Declan Hill's Blog

It Ain’t Complicated!

February 8th, 2013

Anyone who tells you that match-fixing is complicated to solve is either ignorant or lying.

Following the Europol press conference and the media hype around it – let us analyse the current fixing situation in international football:

It is very, very simple.

Let us take out ‘football’ for the moment and imagine that we are speaking about bank robberies.

There is a gang that is going around the world and robbing banks. They have stolen money from at least 680 banks in over-20 different countries.

We know the name of the alleged leader of the gang.

We know the address of the alleged leader of the gang.

We know his birth date and his phone number.

Police forces in some of those countries have collected hundreds of pages of evidence against him.

The police forces have gone to the country where he lives with an international arrest warrant and asked the government of that country to arrest him.

His national government has refused to arrest him.

They have come up with a variety of responses, ‘not enough evidence’, ‘warrant not valid’, ‘we are helping [but not enough to make any arrests]’, etc… But basically, they are refusing to act.

It is that simple.

Dan Seet Eng Tan is that man. Interpol, FIFA, UEFA dare not mention his name or even publicly ask Singapore to arrest him.

The Singaporeans are giving them the finger. [Translation for international readers, the Singaporean government is telling the international sporting community to ‘F*** off’’ – and the international sporting community is accepting it.]

This is the situation: do not let anyone tell you any different.

The international response to this refusal is very clear. Instead of putting pressure on the Singaporean government. All the sports officials and the international police force says, ‘We should train the bank tellers!’

Quite why large international institutions are afraid of offending the Singaporeans is beyond me. Singapore is a pretty tetchy country in the sporting world. It is a nice place, full of very good people whom I greatly like – but still in sporting terms, if you told the Singaporeans that they were not welcome at the Olympics because they were harbouring internationally wanted criminals who were accused of destroying sport – few people would notice their absence.

Another note – Sepp Blatter has come out this week saying that most of the 680-cases of fixing announced at the Europol press conference ‘have been dealt with’.

Really?

When?

There must have been a huge scandal that I missed. Because I have never seen a FIFA-wide investigation into hundreds of international matches being fixed. These matches are the one that FIFA organizes. This is a fair proportion of the total number of matches that FIFA is directly responsible for.

The real mystery is when Blatter banned the national football officials who were helping the fixers. I must have missed that story as well.

Because if he is saying that a gang of match-fixers arranged hundreds of international FIFA-organized matches, without the help of someone inside the sport that would be very difficult indeed.

Still if Mr. Blatter said that all these fixed matches have been dealt with and all the people caught. We will have to believe him, because Mr. Blatter has such a good reputation.

The thought that there might be all those international fixed matches and no one has examined them is too much.

Tags: blatter, Dan Tan, europol, fifa, match fixing, singapore
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Europol Press Conference is a Huge, New Story

February 6th, 2013

Stay Tuned – I will be releasing fresh revelations later this week.

However, for now, here is a quick fact sheet for people interested in the story developing around the Europol press conference on Monday of this week. At the conference, police investigators announced that they had over 400-suspects and over 680 suspicious matches.

Most journalists have played the story straight and simply announced these findings, however, there has been a strain in the media that is trying frantically to downplay the findings at the press conference. Their most frequent accusation is that the police did not ‘present anything new’ or ‘they did not consult sports officials and these sporting authorities are furious’.

So here is a quick outline of the true situation and the underlying factors at play:

Is this a new story?

Damn straight it is. Do not listen to the nonsense being peddled out in the media that ‘this is an old story’.

That line is a classic news-burying job.

This is because it ignores the fundamental question: ‘Is the story true?’

That question is more than answered – we know is that there have been confirmed and widespread fixing of matches in the following countries:

Turkey, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro. Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Finland, South Korea, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Guatemala and Canada.

Those twenty countries I have just pulled off the top of my head. There are many other cases in other countries.

This is not rumour. We are not speaking about winks from players from Dynamo Zagreb against Olympique de Lyon.

Note that we are speaking about convictions in a judicial court where a judge has banged a gavel and said, ‘This game was fixed.’

Two, there was new material at the Europol press conference. One of the investigators said that they had evidence that up to 150 international matches had been fixed in two years in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He stated that these were national teams playing against each other.

This is a huge story.

There are not that many international matches on that level (national teams). 150 games is a significant proportion of the total matches played over two years. Essentially, that means more than one international match a week is being fixed.

This is a serious governance issue on the part of the organizers FIFA of these types of games. The question that few journalists are asking is given this news – what specific measures has FIFA undertaken to stop these kind of games being fixed? And I do not mean holding another international conference on match-fixing.

Three, for the first time an official body – Europol – has stood up and said this activity is connected to a group coming out of Singapore.

Look, I know that people who read my book and this blog, that is an old story. But over the years there have been few officials who have had the guts to say it loudly and clearly in public.

Why is there a media spin that this is an old story?

There are two camps in the anti-match-fixing industry. One camp centred on FIFA and Interpol are happy to say a lot, but do nothing. They will make motherhood statements about how bad fixing is, but will not take any concrete action.

As you know, I exposed that Interpol is unwilling to put pressure on the Singaporean government to fulfil an international arrest warrant served by Interpol against a Singaporean accused of match-fixing by European police.

The spin comes mostly, although not exclusively, from their chums in the media trying to downplay the activities of the other camp.

This second camp in the fight against match-fixing are the police investigators who have actually done excellent work against the fixers. They have made arrests. They have got convictions. They are on their way to actually taking concrete steps against the people who are corrupting the sport.

Sadly, they have not been aided by many sports officials.

More to come, stay tuned.

Tags: europol, fifa, match fixing, singapore
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The Alleged Poster Child of Fixing

February 5th, 2013

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Here is a brief outline on the activities of Dan Tan. The unmentioned man at the centre of yesterday’s Europol press conference. You are welcome to use the material, but please do cite me and my newspaper the Ottawa Citizen.

All good wishes,

Declan

Dan Tan has a very comfortable life. He lives in a modern condominium in a rich neighbourhood of Singapore. He drives late-model luxury cars and, reportedly, has a personal net worth of more than $58 million. All in all, according to European police, Tan is a poster child for the dictum “crime does pay.”
In court documents, Tan is accused of fixing hundreds of sports events, mostly soccer games, on five different continents. From Finland to Zimbabwe to Guatemala to Germany to Italy to Canada, Tan or the networks of criminals that he is said to lead have been cited as corrupting entire leagues and national teams and causing half a dozen deaths.
Today, the Citizen features a special in-depth report on the world of sports fixing and how these criminals have spread their web of corruption around the world, including to Canada.
The person at the centre of this extraordinary story is a 48-year-old Singaporean named Tan Seet Eng or “Dan” Tan. In Cremona, Italy, state prosecutors claim that Tan helped corrupt dozens of professional soccer teams and hundreds of professional players and officials. Investigating Judge Guido Salvini, who is one of the leaders of the Italian investigation, wrote in his official report: “Dan Tan and his group constitute a criminal network that is both dangerous and are quick to violence for anyone who breaks their rules. This is stated in the testimony of one of the members who said it takes very little in the case of treason by one of the group to risk their murder.” Not only do the Italian state prosecutors want to speak to Tan, but Hungarian police and the German Organized Crime Task Force have issued either official requests or warrants to have him extradited. Both those countries have seen murders or suicides linked to gambling in sports. Both are anxious to speak to Tan.
There is official interest in Tan from countries around the world. Interpol, the world police agency, has even served an international arrest warrant against him.
The Citizen tried to reach Tan a number of times and contacted the Singapore police department to ask why they had not yet acted upon the international arrest warrant. They issued a statement saying that while they took the issue of match-fixing very seriously, they “will need more information before deciding on our follow up actions.”
It is difficult to imagine how much more information they need, as the Italian prosecutors alone have produced more than 800 pages of reports on Tan’s alleged activities in Italy, including photos of his purported agents meeting and passing money before key soccer games. Dozens of former players and associates, including one of his chief lieutenants, are ready to testify about what they claim to be Tan’s corrupt activities.
European police forces across that continent are bewildered by the Singaporean official reaction. They say that they have produced an army of evidence to get Tan arrested and extradited only to be met with a stonewall of excuses and obstacles.
For Canadians, the message is even worse. Singapore has a tradition of fixing Canadian sports. Arguably, the blackest day in Canadian soccer occurred there in 1986 at the Merlion Cup. It was supposed to be a friendly summer tournament between various national teams. However, four players on the Canadian men’s soccer team, who had competed in the World Cup (the first and only time a Canadian team has made it to the final tournament), disgraced themselves and their country. Wearing Canadian uniforms, they took money from criminal fixers linked to the illegal gambling market and played to lose a game against North Korea.
The Canadian players were caught, suspended from the team and the case was investigated by the RCMP at the time. However, a judge in Ottawa, where the case was to be tried, decided that a Canadian court did not have the jurisdiction to render a verdict and allowed the players to go free.
Strangely, 25 years later, the same attitude of official indifference seems to permeate the attempted prosecution against other alleged match-fixers.
Tan was, according to German prosecutors, in charge of the criminal network that helped fix a game in the Canadian Soccer League in September 2009.
Yet not only does he live seemingly undisturbed by Singaporean officials, Canadian authorities have taken no effective action to investigate or prosecute the activities of Tan’s fixers in this country. Over the last two years, both have claimed that the fixing was outside their jurisdiction or they did not have enough information.

Tags: Dan Tan, europol
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Another ‘I Told You So’ Moment

February 4th, 2013

Europol Press Conference on Match-Fixing

First, the good news. This is good news! Forget the ‘black day for European Football’ comments. Fixing and corruption has been going on in football for a long time. Long before ‘The Fix’ revealed the existence of this network, these fixers have been working throughout the sport to destroy its credibility. Finally, there are serious, good police investigators taking a long, hard and critical look at the dark centre of the sport.

Second, what is surprising is not specific matches, but the sheer scale of the number of matches fixed. Forget the stuff about Champions League or games in the UK. The important point was that Europol estimates that 150 international matches in Asia, Africa and Latin America were fixed in two years. Note – these are not club matches, but games between national teams. 150 of these types of matches in two years is a fair proportion of the total number of all international matches of this type. If I were a football fan in any of those continents I would be furious with my national football authorities for allowing such a high-level of corruption to exist. I would also be asking which football officials knew what and when – to pretend that someone inside the football world did not know about this level of corruption is unbelievable.

Three, the absolutely important point is that we know what is going on and who is responsible. Asian criminals have been traveling all over the world fixing sports in our countries. These are not ‘mysterious’, ‘unknown’ people. The alleged ringleaders are very well-known. If you have read my last blogs you know that the Singaporean government has refused to arrest one of the alleged chiefs of the fixers. It is time to consider banning Singapore from international football until they honour an Interpol arrest warrant and arrest one of their own.

Tags: europol, match fixing, singapore
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Europol press conference

February 3rd, 2013

In the room, there will be good police officers who have done excellent work. They should be commended.

However, if an official does not specifically stand up and state that the Singaporean government must serve the international arrest warrant against Dan Tan, then they become part of the problem, not the solution.

The networks that the police have identified in superb investigations is, for the most part, linked to Asian fixers. Dan Tan is the alleged leading figure of these fixers. The Singapore government has refused to serve an arrest warrant against him. They haven given him literally months of time to possibly destroy evidence and phone records.

For Europol to be taken as a credible investigation one of their officials must state their frustration with the Singaporeans. Otherwise, they have only identified half the network.

Tags: Dan Tan, europol, match fixing, singapore
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Five Words to Sum Up the War Against Fixers

January 30th, 2013

It is a farce, a bureaucratic cone of silence and it comes dangerously close to a cover-up.

I write of Interpol’s ‘efforts’ to fight match-fixing.

You see the articles all the time in the media – as Interpol holds yet another press conference to tout their efforts against fixing from ruining the beautiful game.

I do not say these things lightly – but from my recent experiences with Interpol, this is a warning to the world’s press that they are being bamboozled if they take seriously Interpol’s official statements about its desire to fight against fixing.

Why do I say these things?

Because I was invited by Interpol to go to Rome to speak at their conference for European football associations about match-fixing. I saw first-hand its operations, its personnel and its attitude to the fight against fixing. My presentation at the conference was very clear – you can sum up the state of match-fixing in football with five words.

Here below is an adaptation of the speech:

There are five words that can sum up this whole conference and all its themes: education, player awareness and integrity. There are five words that if ignored mean that we will lose sport as surely as sport in Asia has been destroyed – leaving our industry, our passion, our gift to the next generation devastated.

These then, are the five words: Dan Tan must be arrested.

For those who may not know who is Dan Tan: European police and his former associated have claimed that he has fixed matches or his connections have fixed matches in a host of countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, but also in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Switzerland, Serbia, Macedonia and most famously here in Italy.

This is not journalistic speculation. There have been excellent police investigations in some of these countries. Last month, another one of his former associates in Italy turned himself into the police and spoke about the gang’s activities.

Both the Hungarian and the Italian police (some of them who are here today) have issued arrest warrants for Dan Tan. Interpol – has issued an international arrest warrant asking the Singapore government to arrest Dan Tan. They issued this warrant months ago and Dan Tan still has not been arrested.

WHY HAS DAN TAN NOT BEEN ARRESTED?

I do not know for certain, but here is what I believe might be going on: he is receiving protection from someone. Officially, the excuse given by the Singaporean government is that there is no extradition treaty between their government and the European Union.

Please, give me a break! We are talking about Singapore here. This is a legal jurisdiction where police charged an opposition politician for organizing a public rally. This is a country where chewing gum used to be against the law. This is a country where they flog hooligans. In my opinion, if the Singaporean government really wanted to arrest and extradite an alleged criminal, they could find a reason to do it in about 3.2 seconds.

I believe, Dan Tan and his gang receive protection both in terms of muscle but also financially from very, very powerful people in Asian society. Very powerful. After reading the legal documents against Dan Tan, I think that if he were to stand trial in Europe there is a chance that he may name some of those people, if he does, it will cause a major scandal in some South-Eastern Asian countries. So, in my opinion, to prevent that from happening someone is delaying the extradition.

This is one of the things that the Chris Eaton, former integrity officer at FIFA was saying as he was pushed out the door – that there is a highly placed person connected to the fixers. I have heard many similar things from my sources.

Now, I may be wrong. There may be some other reason for Singapore not to serve an Interpol international arrest warrant. But at this moment, I believe, that it is a desire to avoid a political scandal that is preventing Mr. Tan from testifying in a public trial.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF DAN TAN IS NOT ARRESTED?

We will lose the war against match-fixing. I helped design the education program that Interpol is beginning to modify and use. There is no better education for a player than seeing the alleged head of a fixing network being dragged off to jail. And let me assure you, that there is no better education for a player than seeing the alleged head of a fixing network NOT being dragged off to the jail.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

This is one of those rare moments in a battle where symbolic words are actually very useful. If this conference, or a single European senior sports official or politician was to stand up and simply, clearly and publicly state – ‘We are not happy, Singapore Government. Your people have come to our countries and corrupted our sports. Our police think they know who these fixers are – Dan Tan must be arrested. Or we would prefer if you did not come to the Olympics or the World Cup.’ The Singaporean government would act.

I leave you with this one simple thought. If Dan Tan, the man who is alleged to have fixed sporting events around the world is not arrested, we will lose the war. All these lovely conferences, dramatic police investigations and wonderful books will all be for nothing. We will have lost. And our sport will be destroyed. Dan Tan must be arrested.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE SPEECH?

I was promptly disinvited from giving another presentation for Interpol in Kuala Lumpur in February. However, far, far worse – when I stood at the end of the conference and politely asked for a single sentence in the closing statement to reflect that national governments – including Singapore – should be urged to follow international arrest warrants – the moderator shouted the idea down.

I was extremely courteous. I stood again and said, “I beg. I urge and I implore you to put one sentence in that reflects that the Singaporean government should serve Interpol’s own international arrest warrant against a well-known alleged fixer.”

To be fair, many people in the room supported the idea and a number of people stood and spoke in favour of it. The Interpol staff still refused to make any meaningful changes – they promised that they would review it, but the final statement has nothing that accurately reflects the discussion.

The next morning, Fabrizio Lisi, one of the Italian police representatives of Interpol who was also at the conference, gave an interview with the newspaper La Republica. He praised my work and speech at the conference and said that the Singaporean government must be pressed to take action. (A note: It was because of Mr. Lisi’s interview that I speak in such detail about the workings of the conference. Having been quoted in the press, I have a need to clarify exactly what I said in the conference). It is unclear if Mr. Lisi was speaking for himself or Interpol. What is clear is the excuse that ‘[Interpol] did not want to risk collaboration with an Asian country by including anything in the final statement’ was repeated and that Mr. Lisi is not one of Interpol’s agents specifically tasked to fight against fixing.

WHY WOULD INTERPOL OPERATIVES NOT WANT TO TAKE ACTION?

I do not want to ascribe personal motives to Interpol operatives for why they would refuse point-blank to issue a statement that would ask a national government – politely – to obey their own arrest warrants. But I would like to mention two factors that a fair-minded observer may think could have played a role in their decision.

FIFA and Interpol are planning to open a $20 million education centre against match-fixing. Where will it be? Singapore. What kind of education will be given in a country whose own government will not follow Interpol’s international arrest warrants against alleged match-fixers – I do not know. However, I do know that in 2014, Interpol will be opening another multi-million dollar ‘Global Complex for Innovation’. It also will be in Singapore.

Tags: Dan Tan, Fabrizio Lisi, interpol, match fixing, singapore
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The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly

January 28th, 2013

The Good, the bad and the Very Ugly
Interpol Conference on Match Fixing, Rome, Italy
Sports Corruption Industry – part III

Rome: It was the good, the bad and the very ugly. To be a speaker at an international match-fixing conference organized by Interpol is to see the sports corruption industry close up. It was a moving , depressing and shocking vision.

First, the rules of the next few blog postings: there is much that I cannot discuss; names that I cannot give: quotes that I will not source. I will not do so, because I try to be an honourable journalist in what can be a very dishonourable profession. I was invited to the conference. I entered it ready to do my best to help guide the fight against match-fixing. So I cannot afterwards break my word and report confidential conversations.

Still – there is much that I can say, so let us start with the good. It was a surreal and moving experience to stand in a conference room full of hundreds of people all stating that match-fixing is a terrible problem in international sport.

I remember standing alone on a stage in November 2005 at an international conference in Copenhagen. I was giving a presentation warning that a tide of match-fixing was soon going to swamp soccer. I felt the scepticism in the room like an iron wall.

It has been a long battle, since that date, to get people to take the problem seriously. Lots of other people have also fought hard and it was nice to see a full conference room, packed with some of the great of the football world discussing the issue.

Another good point. Amidst those people there are lots who are fighting hard against sports corruption. Some of them are doing very good work. Some of them are concentrating on the wrong issues. Some of them are making serious mistakes, but they are working hard. I will write about some of their well-meaning and well-made mistakes in blogs next month.

I know they are mistakes because I made similar errors in analysis, when I started the research into match-fixing nine-years ago at Oxford. I was fortunate enough to have both time and two of the world’s best academic supervisors. There was the great Diego Gambetta raising his eyebrows, yet-again, to the ceiling as I trotted out some ill-thought out solution to a problem: and the gentle, but equally insightful, Anthony Heath, mildly pointing out over a civilized cup of tea that my logic was unsound. So I know mistakes can be made and the key thing is that many of the newcomers to this field are making those mistakes in good faith.

The bad?

The best way of understanding is in the Freudian slip of one speaker. He was asked if corruption could ever be eliminated from sport. His reply: ‘Fixing will never be beaten. I wish it could be. I wish, one day, that I will open my eyes and that we have no more corruption. Then I will be happy. But then I will be out of a job.’

That phrase – ‘Then I will be out of a job’ – sums up a strong, unspoken theme that runs through the sports corruption industry.

For example, lots of people made lots of presentations at the conference that had phrases like ‘shadowy figures behind match-fixing’, ‘fixing is very complicated’, ‘we have to take small steps on a long road’, ‘we will never be able to eradicate it’. Note what they are doing here. They are planting the foundations of a long-term profitable industry that (and this is important) depends on the fixers! It is – to return to the theme of an earlier blog – exactly like the terrorism-industry that sprang up in the United States after the 9/11 attacks. If there are no fixers, there will be no industry. So they have to ensure that the fixers are never properly identified, let along caught, otherwise their own jobs may suffer.

The ugly? This job-creation feeds into a giant cover-up that is going on in the anti-match-fixing industry. It is protecting some of the most prominent match-fixers and their rich, political backers. It is going on because few people at this time have the courage to stand up and describe the true situation. Stay tuned.

Tags: interpol, match fixing, rome
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Two Stories From the Fight Game

January 25th, 2013

It was one of the times that I have felt most proud to be Canadian. It occurred in a hot, sweaty Cuban boxing gym on the outskirts of Havana. Today, however, is a day that I am shaking my head in exasperation about our nation. The two events are linked, here is why.

For those readers who follow this blog regularly, you will know that in the last few years I have taken up boxing. I regularly go to Cuba to train, along with practicing at my local club. This does not mean that I am any good, any fairly well-muscled boy scout could probably take me, but it does mean that I have had the privilege of sharing a gym and a ring with some top fighters.

On one trip to Havana, I went down with a group of much younger fighters. Some of the lads hit the nightlife like a group of marauding Vikings. I have no idea how they did it. This is not a statement of Puritan disapproval; I just do not have the stamina for what they did. We would get up at 7.00 a.m., then run 7 kilometres, do 300 push-ups, 300 sit-ups and 20 minutes of combinations – along the Malecón sea wall in central Havana: then to breakfast and double/double espressos – then to the gym where we did 3 hours of training and sparring: then back to the hotel for lunch. After that, I staggered into an ice bath, possibly a lie in on the beach, and dinner, followed by a long sleep. Some of the lads (though not all of them) would hit the night spots, enjoy themselves, return in the middle of the night, and then do it all again the next day!

One of these young men was the superb professional fighter Tony Luis, from Cornwall Ontario. He caused problems with our Cuban hosts because he was so good. They had arranged a bunch of boxers to spar with us, who were reasonably fit, middle-ranking fellows. Tony beat them up.

This was not supposed to happen.

Cubans are a hospitable lot. But boxing is their sport, their unspoken, but strongly felt attitude was that no Canadian should be allowed to come down and thrash them at their own game in their own country. It would be like a Cuban coming to Winnipeg and being the best player on the ice at hockey. It is just against the natural order.

So phone calls were made, favours were pulled and after a few days, two of Cuba’s top lightweight boxers arrived from the ‘Finca’ – the national training camp. I do not know their names. Even if I did, I would not reveal them as some arcane Communist regulations were probably being broken to allow the local boys to come down and thrash the Canadian.

The atmosphere changed markedly in the gym on the day these top fighters arrived. Before it had been a pleasant, joking place. Now, the Cubans seemed to nod and say, ‘Right. You have had your way. This is our house and you are going to get your lesson.’

Tony Luis was put in the ring with these guys. Any sense of fairness in refereeing or judging went out the window. These were Cuban judges who had had to watch their local boys being dropped for the last four days, now it was revenge time.

Every clinch seemed to ended with the Cuban fighters pulling Tony Luis into an unfair position and slamming illegal punches to his body, while the referee looked abstractedly at the far wall and the judges feigned ignorance. The sparring lasted 13-rounds.

On the way back to our hotel, Tony Luis asked me how he had done, I replied, “Look, you did not get more than 3 hours of sleep last night. You fought some of the top fighters in this country for 13-rounds. You did okay, but I think they won.”

Tony nodded and went to speak to his father – Jorge Luis – one of the best boxing coaches in our country (both myself and Justin Trudeau made sure that he was in our corner for fights).

The next day, not a single one of our guys had gone out to party. We cancelled our early morning cardio exercise. We came into the gym ready. If the Cubans wanted to up their game, our attitude was ‘bring it on’.

Tony Luis went back in the ring with the top Cuban fighter. It was fighting to bring goose bumps to the back of your neck. The best of our countries was there. The Cubans fought like Cubans: style, rhythm, passion and attitude. Tony Luis fought like the best of Canada: simple, clear, direct and honest. In a tiny, sweaty gym in Havana, it was boxing for the sport purist.

There was one moment in third round, when the Cuban tried to do to Tony what he had done the day before – cheat in the clinches. I do not know how Tony Luis did it, but he seemed to allow the other fighter to bounce off him. Then as the Cuban went back, he hit him with a staggering uppercut to the ribs. It was a punch like a sledgehammer blow. It was a punch you could hear around the gym. It was a punch that made the Cubans who were watching wince with pain.

It made you feel proud to be Canadian. Here was our boy, going toe-to-toe with the best in their country and fighting honestly, cleanly and honourably. It was a great moment.

At the end of the fight, they shook hands and the Cuban said, ‘You are pretty tough.’ Which translated means that was a really, really good fight.

Today, however, is a day when I do not feel proud to be Canadian. For Tony Luis is now a professional. He has an extraordinary record of 15-0, with 7 KOs. He has been chosen to fight on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights. The program will be watched by millions of people across our continent and down into Latin America.

However, to this moment, Tony has received very little publicity from Canadian media outlets. It is this cone of silence that drives some of our best athletes away. Think Lennox Lewis, Greg Rusedski and Owen Hargreaves. This is the reason why they put aside their Canadian identity and joined a society that appreciates their work. This is what Patrick Chan spoke about when he complained about being able to walk down the street in Canada and no one recognizing him, whereas in China or South Korea he is a star.

I do not know what will happen tonight in the ring. But I do know that whatever happens I will be proud of Tony Luis and I will be wondering when will Canadians start to recognize their own?

Fellow journalists: Matt Yanofsky, the media person for ‘Team Luis’, is at knockoutpublcity@aol.com

Tags: cuba, havana, Tony Luis
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The Sports Corruption Industry and the Great Cover-Up II

December 4th, 2012

10,000 Hours and the Enigma of Chris Eaton

To review – there is a now an anti-match-fixing industry. It is like the post 9/11 anti-terrorist-complex in the United States, a self-generating, commercially motivated phenomenon. So in the same way it did not benefit the anti-terrorist industry for Osama bin Laden to be captured (rather they want terrorists to be out there, uncaptured – something vague and ill-defined to allow the industry to continue) – so too is it with the anti-match-fixing industry. As an industry it does not benefit if the fixers are captured or stopped, rather it benefits the industry for the fixers to carry on while they plan various activities.

Part of the reason for this situation is described by the Canadian writer and commentator Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Gladwell writes of the need for ‘10,000 hours’ of practice before a person becomes proficient in their field. So too is it in the sports anti-corruption industry. In the first article in this series, I wrote of the generations of experts and consultants who had arisen in this field purportedly to fight against corruption in sports. I wrote about the first generation in ‘The Fix’. But now the generation that came up after the release of the book is being gradually supplanted by new arrivals.

The problem is that often just as these ‘experts’ become useful – just as they accumulate enough information and knowledge to understand the true nature of the fight, then they are pushed out of the field or marginalized. This is not accidental. The status quo does not want real change. They are helping cover-up one of the worst corruption scandals in sports, and as people begin to appreciate what is going on, they are often given the boot. The best example of this phenomenon is the career of Chris Eaton, the former head of integrity at FIFA.

In my opinion, Chris Eaton entered FIFA like a jerk and left like a lion. He made two early mistakes. The first was that he showed an inclination to downplay the work of earlier anti-corruption fighters, while touting the benefits of FIFA leading the fight against corruption in sports.

Second, Eaton gathered around him a stable of tame sports journalists. Their relationship was close, but informal. The unspoken and mostly unrealized quid pro quo between them was that Eaton would give them information and they would write articles praising Eaton as the best, and often only, fighter against sports corruption.

The problem about these paeans was that they were not true. Much of the work they ascribed to Eaton was actually the work of other people. Eaton would go visit various police match-fixing investigations to provide law enforcement with FIFA’s perspective. Then what actually happened (and I have been told the same story by a number of different police investigators) was that the press would give Eaton the credit for the police investigations. The investigators were furious. For them it was the worst of worlds, their investigations were potentially being hindered and they were not getting the proper credit for their fight against match-fixing.

However, gradually something started to happen with Eaton. As he began to acquire knowledge, he began to be aware of the true situation with match-fixing. He began to do genuinely brilliant work. Some of his team of investigators are superb. The plans and programs Eaton tried to put in place at FIFA for fighting corruption in international football are textbook examples of good preventative anti-corruption work. But it was too late. FIFA is not an organization where second-tier executives are supposed to take the media limelight from Sepp Blatter and Eaton had received far too much praise and column inches. More importantly, FIFA is not an organization that has a culture that welcomed Eaton’s excellent plans for fighting corruption. A genuine program of anti-corruption at FIFA was about as welcome as a drunk Uncle at a Mennonite wedding. So Eaton and many of his investigators were gradually shown the door at FIFA.

Now Eaton continues to fight against corruption in sports. He usually says interesting and truthful things. He should be listened to. The problem is that he is working for what many people perceive as a walking oxymoron – a Qatari anti-corruption agency. Few sports commentators, after the problems in awarding the 2022 World Cup, believe that the Qataris are disinterested in their pursuit of sports corruption. They may be, but few people believe it.

Overall, though Chris Eaton’s anti-match-fixing career mirrors what happens to many sports consultants and experts in the anti-match-fixing field – once they become aware of what is actually going on they are marginalized. This is done, in part, to protect the status quo and continue the great cover-up. More soon:

Tags: Chris Eaton, fifa, match fixing, Qatar
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Time to Protest

November 26th, 2012

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

A very bad flu hit me over the last few weeks. Only now, after some great care at Brock University where I was a visiting scholar, am I slowly staggering back to my feet.

I will pick up the series ‘The Sports Corruption Industry and the Great Cover Up’ very soon. However, for the moment, I wanted to offer my support to the Turkish supporters who protested at Nyon appealing for UEFA to give more help in the clean-up of Turkish football.

A quick review, it is very difficult to overstate the depths of corruption in Turkish football: it is even more difficult to overstate how badly the Turkish football authorities have bent over backwards to excuse the fixing; and it is even more difficult to understand how anyone could regard Turkish domestic football with any credibility.

There are various fan groups – some independent, some linked to clubs – who are appealing for stricter sanctions against corruption and jail sentences for the people who have been convicted of fixing or attempting to fix matches. This weekend, a group connected to Trabzonspor protested in front of UEFA’s headquarters. I do not support Trabzonspor, in any way. I do not think they should be given the league championship title. I think that the title should be forever marked as ‘not awarded’ as a symbol of how bad corruption has become in Turkish football. However, I do want to say that I support any credible efforts to clean up Turkish football. The sport in that country has gone from an embarrassment to a scandal to, now, a very bad joke.

By the way, if any Western Europeans are reading this blog and feeling a little smug. I assure you that many European sports officials treat fixing and corruption in exactly the same way. Take a look at the ‘sentences’ handed out to some players and coaches in Italy for fixing games. Some of those people would be out of the game longer if they had pulled their hamstrings then aided a fixed match. You can see that we are entering a stage, in some leagues, of endemic corruption. It may be time for football fans across Europe to start imitating their Turkish colleagues and protest about the levels of corruption that are in our beloved sport.

Tags: match fixing, nyon, trabzonspor, turkey, UEFA
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