Republic of Ireland Manager has had nine men matched at below 3.5, four or five of them at odds-on. Mug punters just jump on the bandwagon blindly and prices just keep on going down to ridiculous numbers. And then the Irish press have the gall to say it's all just a field day for bookmakers when they are the ones fuelling the fire! Cash in on the over-reactions - lay the short prices, no need to get involved laying someone at 100. Trappatoni crashed from 400 down to 1.73 on Betfair within 24hrs, and now he's back out to about 10. Think of the facts - Ireland have no need to appoint a manager any time soon. Apart fronm the friendly next week against Brazil (the squad has already been picked so no point hiring a new manager to take charge of a team he didn't select), they don't have a match scheduled until September. So there'...