BBC runs Untold Arsenal’s match fixing story on its web site « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

Victory Through Harmony

By Tony Attwood

After a week or so of interviews with our regular refereeing correspondents “Dogface” (who does the previews) and Walter Broeckx (who reviews the ref’s actions), the BBC has published a major article on refereeing in the Premier League.

The article includes contributions from both Dogface and Walter, and gives a link to Untold – which is most welcome.  I’m told we might expect quite a few new visitors to our site – indeed if the number of visitors being talked about is anything like right I fear for our servers.  But we’ll do our best.

The BBC article is here.

Here’s the background as reported on Untold – the links to our articles are below this introductory piece.

Presenting the evidence that the Premier League is completely bent

We have been considering the notion that the EPL is fixed for some time, gradually edging towards the view that something akin to the actions of Luciano Moggi (the Juventus manager) and others in Italy is now in place in the UK.

Moggi et al had conversations with several officials of Italian football to influence which referee got which game.  The system (“Calciopoli” as it was called – Bribesville as it is translated in some quarters) did not mean that matches were fixed to produce a set score, knowledge of which could be used in gambling, but rather that favours were given by a variety of clubs to certain refs over time, and these refs edged games in favour of the clubs using the system. Juve, Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, Reggina were all ultimately found guilty.

The system was hard to track down not least because it had little to do with gambling.  The key approach to stopping match fixing in most of Europe involves waiting for the bookies to cry out that there have been “unusual betting patterns”, and then the investigation follows.  Here there is no such activity, and because there is no other system to track down an English Bribesville, nothing happens.

Untold was pretty much on its own in pursuing this line of enquiry until the BBC picked up on it, and of course that has left us open to the notion that we are just looking for excuses when Arsenal lose.   You have to make your own mind up – but first please do take a look at the evidence.

We’ve proven that the quality of refereeing is poor – but what is the cause? Part 1

Poor refereeing in the Premier League Part 2:  How do we improve the situation?

The series above is continuing and we’ll be publishing more shortly.

If we adopted the same standards as Belgium we’d hardly have any refs left

The shocking figures that prove that the Premier League is bent

A few points on football and betting syndicates

Below are a couple of articles from our regular series on referees for Arsenal games…

Newcastle v Arsenal

Newcastle Dowd v Arsenal – the ref’s review

Arsenal v Everton

Refwatch Arsenal v Everton – it doesn’t look good – how we made a prediction that this game was not going to go well for Arsenal

Final proof that the Premier League is bent

The most insane bit of refereeing ever seen

Us against the rest

And if all that isn’t enough you might like to take a look at two other things.  One is the Arsenal History site that we run for Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Assn and the other is “Making the Arsenal” – our story of the year that determined Arsenal’s future, and brought us to where we are today.