Match fixing
Encyclopedia
In organised sports, match fixing, game fixing, race fixing, or sports fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. Where the sporting competition in question is a race then the incident is referred to as race fixing. Games that are deliberately lost are sometimes called thrown games. When a team intentionally loses a game, or does not score as high as it can, to obtain a perceived future competitive advantage (for instance, earning a high draft pick) rather than gamblers being involved, the team is often said to have tanked the game instead of having thrown it. In pool hustling
, tanking is known as dumping. In sports where a handicap system exists and is capable of being abused, tanking is known as sandbagging
.
Thrown games, when motivated by gambling, require contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfer can sometimes be found, and lead to prosecution, by law or by the sports league(s). In contrast, tanking is internal to the team and very hard to prove. Often, substitutions made by the coach designed to deliberately increase the team's chances of losing (frequently by having one or more key players sit out, often using minimal or phantom injuries as a public excuse for doing this), rather than ordering the players actually on the field to intentionally underperform, were cited as the main factor in cases where tanking has been alleged.
Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known as spot-fixing
, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which have negligible bearing on the final result of the game.
. The most infamous example of this in North America was the Black Sox Scandal
of 1919, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox
conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series
.
. This form of match-fixing is known as "tanking" in Australia. To deter this behavior, leagues such as the Kontinental Hockey League
(KHL), National Hockey League
(NHL) and the National Basketball Association
(NBA) use a draft lottery
, which does not guarantee the first pick to the team at the bottom of the standings. Other leagues such as the National Football League
(NFL) do not make use of a lottery, which leads to suspicions of match fixing, especially since top draft picks can have top careers. In the Australian Football League
, where poor performing teams can receive not only the top pick, but also additional high draft picks based on their final record, allegations of tanking are particularly common.
). For example, the 2006 Los Angeles Clippers
allegedly tanked late season games so they could finish with the 6th seed and play the 8th-ranked team in the league's Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets
, who were the 3rd seed by way of winning their division. Another quirk in the league's playoff system gave the Clippers even more of an incentive to tank. The NBA is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues of the United States in which home advantage in the playoffs is based strictly on regular-season record without regard to seeding. If the Clippers had finished with the 5th seed in the West, they would have had to face the Dallas Mavericks
, who despite being the 4th seed had the second-best record in the conference, which would give the Mavericks home advantage. However, the Clippers would have home advantage in a series against the Nuggets by virtue of a better overall record. If tanking was indeed their strategy, it worked, as the Clippers easily won their first round series. Following the 2006 season, the NBA changed its playoff format so that the best second-place team in each conference would be able to obtain up to the #2 seed should it have the second-best conference record.
On occasion, an NFL team has also been accused of throwing its final regular-season game in an attempt to "choose" its possible opponent in the subsequent playoffs. For example, in the closing game of the 2004 season, the Indianapolis Colts
faced the Denver Broncos
. With a win, the Broncos would advance to the playoffs as a wild card and face the Colts as their first round playoff opponent. It would seem the Colts had little incentive to win as their loss would ensure that they would play a team they dominated in the 2003 Wild Card game. Sure enough, the Colts rested their starters, lost the game, and went on to blow out the Broncos the following week in the playoffs.
Perhaps the most notable example of this was when the San Francisco 49ers
, who had clinched a playoff berth, lost their regular-season finale in 1988 to the Los Angeles Rams
, thereby keeping the New York Giants
(who had defeated the 49ers in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986, also injuring 49er quarterback Joe Montana
in the latter year's game) from qualifying for the postseason; after the game, Giants quarterback Phil Simms
angrily accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs."
A more recent example of possible tanking occurred in the ice hockey competition
at the 2006 Winter Olympics
. In Pool B, Sweden was to face Slovakia in the last pool match for both teams. Sweden coach Bengt-Åke Gustafsson
publicly contemplated tanking against Slovakia, knowing that if his team won, their quarterfinal opponent would either be Canada, the 2002
gold medalists, or the Czech Republic, 1998
gold medalists. Gustafsson would tell Swedish television "One is cholera
, the other the plague
." Sweden lost the match 3–0; the most obvious sign of tanking was when Sweden had a five-on-three powerplay with five NHL
stars—Peter Forsberg
, Mats Sundin
, Daniel Alfredsson
, Nicklas Lidström
, and Fredrik Modin
—on the ice, and failed to put a shot on goal. (Sports Illustrated
writer Michael Farber would say about this particular powerplay, "If the Swedes had passed the puck any more, their next opponent would have been the Washington Generals
.") If he was seeking to tank, Gustafsson got his wish; Sweden would face a much less formidable quarterfinal opponent in Switzerland. Canada would lose to Russia
in a quarterfinal in the opposite bracket, while Sweden went on to win the gold medal, defeating the Czechs in the semifinals.
s. Since 2004, separate scandal
s have erupted in prominent sports leagues in Portugal, Germany (Bundesliga scandal), Brazil (Brazilian football match-fixing scandal
) and the United States (see Tim Donaghy
), all of which concerned referees who fixed matches for gamblers. Many sports writers have speculated that in leagues with high player salaries, it is far more likely for a referee to become corrupt since their pay in such competitions is usually much less than that of the players.
intentionally drew in that year's final "test match" so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League
expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation.
A more recent example occurred in the 1982 FIFA World Cup
, West Germany
played Austria
in the last match of group B
. A West German victory by 1 or 2 goals would result in both teams advancing; any less and Germany was out; any more and Austria was out (and replaced by Algeria
, who had just beaten Chile). West Germany attacked hard and scored after 10 minutes. Afterwards, the players then proceeded to just kick the ball around aimlessly for the remainder of the match. Algerian supporters were so angered that they waved banknotes at the players, while a German fan burned his German flag in disgust. By the second half, the ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek refused any further comment on the game, while the Austrian television commentator Robert Seeger advised viewers to switch off their sets. As a result, FIFA
changed its tournament scheduling for subsequent World Cups
so that the final pair of matches in each group are played simultaneously.
An example occurred in the 2004 European Football Championship. Because unlike FIFA
, UEFA
takes "head-to-head" play into consideration before overall goal difference
when ranking teams level on points, a situation arose in Group C where Sweden
and Denmark
played to a 2-2 draw, which was a sufficiently high scoreline to eliminate Italy
(which had lower-scoring draws with the Swedes and Danes) regardless of Italy's result with already-eliminated Bulgaria
. Although Italy beat Bulgaria by only one goal and would hypothetically have been eliminated using the FIFA tie-breaker too, some Italian fans bitterly contended that the FIFA tie-breaker would have motivated their team to play harder and deterred their Scandinavia
n rivals from, in their view, at the very least half-heartedly playing out the match after the score became 2-2.
But the FIFA tie-breaker, or any goal-differential scheme, can cause problems, too. There have been incidents (especially in basketball
) where players on a favored team have won the game but deliberately ensured the quoted point spread was not covered (see point shaving
). Conversely, there are cases where a team not only lost (which might be honest) but lost by some large amount, perhaps to ensure a point spread was covered, or to grant some non-gambling related favor to the victor. Perhaps the most famous alleged example was the match between Argentina and Peru in the 1978 FIFA World Cup
. Argentina needed a four goal victory to advance over Brazil, an enormous margin at this level of competition, especially since Argentina had a weak offense (6 goals in 5 games) and Peru a stout defence (6 goals allowed in 5 games). Yet somehow, Argentina won 6-0. Much was made over the fact that the Peruvian goalkeeper was born in Argentina, and Peru was dependent on Argentinian grain shipments, but nothing was ever proven.
Although the Denmark-Sweden game above led to calls for UEFA to adopt FIFA's tiebreaking formula for future tournaments, it is not clear if this solves the problem - the Argentina-Peru game shows a possible abuse of the FIFA tie-breaker. Proponents of the UEFA tie-breaker argue that it reduces the value of blow-outs, whether these be the result of a much stronger team running up the score or an already-eliminated side allowing an unusually large number of goals. Perhaps the most infamous incident occurred in December 1983 when Spain
, needing to win by eleven goals to qualify for the Euro 1984 ahead of the Netherlands
, defeated Malta
by a score of 12-1 on the strength of nine second half goals. Especially in international football
, such lopsided results are seen as unsavoury, even if they are honest. If anything, these incidents serves as evidence that the FIFA tie-breaker can cause incentives to perpetrate a fix in some circumstances, the UEFA tie-breaker in others.
referee Tim Donaghy
has been alleged to have perpetrated some of his fixes by calling games in such a manner as to ensure more points than expected were scored by both teams, thus affecting "over-under
" bets on the games whilst also ensuring that Donaghy at least did not look to be outright bias
ed. Also, bets are increasingly being taken on individual performances in team sporting events, which in turn has seen the rise of a phenomenon known as spot-fixing
, although it is currently unlikely that enough is bet on an average player to allow someone to place a substantial wager on them without being noticed.
One such attempt was described by retired footballer Matthew Le Tissier
, who in 2009 admitted that while he was playing with Southampton FC back in 1995 he tried (and failed) to kick the ball out of play right after the kick-off of a Premier League match against Wimbledon FC so that a group of associates would collect on a wager made on an early throw-in. Similarly, in 2010 Pakistani cricket players were accused of committing specific no ball
penalties for the benefit of gamblers.
as to the chance such a fix might be attempted. Some bettors might choose to avoid wagering on such a fixture while others will be motivated to wager on it, or alter the bet they would otherwise place. Such actions will invariably affect odds
and point spreads even if there is no contact whatsoever between teams and the relevant gambling interests. The rise of betting exchange
s has allowed such speculation to play out in real time. For example, the average payout on bets backing the 2004 2-2 result between Sweden and Denmark were much lower than would normally be expected, as heavy betting on that result depressed the odds despite the fact that both teams vehemently denied they would intentionally attempt to manipulate the result. There has never been any evidence produced to suggest that the betting patterns witnessed before that match was anything more than honest speculation from honest bettors.
to lose a competition and city-states which often tried to manipulate the outcome with large amounts of money. These activities went on despite the oath
each athlete took to protect the integrity of the events and the severe punishment sometimes inflicted on those who were caught. Chariot racing
was also dogged by race fixing throughout its history.
By the end of the 19th century gambling was illegal in most jurisdictions, but that did not stop its widespread practice. Boxing
soon became rife with fighters "taking a dive" - probably because boxing is an individual sport which makes its matches much easier to fix without getting caught. Baseball
also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League
to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox
threw the World Series
(see Black Sox Scandal
). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball
established the office of the Baseball Commissioner
, and one of Kenesaw Mountain Landis
's first acts was to ban all involved players for life. Strict rules prohibiting gambling persist to this day (See Pete Rose
).
word meaning a cheating activity which is committed at places where a match, fight, game, competition, or other contest, is held, where the winner and loser are decided in advance by agreement of the competitors or related people. It is believed that the word "Yaocho" came from the name ("Chobei") of the owner of a vegetable stand (yaoya) during the Meiji period
. Created from the first syllable of "Yaoya" and "chobei", the word "yaocho" was created for a nickname of Chobei. Chobei had a friend called "Isenoumi Godayu" (7th Isenoumi
stablemaster) with whom he played the game Igo
, who had once been a Sumo
wrestler "Kashiwado Sogoro" (former shikona
: "Kyonosato") and now was a "Toshiyori
" (a stablemaster of Sumo). Although Chobei was a better Igo player than Isenoumi, he sometimes lost games on purpose to please Isenoumi, so that Isenoumi would continue to buy merchandise from his shop. Afterward, once people knew of his cheating, they started to use "Yaocho" as a word meaning any decision to win/lose a match in advance by negotiation etc. with the expectation of secondary profit, even though the match seems to be held seriously and fairly.
Economists, using statistical analysis, have shown very strong evidence of bout fixing in Sumo
wrestling. (See also 2011 in sumo
) Most of the motive for match fixing is helping each other's ranking to keep their salary higher, according to Keisuke Itai
. For example, wrestlers in Juryo desperately try to avoid makekoshi and exchange or buy the match result otherwise their salary would be nothing, literally 0 yen, with the participation wage of 150,000 yen every two month if they get makekoshi and their ranking would go down to Makushita, the lesser ranking from Juryo in which you can earn 1,036,000 yen monthly with some prizes.
It should, of course, be noted that the sumo association appears to make a distinction between yaocho (the payment of money to secure a result) and koi-ni-yatta mukiryoku zumo (the deliberate performance of underpowered sumo, whereby an opponent simply lays a match down without exchange of money). The intricacies of Japanese culture, which include subordination of individual gain to the greater good, and knowing how to read a situation without the exchange of words (i.e. I know my opponent's score, he needs help and I should automatically give it to him), mean that the latter is almost readily accepted in the sumo world, and is also nigh-impossible to prove.
takes an even harder line:
Each of these organizations was, and may still be influenced by fears that their games could come under the influence of gamblers in the absence of these tough measures. Critics of such hard line measures note that in spite of such policies, such influence nonetheless does occur.
In Britain
the authorities in both government
and sport have taken a softer line on gambling. Following decades of relatively lax, intermittent and ineffective enforcement of laws prohibiting gambling, sports betting was finally legalized and regulated in the 1960s. Organizations such as The Football Association
seem to have taken the stance that gambling on their events is inevitable. The FA only prohibits betting on a match by those directly involved in the game in question. Footballers (or coaches, managers, etc.) are not prohibited from betting on matches that do not involve their own team.
Match fixing in football (soccer) remains a major concern. In Turkey more than 30 players and staff have been convicted of game fixing. In South Korea, more than 50 professional soccer players have been indicted and ten players have received lifetime bans. In Finland, two Zambian players were convicted and more than a dozen people are under investigation. Other investigations are continuing in China, El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
The integrity of horse racing remains an ongoing concern since gambling is an integral part of this sport. Recent allegations of race fixing have centered around the recently-formed betting exchanges which unlike traditional bookmaker
s allow punters to lay an outcome (that is, to bet against a particular runner). Leading exchange Betfair
has responded to the allegations by signing Memorandums of Understanding with the Jockey Club
, The FA, the International Cricket Council
, the Association of Tennis Professionals
and other sporting authorities. These memoranda of understanding are evidence of the vast difference between British and American attitudes — as of 2008 it would be almost unthinkable for an American sports league to sign such an agreement with a bookmaker or betting exchange.
It should be noted that while British football has never been rocked by match fixing allegations on the scale of the Black Sox scandal
(the aforementioned incidents involved league matches, not major championships), football match-fixing has become a serious problem in parts of Continental Europe
.
Cricket
has been scandalized by several gambling and match fixing allegations in recent years, particularly the case of Hansie Cronje
in the late 1990s, culminating in the World Cup
investigations of 2007. These highly publicised enquiries were prompted by the surprise defeat of Pakistan in the Cup by Ireland and the subsequent murder investigation into the sudden death, straight after the match, of Pakistan's head coach Bob Woolmer
. According to the head of the ICC's anti-corruption unit Paul Condon, cricket is the most bet on sport in the world, and fixing is found at every level of the sport and is a significant problem. The 2008 novel Raffles and the Match-Fixing Syndicate, by Adam Corres, places E.W.Hornung's A.J.Raffles, 'the gentleman thief' into the world of cricket match-fixing. This black humour comedy includes speculation on the infamous Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer incidents and features serious aspects of cricket gamesmanship or 'how to defeat a superior opponent without actually cheating', a vital skill in the cricketing psychology of 'thinking the batsman out'.
The high salaries of some of today's professional athletes likely serves to insulate their leagues from player-instigated match fixing. In the NCAA
and in leagues where the salaries are comparatively less (or, in the case of the amateur NCAA, zero), match fixing by players remains a serious concern.
Hustling
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling with the hustler, as a form of confidence trick...
, tanking is known as dumping. In sports where a handicap system exists and is capable of being abused, tanking is known as sandbagging
Sandbagging
Sandbagging, hiding the strength, skill or difficulty of something or someone early in an engagement, may refer to: in billiards and other games, deliberately playing below one's actual ability in order to fool opponents into accepting higher stakes bets, or to lower one's competitive rating in...
.
Thrown games, when motivated by gambling, require contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfer can sometimes be found, and lead to prosecution, by law or by the sports league(s). In contrast, tanking is internal to the team and very hard to prove. Often, substitutions made by the coach designed to deliberately increase the team's chances of losing (frequently by having one or more key players sit out, often using minimal or phantom injuries as a public excuse for doing this), rather than ordering the players actually on the field to intentionally underperform, were cited as the main factor in cases where tanking has been alleged.
Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known as spot-fixing
Spot-fixing
Spot-fixing refers to illegal activity in a sport where a specific part of a game is fixed. Examples include something as minor as timing a no ball or wide delivery in cricket or timing the first throw-in or corner in association football. Spot-fixing attempts to defraud bookmakers illegally by...
, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which have negligible bearing on the final result of the game.
Motivations and causes
The major motivations behind match fixing are gambling and future team advantage.Agreements with gamblers
There may be financial gain through agreements with gamblersGambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
. The most infamous example of this in North America was the Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...
of 1919, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox
1919 Chicago White Sox season
The Chicago White Sox season was their 19th season in the American League. They won 88 games to advance to the World Series but lost to the Cincinnati Reds. More significantly, some of the players were found to have taken money from gamblers in return for throwing the series...
conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series
1919 World Series
The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series...
.
Getting a better draft pick
In leagues where an entry draft exists, teams near the bottom of the standings have sometimes been accused of throwing games at the end of the season to finish with the worst record in the league—thereby gaining the first draft pickDraft (sports)
A draft is a process used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Russia and the Philippines to allocate certain players to sports teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players...
. This form of match-fixing is known as "tanking" in Australia. To deter this behavior, leagues such as the Kontinental Hockey League
Kontinental Hockey League
The Kontinental Hockey League is an international professional ice hockey league in Eurasia founded in 2008. As of 2009, it is ranked as the strongest hockey league in Europe....
(KHL), National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
(NHL) and the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
(NBA) use a draft lottery
Draft lottery
Draft lottery could refer to:* NBA Draft Lottery, a lottery determining the order of the teams for the first fourteen selections in the NBA Draft* Sports draft...
, which does not guarantee the first pick to the team at the bottom of the standings. Other leagues such as the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
(NFL) do not make use of a lottery, which leads to suspicions of match fixing, especially since top draft picks can have top careers. In the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
, where poor performing teams can receive not only the top pick, but also additional high draft picks based on their final record, allegations of tanking are particularly common.
Better playoff chances
In the NBA (but not in the NHL, which re-seeds teams after each playoff round), there have also been allegations of teams tanking games in order to finish in sixth rather than fifth place in the conference standings, thus enabling the team in question to evade a possible playoff match with the conference's top seed until the final round of playoffs in that conference (for more details see single-elimination tournamentSingle-elimination tournament
A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event...
). For example, the 2006 Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers are a professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California, United States. They play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association...
allegedly tanked late season games so they could finish with the 6th seed and play the 8th-ranked team in the league's Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are a professional basketball team based in Denver, Colorado. They play in the National Basketball Association . They were founded as the Denver Rockets in 1967 as a charter franchise of the American Basketball Association, and became one of that league's more successful teams...
, who were the 3rd seed by way of winning their division. Another quirk in the league's playoff system gave the Clippers even more of an incentive to tank. The NBA is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues of the United States in which home advantage in the playoffs is based strictly on regular-season record without regard to seeding. If the Clippers had finished with the 5th seed in the West, they would have had to face the Dallas Mavericks
Dallas Mavericks
The Dallas Mavericks are a professional basketball team based in Dallas, Texas. They are members of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association , and the reigning NBA champions, having defeated the Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals.According to a 2011...
, who despite being the 4th seed had the second-best record in the conference, which would give the Mavericks home advantage. However, the Clippers would have home advantage in a series against the Nuggets by virtue of a better overall record. If tanking was indeed their strategy, it worked, as the Clippers easily won their first round series. Following the 2006 season, the NBA changed its playoff format so that the best second-place team in each conference would be able to obtain up to the #2 seed should it have the second-best conference record.
On occasion, an NFL team has also been accused of throwing its final regular-season game in an attempt to "choose" its possible opponent in the subsequent playoffs. For example, in the closing game of the 2004 season, the Indianapolis Colts
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
faced the Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
. With a win, the Broncos would advance to the playoffs as a wild card and face the Colts as their first round playoff opponent. It would seem the Colts had little incentive to win as their loss would ensure that they would play a team they dominated in the 2003 Wild Card game. Sure enough, the Colts rested their starters, lost the game, and went on to blow out the Broncos the following week in the playoffs.
Perhaps the most notable example of this was when the San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
, who had clinched a playoff berth, lost their regular-season finale in 1988 to the Los Angeles Rams
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
, thereby keeping the New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
(who had defeated the 49ers in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986, also injuring 49er quarterback Joe Montana
Joe Montana
Joseph Clifford "Joe" Montana, Jr. , nicknamed Joe Cool, Golden Joe, The Golden Great and Comeback Joe, is a retired American football player. Montana started his NFL career in 1979 with the San Francisco 49ers, where he played quarterback for the next 14 seasons...
in the latter year's game) from qualifying for the postseason; after the game, Giants quarterback Phil Simms
Phil Simms
Phillip Martin "Phil" Simms is a former American football quarterback, and currently a television sportscaster for the CBS network. After a standout career at Morehead State University, Simms was drafted in the first round by the New York Giants of the National Football League with the number...
angrily accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs."
A more recent example of possible tanking occurred in the ice hockey competition
Ice hockey at the 2006 Winter Olympics
-Leading scorers:-Leading goaltenders:Goalkeepers with 40% or more of their team's total minutes.-Awards:Antero Niittymäki was named the most valuable player and received the Directorate Award for best goaltender of the tournament. Directorate Awards also went to Teemu Selänne for best forward, and...
at the 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter...
. In Pool B, Sweden was to face Slovakia in the last pool match for both teams. Sweden coach Bengt-Åke Gustafsson
Bengt-Åke Gustafsson
Bengt-Åke Gustafsson is a retired Swedish ice hockey player. Gustafsson is a former head coach of the Sweden men's national ice hockey team, a post he held from February 2005 to May 2010. During his American career he was often called Bengt Gustafsson or Gus.Gustafsson spent nine seasons in the...
publicly contemplated tanking against Slovakia, knowing that if his team won, their quarterfinal opponent would either be Canada, the 2002
Ice hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Ice hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics were held at the E Center in West Valley City and Peaks Ice Arena in Provo, Utah. Both the men's and women's tournaments were won by Canada, defeating the host USA in both games.-Men:...
gold medalists, or the Czech Republic, 1998
Ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics
Ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics was played at The Big Hat and Aqua Wing Arena in Nagano, Japan.-Men's tournament:The 1998 Olympic men's ice hockey tournament was the first in which professional players from the National Hockey League were allowed to participate, allowing national teams to...
gold medalists. Gustafsson would tell Swedish television "One is cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, the other the plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
." Sweden lost the match 3–0; the most obvious sign of tanking was when Sweden had a five-on-three powerplay with five NHL
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
stars—Peter Forsberg
Peter Forsberg
Peter Mattias "Foppa" Forsberg is a retired Swedish professional ice hockey player and currently an assistant general manager of Modo Sports. Known for his on-ice vision and physical play, Forsberg is considered one of the most complete players of his generation...
, Mats Sundin
Mats Sundin
Mats Johan Sundin is a retired Swedish professional ice hockey player. Originally drafted first overall in 1989, Sundin played his first four seasons in the NHL with the Quebec Nordiques. He was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1994, where he played the majority of his career, serving 11...
, Daniel Alfredsson
Daniel Alfredsson
Daniel Alfredsson is a Swedish professional ice hockey player. He is the captain of the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League . He is considered a leader by example and has been compared to former Detroit Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman in his value to the Senators...
, Nicklas Lidström
Nicklas Lidström
Nicklas Erik Lidström is a Swedish professional ice hockey defenseman who has played his entire National Hockey League career with the Detroit Red Wings, and is their captain...
, and Fredrik Modin
Fredrik Modin
Fredrik "Freddy" Modin is a Swedish former professional ice hockey left winger, who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League and most notably won the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2003–04 season....
—on the ice, and failed to put a shot on goal. (Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
writer Michael Farber would say about this particular powerplay, "If the Swedes had passed the puck any more, their next opponent would have been the Washington Generals
Washington Generals
The Washington Generals are an American exhibition basketball team, best known for their spectacular losing streak in exhibition games against the Harlem Globetrotters.-History:...
.") If he was seeking to tank, Gustafsson got his wish; Sweden would face a much less formidable quarterfinal opponent in Switzerland. Canada would lose to Russia
Russian national ice hockey team
The Russian men's national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Russia and are controlled by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia. They are currently rated number one in the IIHF World Ranking; with 3980 points...
in a quarterfinal in the opposite bracket, while Sweden went on to win the gold medal, defeating the Czechs in the semifinals.
More favorable schedule next year
NFL teams have been accused of tanking games in order to obtain a more favorable schedule the following season; this was especially true between 1977 and 1993, when a team finishing last in a five-team division would get to play five of its eight non-division matches the next season against other last-place teams.Match fixing by referees
In addition to the match fixing that is committed by players, coaches and/or team officials, it is not unheard of to have results manipulated by corrupt refereeReferee
A referee is the person of authority, in a variety of sports, who is responsible for presiding over the game from a neutral point of view and making on the fly decisions that enforce the rules of the sport...
s. Since 2004, separate scandal
Scandal
A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed...
s have erupted in prominent sports leagues in Portugal, Germany (Bundesliga scandal), Brazil (Brazilian football match-fixing scandal
Brazilian football match-fixing scandal
Máfia do Apito , sometimes referred to as the Escândalo do Apito , was the name given by the Brazilian press to the football match-fixing scandal reported by Veja magazine on September 23, 2005....
) and the United States (see Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association for 13 seasons, from 1994 to 2007. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games...
), all of which concerned referees who fixed matches for gamblers. Many sports writers have speculated that in leagues with high player salaries, it is far more likely for a referee to become corrupt since their pay in such competitions is usually much less than that of the players.
Match fixing to a draw or a fixed score
Match fixing does not necessarily involve deliberately losing a match. Occasionally, teams have been accused of deliberately playing to a draw or a fixed score where this ensures some mutual benefit (e.g. both teams advancing to the next stage of a competition.) One of the earliest examples of this sort of match fixing in the modern era occurred in 1898 when Stoke City and BurnleyBurnley F.C.
Burnley Football Club are a professional English Football League club based in Burnley, Lancashire. Nicknamed the Clarets, due to the dominant colour of their home shirts, they were founder members of the Football League in 1888...
intentionally drew in that year's final "test match" so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation.
A more recent example occurred in the 1982 FIFA World Cup
1982 FIFA World Cup
The 1982 FIFA World Cup, the 12th FIFA World Cup, was held in Spain from 13 June to 11 July. The tournament was won by Italy, after defeating West Germany 3–1 in the final.-Host selection:...
, West Germany
Germany national football team
The Germany national football team is the football team that has represented Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association , which was founded in 1900....
played Austria
Austria national football team
The Austria national football team is the association football team that represents the country of Austria in international competition and is controlled by the Austrian Football Association ....
in the last match of group B
West Germany v Austria (1982)
-Aftermath:With West Germany's 1–0 victory, they joined Austria and Algeria with four points in three matches. The teams were separated by goal difference, with West Germany and Austria progressing to the next round of the tournament at the expense of Algeria....
. A West German victory by 1 or 2 goals would result in both teams advancing; any less and Germany was out; any more and Austria was out (and replaced by Algeria
Algeria national football team
The Algeria national football team , nicknamed الأفنــاك, Les Fennecs , represents Algeria in association football and is controlled by the Fédération Algérienne de Football. Algeria's home ground is the Stade 5 Juillet 1962 in Algiers and their head coach is Vahid Halilhodžić.Algeria has qualified...
, who had just beaten Chile). West Germany attacked hard and scored after 10 minutes. Afterwards, the players then proceeded to just kick the ball around aimlessly for the remainder of the match. Algerian supporters were so angered that they waved banknotes at the players, while a German fan burned his German flag in disgust. By the second half, the ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek refused any further comment on the game, while the Austrian television commentator Robert Seeger advised viewers to switch off their sets. As a result, FIFA
FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...
changed its tournament scheduling for subsequent World Cups
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
so that the final pair of matches in each group are played simultaneously.
Abuse of tie-breaking rules
On several occasions, "creative" use of tie-breaking rules have allegedly led teams to play less than their best.An example occurred in the 2004 European Football Championship. Because unlike FIFA
FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...
, UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
takes "head-to-head" play into consideration before overall goal difference
Goal difference
In sports such as ice hockey and association football, goal difference is often the first tiebreaker used to rank teams which finish a league competition with an equal number of points....
when ranking teams level on points, a situation arose in Group C where Sweden
Sweden national football team
The Swedish national football team represents Sweden in association football and is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body for Football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is Råsunda Stadium in Stockholms län and their head coach is Erik Hamrén. Sweden made their first...
and Denmark
Denmark national football team
The Denmark national football team represents Denmark in association football and is controlled by the Danish Football Association , the governing body for the football clubs which are organized under DBU...
played to a 2-2 draw, which was a sufficiently high scoreline to eliminate Italy
Italy national football team
The Italy National Football Team , represents Italy in association football and is controlled by the Italian Football Federation , the governing body for football in Italy. Italy is the second most successful national team in the history of the World Cup having won four titles , just one fewer than...
(which had lower-scoring draws with the Swedes and Danes) regardless of Italy's result with already-eliminated Bulgaria
Bulgaria national football team
The FIFA Bulgaria national football team is an association football team fielded by the Bulgarian Football Union, a member association of UEFA. The team's home ground is Vasil Levski in Sofia and Luboslav Penev is in charge manager after replacement of Lothar Matthäus...
. Although Italy beat Bulgaria by only one goal and would hypothetically have been eliminated using the FIFA tie-breaker too, some Italian fans bitterly contended that the FIFA tie-breaker would have motivated their team to play harder and deterred their Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n rivals from, in their view, at the very least half-heartedly playing out the match after the score became 2-2.
But the FIFA tie-breaker, or any goal-differential scheme, can cause problems, too. There have been incidents (especially in basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
) where players on a favored team have won the game but deliberately ensured the quoted point spread was not covered (see point shaving
Point shaving
In organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one...
). Conversely, there are cases where a team not only lost (which might be honest) but lost by some large amount, perhaps to ensure a point spread was covered, or to grant some non-gambling related favor to the victor. Perhaps the most famous alleged example was the match between Argentina and Peru in the 1978 FIFA World Cup
1978 FIFA World Cup
The 1978 FIFA World Cup, the 11th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in Argentina between 1 June and 25 June. The 1978 World Cup was won by Argentina who beat the Netherlands 3–1 after extra time in the final. This win was the first World Cup title for Argentina, who became the fifth...
. Argentina needed a four goal victory to advance over Brazil, an enormous margin at this level of competition, especially since Argentina had a weak offense (6 goals in 5 games) and Peru a stout defence (6 goals allowed in 5 games). Yet somehow, Argentina won 6-0. Much was made over the fact that the Peruvian goalkeeper was born in Argentina, and Peru was dependent on Argentinian grain shipments, but nothing was ever proven.
Although the Denmark-Sweden game above led to calls for UEFA to adopt FIFA's tiebreaking formula for future tournaments, it is not clear if this solves the problem - the Argentina-Peru game shows a possible abuse of the FIFA tie-breaker. Proponents of the UEFA tie-breaker argue that it reduces the value of blow-outs, whether these be the result of a much stronger team running up the score or an already-eliminated side allowing an unusually large number of goals. Perhaps the most infamous incident occurred in December 1983 when Spain
Spain national football team
The Spain national football team represents Spain in international association football and is controlled by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for football in Spain. The current head coach is Vicente del Bosque...
, needing to win by eleven goals to qualify for the Euro 1984 ahead of the Netherlands
Netherlands national football team
The Netherlands National Football Team represents the Netherlands in association football and is controlled by the Royal Dutch Football Association , the governing body for football in the Netherlands...
, defeated Malta
Malta national football team
The Malta national football team is the national football team of Malta and is controlled by the Malta Football Association. Malta played its first international game in February 1957, and began competing for qualification to major tournaments in 1962. The side's first competitive victory came in...
by a score of 12-1 on the strength of nine second half goals. Especially in international football
International football
International football generally refers to association football matches between representative national teams carried out under the regulation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association...
, such lopsided results are seen as unsavoury, even if they are honest. If anything, these incidents serves as evidence that the FIFA tie-breaker can cause incentives to perpetrate a fix in some circumstances, the UEFA tie-breaker in others.
Individual performance in team sports
Bookmakers in the early 21st century accept bets on a far wider range of sports-related propositions than ever before. Thus, a gambling-motivated fix might not necessarily involve any direct attempt to influence the outright result, especially in team sports where such a fix would require the co-operation (and prerequsitely, the knowledge) of many people, and/or perhaps would be more likely to arouse suspicion. Fixing the result of a more particular proposition might be seen as less likely to be noticed - for example, scandalized former National Basketball AssociationNational Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
referee Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association for 13 seasons, from 1994 to 2007. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games...
has been alleged to have perpetrated some of his fixes by calling games in such a manner as to ensure more points than expected were scored by both teams, thus affecting "over-under
Over-under
An over-under or over/under bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game , and bettors wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or lower than that number...
" bets on the games whilst also ensuring that Donaghy at least did not look to be outright bias
Bias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
ed. Also, bets are increasingly being taken on individual performances in team sporting events, which in turn has seen the rise of a phenomenon known as spot-fixing
Spot-fixing
Spot-fixing refers to illegal activity in a sport where a specific part of a game is fixed. Examples include something as minor as timing a no ball or wide delivery in cricket or timing the first throw-in or corner in association football. Spot-fixing attempts to defraud bookmakers illegally by...
, although it is currently unlikely that enough is bet on an average player to allow someone to place a substantial wager on them without being noticed.
One such attempt was described by retired footballer Matthew Le Tissier
Matthew Le Tissier
Matthew "Matt" Le Tissier is a retired English footballer who played for Southampton and England.An attacking midfielder with exceptional technical skills, Le Tissier is the second-highest ever scorer for Southampton behind Mick Channon and was voted PFA Young Player of the Year in 1990. He was...
, who in 2009 admitted that while he was playing with Southampton FC back in 1995 he tried (and failed) to kick the ball out of play right after the kick-off of a Premier League match against Wimbledon FC so that a group of associates would collect on a wager made on an early throw-in. Similarly, in 2010 Pakistani cricket players were accused of committing specific no ball
No ball
In the sport of cricket a no ball is a penalty against the fielding team, usually as a result of an illegal delivery by the bowler. The delivery of a no ball results in one run to be added to the batting team's score, and an additional ball must be bowled...
penalties for the benefit of gamblers.
Effect of non-gambling-motivated fixing on wagering
Whenever any serious motivation for teams to manipulate results becomes apparent to the general public, there can be a corresponding effect on betting markets as honest gamblers speculate in good faithGood faith
In philosophy, the concept of Good faith—Latin bona fides “good faith”, bona fide “in good faith”—denotes sincere, honest intention or belief, regardless of the outcome of an action; the opposed concepts are bad faith, mala fides and perfidy...
as to the chance such a fix might be attempted. Some bettors might choose to avoid wagering on such a fixture while others will be motivated to wager on it, or alter the bet they would otherwise place. Such actions will invariably affect odds
Odds
The odds in favor of an event or a proposition are expressed as the ratio of a pair of integers, which is the ratio of the probability that an event will happen to the probability that it will not happen...
and point spreads even if there is no contact whatsoever between teams and the relevant gambling interests. The rise of betting exchange
Betting exchange
A betting exchange is an entity which provides "trading" facilities for retail or bookmaker customers to buy and sell contracts. Contracts are structured as binary options. Some betting exchanges may also offer CFD products...
s has allowed such speculation to play out in real time. For example, the average payout on bets backing the 2004 2-2 result between Sweden and Denmark were much lower than would normally be expected, as heavy betting on that result depressed the odds despite the fact that both teams vehemently denied they would intentionally attempt to manipulate the result. There has never been any evidence produced to suggest that the betting patterns witnessed before that match was anything more than honest speculation from honest bettors.
History
Since gambling pre-dates recorded history it comes as little surprise that evidence of match fixing is found throughout recorded history. The Ancient Olympics were almost constantly dealing with allegations of athletes accepting bribesBribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
to lose a competition and city-states which often tried to manipulate the outcome with large amounts of money. These activities went on despite the oath
Oath
An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...
each athlete took to protect the integrity of the events and the severe punishment sometimes inflicted on those who were caught. Chariot racing
Chariot racing
Chariot racing was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine sports. Chariot racing was often dangerous to both driver and horse as they frequently suffered serious injury and even death, but generated strong spectator enthusiasm...
was also dogged by race fixing throughout its history.
By the end of the 19th century gambling was illegal in most jurisdictions, but that did not stop its widespread practice. Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
soon became rife with fighters "taking a dive" - probably because boxing is an individual sport which makes its matches much easier to fix without getting caught. Baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
threw the World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
(see Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...
). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
established the office of the Baseball Commissioner
Baseball Commissioner
The Commissioner of Baseball is the chief executive of Major League Baseball and its associated minor leagues. Under the direction of the Commissioner, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts...
, and one of Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death...
's first acts was to ban all involved players for life. Strict rules prohibiting gambling persist to this day (See Pete Rose
Pete Rose
Peter Edward Rose , nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, and managed from 1984 to 1989....
).
Japan
is a JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
word meaning a cheating activity which is committed at places where a match, fight, game, competition, or other contest, is held, where the winner and loser are decided in advance by agreement of the competitors or related people. It is believed that the word "Yaocho" came from the name ("Chobei") of the owner of a vegetable stand (yaoya) during the Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
. Created from the first syllable of "Yaoya" and "chobei", the word "yaocho" was created for a nickname of Chobei. Chobei had a friend called "Isenoumi Godayu" (7th Isenoumi
Isenoumi stable
is a stable of sumo wrestlers. Part of the Tokitsukaze group of stables, it is one of the oldest active stables in sumo, dating back to the mid-eighteenth century. The legendary Tanikaze, one of the first Yokozuna, and his protégé Raiden, arguably the greatest rikishi ever, were both members of...
stablemaster) with whom he played the game Igo
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
, who had once been a Sumo
Sumo
is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestler "Kashiwado Sogoro" (former shikona
Shikona
A shikona is a sumo wrestler's ring name.As with standard Japanese names, a shikona consists of a 'surname' and a 'given' name, and the full name is written surname first. However, the given name is rarely used outside formal or ceremonial occasions. Thus, the former yokozuna Asashōryū Akinori is...
: "Kyonosato") and now was a "Toshiyori
Toshiyori
A toshiyori is a sumo elder of the Japan Sumo Association. Also known as oyakata, former wrestlers who reached a sufficiently high rank are the only people eligible...
" (a stablemaster of Sumo). Although Chobei was a better Igo player than Isenoumi, he sometimes lost games on purpose to please Isenoumi, so that Isenoumi would continue to buy merchandise from his shop. Afterward, once people knew of his cheating, they started to use "Yaocho" as a word meaning any decision to win/lose a match in advance by negotiation etc. with the expectation of secondary profit, even though the match seems to be held seriously and fairly.
Economists, using statistical analysis, have shown very strong evidence of bout fixing in Sumo
Sumo
is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestling. (See also 2011 in sumo
2011 in sumo
-Tournaments:*Hatsu basho, Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo, 9 January – 23 January*Haru basho, Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, 13 March – 27 March *Natsu basho, Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo, 8 May – 22 May...
) Most of the motive for match fixing is helping each other's ranking to keep their salary higher, according to Keisuke Itai
Keisuke Itai
is a former sumo wrestler from Usuki, Oita, Japan. His highest rank was komusubi. After his retirement he caused controversy by claiming that the outcomes of many of his matches were fixed.-Career:...
. For example, wrestlers in Juryo desperately try to avoid makekoshi and exchange or buy the match result otherwise their salary would be nothing, literally 0 yen, with the participation wage of 150,000 yen every two month if they get makekoshi and their ranking would go down to Makushita, the lesser ranking from Juryo in which you can earn 1,036,000 yen monthly with some prizes.
It should, of course, be noted that the sumo association appears to make a distinction between yaocho (the payment of money to secure a result) and koi-ni-yatta mukiryoku zumo (the deliberate performance of underpowered sumo, whereby an opponent simply lays a match down without exchange of money). The intricacies of Japanese culture, which include subordination of individual gain to the greater good, and knowing how to read a situation without the exchange of words (i.e. I know my opponent's score, he needs help and I should automatically give it to him), mean that the latter is almost readily accepted in the sumo world, and is also nigh-impossible to prove.
Match fixing and gambling today
Influenced by baseball's experiences, the NFL and NBA have followed MLB's lead and adopted a hard line against gambling on its games, especially by those directly involved in the league. The NCAANational Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
takes an even harder line:
- It prohibits athletes, coaches, and athletics administrators at member schools, plus staff of member conferences, from gambling on any sport in which the NCAA holds a championship or any sport classified by the NCAA as an "emerging sport" for women. The prohibition includes professional competition in all of the aforementioned sports, and also specifically includes Division I FBS football, in which the NCAA does not sponsor an official championship.
- It also prohibits venues in championship play from carrying advertising for any form of gambling, including state lotteries.
Each of these organizations was, and may still be influenced by fears that their games could come under the influence of gamblers in the absence of these tough measures. Critics of such hard line measures note that in spite of such policies, such influence nonetheless does occur.
In Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
the authorities in both government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
and sport have taken a softer line on gambling. Following decades of relatively lax, intermittent and ineffective enforcement of laws prohibiting gambling, sports betting was finally legalized and regulated in the 1960s. Organizations such as The Football Association
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
seem to have taken the stance that gambling on their events is inevitable. The FA only prohibits betting on a match by those directly involved in the game in question. Footballers (or coaches, managers, etc.) are not prohibited from betting on matches that do not involve their own team.
Match fixing in football (soccer) remains a major concern. In Turkey more than 30 players and staff have been convicted of game fixing. In South Korea, more than 50 professional soccer players have been indicted and ten players have received lifetime bans. In Finland, two Zambian players were convicted and more than a dozen people are under investigation. Other investigations are continuing in China, El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
The integrity of horse racing remains an ongoing concern since gambling is an integral part of this sport. Recent allegations of race fixing have centered around the recently-formed betting exchanges which unlike traditional bookmaker
Bookmaker
A bookmaker, or bookie, is an organization or a person that takes bets on sporting and other events at agreed upon odds.- Range of events :...
s allow punters to lay an outcome (that is, to bet against a particular runner). Leading exchange Betfair
Betfair
Betfair is the world's largest Internet betting exchange. The company is based in Hammersmith in West London, England. Since Betfair was launched in June 2000 it has become the largest online betting company in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Betfair claim to have over 3...
has responded to the allegations by signing Memorandums of Understanding with the Jockey Club
Jockey Club
The Jockey Club is the largest commercial organisation in British horseracing. Although no longer responsible for the governance and regulation of the sport, it owns 14 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham and Newmarket, amongst other concerns such as the National Stud and...
, The FA, the International Cricket Council
International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...
, the Association of Tennis Professionals
Association of Tennis Professionals
The Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP was formed in 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to protect the interests of male professional tennis players. Since 1990, the association has organized the worldwide tennis tour for men and linked the title of the tour with the...
and other sporting authorities. These memoranda of understanding are evidence of the vast difference between British and American attitudes — as of 2008 it would be almost unthinkable for an American sports league to sign such an agreement with a bookmaker or betting exchange.
It should be noted that while British football has never been rocked by match fixing allegations on the scale of the Black Sox scandal
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...
(the aforementioned incidents involved league matches, not major championships), football match-fixing has become a serious problem in parts of Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
.
Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
has been scandalized by several gambling and match fixing allegations in recent years, particularly the case of Hansie Cronje
Hansie Cronje
Wessel Johannes "Hansie" Cronje was a South African cricketer and captain of the South African national cricket team in the 1990s...
in the late 1990s, culminating in the World Cup
2007 Cricket World Cup
The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007, using the sport's One Day International format...
investigations of 2007. These highly publicised enquiries were prompted by the surprise defeat of Pakistan in the Cup by Ireland and the subsequent murder investigation into the sudden death, straight after the match, of Pakistan's head coach Bob Woolmer
Bob Woolmer
Robert Andrew Woolmer was an international cricketer, professional cricket coach and also a professional commentator...
. According to the head of the ICC's anti-corruption unit Paul Condon, cricket is the most bet on sport in the world, and fixing is found at every level of the sport and is a significant problem. The 2008 novel Raffles and the Match-Fixing Syndicate, by Adam Corres, places E.W.Hornung's A.J.Raffles, 'the gentleman thief' into the world of cricket match-fixing. This black humour comedy includes speculation on the infamous Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer incidents and features serious aspects of cricket gamesmanship or 'how to defeat a superior opponent without actually cheating', a vital skill in the cricketing psychology of 'thinking the batsman out'.
The high salaries of some of today's professional athletes likely serves to insulate their leagues from player-instigated match fixing. In the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
and in leagues where the salaries are comparatively less (or, in the case of the amateur NCAA, zero), match fixing by players remains a serious concern.
Match fixing incidents
- In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White SoxChicago White SoxThe Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
to throw the World SeriesWorld SeriesThe World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
. This became known as the Black Sox ScandalBlack Sox ScandalThe Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...
and was recounted in book and movie form as Eight Men OutEight Men OutEight Men Out is an American dramatic sports film, released in 1988 and based on Eliot Asinof 1963 book 8 Men Out. It was written and directed by John Sayles....
. - In 1951, District Attorney Frank HoganFrank HoganFrank Smithwick Hogan was an American lawyer and politician from New York. Dubbed "Mr. Integrity" due to his perceived honesty and incorruptibility, he was D.A. of New York County for more than 30 years.-Life and career:...
indicted college basketball players for point shavingPoint shavingIn organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one...
from four New York schools, including CCNY, Manhattan CollegeManhattan CollegeManhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in New York City, United States. Despite the college's name, it is no longer located in Manhattan but in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, roughly 10 miles north of Midtown. Manhattan College offers...
, New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and Long Island UniversityLong Island UniversityLong Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education in the U.S. state of New York.-History:...
. - In 1964, the great British football betting scandalBritish betting scandal of 1964The British betting scandal of 1964 was a scandal in English association football in which eight professional players were jailed for offences arising from match fixing....
of the 1960s was uncovered. A betting ring organized by Jimmy GauldJimmy GauldJames "Jimmy" Gauld is a former Scottish footballer who became notorious for being convicted of instigating the British betting scandal of 1964....
and involving several Football League players had been fixing matches. The most famous incident involved three Sheffield WednesdaySheffield Wednesday F.C.Sheffield Wednesday Football Club are a football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, who are currently competing in the Football League One in the 2011-12 season, in England. Sheffield Wednesday are one of the oldest professional clubs in the world and the fourth oldest in the...
players, including two England international players, that were subsequently banned from football for life and imprisoned after it was discovered they had bet against their team winning in a match against Ipswich TownIpswich Town F.C.Ipswich Town Football Club are an English professional football team based in Ipswich, Suffolk. As of 2011, they play in the Football League Championship, having last appeared in the Premier League in 2001–02....
. A similar scandal1915 British football betting scandalThe 1915 British football betting scandal occurred when a Football League First Division match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford on 2 April 1915 was fixed in United's favour, with players from both sides benefiting from bets placed upon the result.At the time, Manchester...
had occurred in 1915. - In 1978, mobsters connected with the New York Lucchese crime familyLucchese crime familyThe Lucchese crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano "Tommy" Reina serving as boss up until his murder...
, among them Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke, organized a point shaving scheme with key members of the Boston CollegeBoston CollegeBoston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
basketball teamBoston College Eagles men's basketballThe Boston College Eagles are a Division I college basketball program that represents Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA. The team has competed in the ACC since 2005, having previously played in the Big East. Home games have been played at the Conte Forum since 1988, having previously been played...
. - On August 24, 1989, former baseball player Pete RosePete RosePeter Edward Rose , nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, and managed from 1984 to 1989....
voluntarily accepted a permanent ban from Major League BaseballMajor League BaseballMajor League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
for allegedly betting on Cincinnati RedsCincinnati RedsThe Cincinnati Reds are a Major League Baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the National League Central Division. The club was established in 1882 as a charter member of the American Association and joined the National League in 1890....
games while managing the team. Rose would later confirm the truth of the allegations in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without BarsMy Prison Without BarsMy Prison Without Bars is Pete Rose's autobiography, published by Rodale Press on January 8, 2004.In the book, Rose finally admitted publicly to betting on baseball games and other sports while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds...
. However, no evidence of actual match-fixing was shown. - In 1994, a comprehensive point shavingPoint shavingIn organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one...
scheme organized by campus bookmaker Benny SilmanBenny SilmanBenjamin Silman of New York is a former student turned campus bookmaker who was jailed for masterminding a point shaving scandal at Arizona State University....
and involving players from the Arizona State UniversityArizona State UniversityArizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
men's basketball team was uncovered with the assistance of Las VegasLas Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
bookmakers, who grew suspicious over repeated large wagers being made against Arizona State. - In February 1999 a Malaysian-based betting syndicate was caught attempting to install a remote-control device to sabotage the floodlights at FA Premier LeagueFA Premier LeagueThe Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...
team Charlton AthleticCharlton Athletic F.C.Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, in the London Borough of Greenwich. They compete in Football League One, the third tier of English football. The club was founded on 9 June 1905, when a number of youth clubs in the southeast London area,...
's ground with the aid of a corrupt security officer. If the match had been abandoned after half-time, then the result and bets would have stood. Subsequent investigations showed that the gang had been responsible for previously unsuspected "floodlight failures" at West Ham'sWest Ham United F.C.West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Upton Park, Newham, East London. They play in The Football League Championship. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks FC and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. In 1904 the club relocated to their current...
groundBoleyn GroundThe Boleyn Ground, more commonly referred to as Upton Park due to its location in Upton Park, London is the football stadium of West Ham United.-History:...
in November 1997, and again a month later at Crystal Palace'sCrystal Palace F.C.Crystal Palace Football Club are an English Football league club based in South Norwood, London. The team plays its home matches at Selhurst Park, where they have been based since 1924. The club currently competes in the second tier of English Football, The Championship.Crystal Palace was formed in...
groundSelhurst ParkSelhurst Park is an English football stadium located in the London suburb of South Norwood in the Borough of Croydon. It is the current home ground of Crystal Palace Football Club. Its present capacity is 26,309.-History:...
during a home match of Palace's groundsharing tenant WimbledonWimbledon F.C.Wimbledon Football Club was an English professional association football club from Wimbledon, south-west London. Founded in 1889 as Wimbledon Old Central Football Club, the club spent most of its history in amateur and semi-professional non-League football before being elected to the Football...
. - In 2000 the DelhiDelhiDelhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South AfricaSouth African cricket teamThe South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
n cricketCricketCricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
captain Hansie CronjeHansie CronjeWessel Johannes "Hansie" Cronje was a South African cricketer and captain of the South African national cricket team in the 1990s...
in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. The South African government refused to allow any of its players to face the Indian investigation unit, which opened up a can of worms. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Saleem MalikSaleem MalikSaleem Malik is a former Pakistani cricketer who played between 1981/82 and 1999, at one stage captaining the Pakistani cricket team. He was a right-handed wristy middle order batsman who was strong square of the wicket. His legbreak bowling was also quite effective...
(PakistanPakistani cricket teamThe Pakistan cricket team is the national cricket team of Pakistan. Pakistan, represented by the Pakistan Cricket Board , is a full member of the International Cricket Council, and thus participates in , and cricket matches....
), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay JadejaAjay JadejaAjaysinhji Daulatsinhji Jadeja was born on 1 February 1971 in royal rajput family of Jamnagar, Gujarat. He was a regular in the Indian cricket team between 1992 and 2000, playing in 15 Test matches and 196 One Day Internationals. His cricketing achievements were overshadowed by a 5 year ban for...
(IndiaIndian cricket teamThe Indian cricket team is the national cricket team of India. Governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , it is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status....
). Jadeja was banned for 4 years. They too were banned from all cricket. As a kingpin, Cronje exposed the dark side of betting, however with his untimely death in 2002 most of his sources also have escaped law enforcement agencies. Two South African cricketers, Herschelle GibbsHerschelle GibbsHerschelle Herman Gibbs is a South African cricketer, more specifically a batsman.Gibbs was schooled at St Joseph's Marist College and then Diocesan College in Rondebosch...
and Nicky BojeNicky BojeNico "Nicky" Boje is a South African cricketer who played in 43 Tests and 115 One Day Internationals for South Africa, and attended Grey College in Bloemfontein...
, are also wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the match fixing saga. A few years before in 1998, AustraliaAustralian cricket teamThe Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
n players Mark WaughMark WaughMark Edward Waugh AM is a former Australian cricketer, who represented Australia in Test matches from early 1991 to late 2002, and made his One-Day International debut in 1988. Waugh is regarded as one of the most elegant and gifted stroke makers to ever play the game. His nickname is "Junior" as...
and Shane WarneShane WarneShane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...
were fined for revealing information about the 'weather' to a bookmaker. - The Italian Football Federation said in October 2000 it had found eight players guilty of match-fixing. Three were from Serie A side Atalanta and the other five played for Serie B side Pistoiese. The players were Giacomo BanchelliGiacomo BanchelliGiacomo Banchelli is an Italian football player who last played for A.C. Pistoiese.-External links:*...
, Cristiano DoniCristiano DoniCristiano Doni is an Italian professional footballer who plays for Atalanta B.C. as an attacking midfielder.Most of his senior career was associated with Atalanta, as he appeared in more than 300 official games for the club, netting more than 100 goals.Doni represented Italy at the 2002 World...
and Sebastiano SivigliaSebastiano SivigliaSebastiano Siviglia is a former Italian footballer. Siviglia has played over 250 matches at Serie A.-Early career:Born in Palizzi, the Province of Reggio Calabria, Siviglia started his senior career at Audax Ravagnese, a Serie D club located in Ravagnese, Reggio Calabria, southern Italy...
(all Atalanta) and Alfredo AgliettiAlfredo AgliettiAlfredo Aglietti, born September 16, 1970 in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, is a retired Italian footballer and the former manager of Empoli.- Player :...
, Massimiliano Allegri, Daniele AmeriniDaniele AmeriniDaniele Amerini is a former Italian footballer who played midfield.In October 1998, Amerini originally exchanged to Reggiana as part of Stefano Guidoni and Antonio Marasco deal, but the deal later collapsed after the contract failed to submit to Lega Calcio, as lack of Amerini's signature.After...
, Gianluca Lillo and Girolamo Bizzarri (all Pistoiese). The charges related to an Italian Cup first round tie between the two sides in BergamoBergamoBergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
on August 20, 2000 which ended 1-1. Atalanta scored at the end of the first half and Pistoiese equalised three minutes from full time. Atalanta qualified for the second round. Snai, which organises betting on Italian football, said later it had registered suspiciously heavy betting on the result and many of the bets were for a 1-0 halftime score and a fulltime score of 1-1. - In June 20042004 in sports2004 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-American football:* College football Bowl Championship Series :**January 1 – Rose Bowl – USC 28, Michigan 14...
in South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, thirty-three people (including nineteen referees, club officials, a match commissioner and an official of the South African Football AssociationSouth African Football AssociationThe South African Football Association or SAFA is the governing body of football in South Africa.-History:The South African Football Association was founded on 8 December, 1991, the culmination of a long unity process that was to rid the sport in South Africa of all its past racial division.Four...
) were arrested on match-fixing charges. - In the summer of 2004, BetfairBetfairBetfair is the world's largest Internet betting exchange. The company is based in Hammersmith in West London, England. Since Betfair was launched in June 2000 it has become the largest online betting company in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Betfair claim to have over 3...
provided evidence of race fixing to City of London PoliceCity of London PoliceThe City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temple. The service responsible for law enforcement within the rest of Greater London is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate...
that led to the arrest of jockeyJockeyA jockey is an athlete who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing.-Etymology:...
Kieren FallonKieren FallonKieren Francis Fallon is a professional flat racing jockey and has been British Champion Jockey six times....
and fifteen others on race fixing charges. On 7 December 2007 the judge in the case ordered the jury to find Fallon not guilty on all charges. - In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo TbilisiFC Dinamo TbilisiFC Dinamo Tbilisi is a Georgian football team, based in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.Dinamo Tbilisi was one of the most prominent clubs in Soviet football and a major contender in the Soviet Top League almost immediately after it was established in 1936...
in the 2004-05 UEFA CupUEFA CupThe UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...
was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected an unusually high number of half-time bets for a 5-2 win for the GreekSuper League GreeceThe Superleague Greece is the highest professional football league in Greece. It was formed on July 16, 2006 and replaced Alpha Ethniki at the top of the Greek football league system. The league consists of 16 teams and runs from August to May, with teams playing 30 games each...
side, which was trailing 0-1. As the final result ended up being 5-2, suspicions of fixing quickly emerged, but were quickly denied by both clubs, although UEFAUEFAThe Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
started an investigation. - 2005 Bundesliga scandal: In January 20052005 in sports2005 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup** Men's overall season champion: Bode Miller ** Women's overall season champion: Anja Pärson -American football:...
, the German Football AssociationGerman Football AssociationThe German Football Association is the governing body of football in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB organises the German football leagues, including the national league, the Bundesliga, and the men's and women's national teams. The DFB is based in Frankfurt and is...
(DFB) and GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
prosecutors launched separate probes into charges that referee Robert HoyzerRobert HoyzerRobert Hoyzer is a retired German football referee, who scandalized German football by fixing matches in the Bundesliga scandal of 2005.-Early life:...
bet on and fixed several matches that he worked, including a German Cup tie. Hoyzer later admitted to the allegations; it has been reported that he was involved with CroatCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
gambling syndicates. He also implicated other referees and players in the match fixing scheme. The first arrests in the Hoyzer investigation were made on January 28 in BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after new evidence apparently emerged to suggest that he had been involved in fixing more matches than he had admitted to. Hoyzer has been banned for life from football by the DFB. On March 10, a second referee, Dominik Marks, was arrested after being implicated in the scheme by Hoyzer. Still later (March 24), it was reported that Hoyzer had told investigators that the gambling ring he was involved with had access to UEFAUEFAThe Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
's referee assignments for international matches and Champions LeagueUEFA Champions LeagueThe UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
and UEFA CupUEFA CupThe UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...
fixtures several days before UEFA publicly announced them. Ultimately, Hoyzer was sentenced to serve 2 years and 5 months in prison. - In July 2005, ItalianItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Serie BSerie BSerie B, currently named Serie bwin due to sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It is contested by 22 teams and organized by the Lega Serie B since July 2010, after the split of Lega Calcio that previously took care of both the...
champions GenoaGenoa C.F.C.Genoa Cricket and Football Club, commonly referred to simply as Genoa , is a professional Italian football club based in the city of Genoa, Liguria...
was arbitrarily placed last in the division, and therefore condemned to relegation in Serie C1, after it was revealed that they bribed their opponents in the final match of the season, Venezia to throw the match. Genoa won the match 3-2 and had apparently secured promotion to Serie ASerie ASerie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...
. - Brazilian football match-fixing scandalBrazilian football match-fixing scandalMáfia do Apito , sometimes referred to as the Escândalo do Apito , was the name given by the Brazilian press to the football match-fixing scandal reported by Veja magazine on September 23, 2005....
: In September 2005, a BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian magazine revealed that two football referees, Edílson Pereira de CarvalhoEdílson Pereira de CarvalhoEdílson Pereira de Carvalho Edílson Pereira de Carvalho Edílson Pereira de Carvalho (born August 4, 1962 in Brazil is a former international football referee. As a religious man, before each match, he always followed the same ritual: he raises his two football cards (yellow and red), which are...
(a member of FIFAFIFAThe Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...
's referee staff) and Paulo José Danelon, had accepted bribes to fix matches. Soon afterwards, sport authorities ordered the replaying of 11 matches in the country's top competition, the Campeonato BrasileiroCampeonato Brasileiro Série AThe Campeonato Brasileiro de Clubes da Série A , popularly known as the Brasileirão , is a professional football league at the top of the Brazilian football league system held annually since 1959. Contested by twenty clubs, it operates a system of promotion and relegation with the Série B...
, that had been worked by Edílson. Both referees have been banned for life from football and face possible criminal charges. Brazilian supporters have taken to shout "Edílson" at a referee who they consider to have made a bad call against their team, in a reference to the scandal. - 2006 Serie A scandal ("Calciopoli"): In May 2006, perhaps the largest match fixing scandal in the history of Italian Serie A football was uncovered by Italian Police, implicating league champions JuventusJuventus F.C.Juventus Football Club S.p.A. , commonly referred to as Juventus and colloquially as Juve , are a professional Italian association football club based in Turin, Piedmont...
, and powerhouses AC MilanA.C. MilanAssociazione Calcio Milan, commonly referred to as A.C. Milan or simply Milan , is a professional Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy, that plays in the Serie A. Milan was founded in 1899 by English lace-maker Herbert Kilpin and businessman Alfred Edwards among others...
, FiorentinaACF FiorentinaACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as simply Fiorentina, is a professional Italian football club from Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in 1926, Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence; only four clubs have played in more Serie A...
, and LazioS.S. LazioSocietà Sportiva Lazio, commonly referred to as Lazio, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. The team, founded in 1900, play in the Serie A and have spent most of their history in the top tier of Italian football...
. Teams were suspected of rigging games by selecting favorable referees, and even superstar Italian World Cup team goalkeeper Gianluigi BuffonGianluigi BuffonGianluigi "Gigi" Buffon, Ufficiale OMRI , is an Italian footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Serie A club Juventus and the Italian national team. He has won the FIFA World Cup and is widely considered by fans and experts to be one of most dominant and successful goalkeepers in history...
was charged with betting on football games. http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5601606 Initially, Juventus were stripped of their titles in 2004-05 and 2005–06, all four clubs were barred from EuropeanUEFAThe Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
club competition in 2006-07, and all except Milan were forcibly relegated to Serie BSerie BSerie B, currently named Serie bwin due to sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It is contested by 22 teams and organized by the Lega Serie B since July 2010, after the split of Lega Calcio that previously took care of both the...
. After all four clubs appealed, only Juventus remained relegated due while Milan were allowed to enter the third qualifying round of the Champions LeagueUEFA Champions League 2006-07The 2006–07 UEFA Champions League was the 15th season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League, since it was rebranded from the European Cup, and the 52nd season overall. The final was contested by Milan and Liverpool on 23 May 2007...
(they went on to win the tournament.) The stripping of Juventus' titles stood.` - 2007 NBA Referee Scandal: In July 2007 it was revealed that National Basketball AssociationNational Basketball AssociationThe National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
referee Tim DonaghyTim DonaghyTim Donaghy is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association for 13 seasons, from 1994 to 2007. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games...
had gambled on 10 to 15 games, including games which he refereed. The matter is currently being investigated by the Federal Bureau of InvestigationFederal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
as well as the NBA. - 2008 The Fix: Book by Declan HillDeclan HillDeclan Hill is a journalist, academic and consultant. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on match-fixing and corruption in international sports. In 2008, Hill, as a Chevening Scholar, obtained his doctorate in Sociology at the University of Oxford. His book ‘The Fix: Organized Crime and...
alleges that in the 2006 World Cup2006 FIFA World CupThe 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...
, the group game between Ghana and Italy, the round-of-16 game between Ghana and Brazil, and the Italy-Ukraine quarter-final were all fixed by Asian gambling syndicates to whom the final scores were known in advance. The German Football Federation (DFB) and German Football League (DFL) looked into claims made in a Der SpiegelDer SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
interview with Hill that two Bundesliga matches were fixed by William Bee Wah Lim a fugitive with a 2004 conviction for match-fixing. - 2008: On October 1, it was reported that a SpanishSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
judge who headed an investigation against Russian MafiaRussian MafiaThe Russian Mafia is a name applied to organized crime syndicates in Russia and Ukraine. The mafia in various countries take the name of the country, as for example the Ukrainian mafia....
figures uncovered information alleging that the mobsters may have attempted to fix the 2007–08 UEFA Cup semi-final between eventual champion2008 UEFA Cup FinalThe 2008 UEFA Cup Final was the 37th final of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's second tier club football tournament. The match was played at the City of Manchester Stadium, home ground of Manchester City F.C., in Manchester, England, at 20:45 CEST on 14 May 2008.The match was contested by Zenit St. Petersburg...
Zenit St. Petersburg and Bayern MunichFC Bayern MunichFC Bayern Munich , is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional football team, which is the most successful football club in Germany, having won 22 national titles and 15 cups....
. Both clubs denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme. Prosecutors in the German state of BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, home to Bayern, later announced that they did not have enough evidence to justify a full investigation. - 2008: On October 4, suspicious online betting on the game between Norwich CityNorwich City F.C.Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
and Derby CountyDerby County F.C.Derby County Football Club is an English football based in Derby. the club play in the Football League Championship and is notable as being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888 and is, therefore, one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English...
led some to question the validity of the Football League match. Gamblers in Asia were said to have placed a large amount of money down during halftime, which raised concerns over the outcome. The inquiry by The Football AssociationThe Football AssociationThe Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
found no evidence that would suggest the match was fixed. Derby County ended up winning the match 2-1. - 2009: On May 6, a federal grand jury in Detroit indicted six former University of ToledoUniversity of ToledoThe University of Toledo is a public university in Toledo, Ohio, United States. The Carnegie Foundation classified the university as "Doctoral/Research Extensive."-National recognition:...
athletes—three each from the school's football and basketball programs—on charges of conspiracy to commit sports bribery in relation to their alleged involvement in a point shaving scheme that ran from 2003 through 2006. It is believed to be the first major U.S. gambling case involving two sports at the same college. Since then, four former Toledo athletes, including at least one not named in the original indictments, have pleaded guilty on charges related to the scheme. One of these, former Rockets running back Quinton Broussard, admitted he had deliberately fumbled during the 2005 GMAC Bowl2005 GMAC BowlThe 2005 GMAC Bowl was an American college football bowl game. It was part of the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season, and was the 8th edition. It was played in December 2005, and featured the , and the ....
against UTEPUTEP Miners footballThe UTEP Miners football program is a college football team that represents the University of Texas at El Paso . With a history dating back to 1914, UTEP currently competes in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of Conference USA . UTEP currently plays their home games at the Sun Bowl...
(a game ultimately won 45–13 by Toledo) in exchange for $500, and had been paid to provide confidential team information to one of the orchestrators of the scheme. - In November 2009, German police arrested 17 people on suspicion of fixing at least 200 soccer matches in 9 countries2009 European football betting scandalThe 2009 European football betting scandal was an attempt to influence the outcome of professional association football matches in Europe, and to defraud the gambling industry by betting on the results...
. Among the suspected games were those from the top leagues of Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Turkey, and games from the second highest leagues of Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. Three contests from the Champions League were under investigation, and 12 from the Europa League. - In 2010, several professional Starcraft players were suspected of being involved in illegal match fixing, with two people arrested and about seven gamers investigated, with two renowned gamers, Ma Jae-YoonMa Jae-YoonMa Jae-Yoon , known by the pseudonym sAviOr , and dubbed The Maestro, is a former professional South Korean e-sports gamer of the real-time strategy game StarCraft...
and By.CrocuS were confirmed as working as a broker between the betters and the gamers. - The fourth TestTest cricketTest cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
of Pakistan's summer 2010 cricket tourPakistani cricket team in England in 2010The Pakistan cricket team toured England from 29 July to 22 September 2010. The tour consisted of four Tests, two Twenty20s and five One Day Internationals .-1st Test:-2nd Test:-3rd Test:-4th Test:...
of England was alleged to have contained several incidents of spot fixing, involving members of the Pakistan team deliberately bowling no-balls at specific points in order to facilitate the potential defrauding of bookmakers. - In April 2011, a U.S. federal grand jury in San Diego indicted a group of 10 individuals on charges of running a point shaving scheme affecting an as yet-undetermined number of college basketball games. Three of the accused have ties to the University of San DiegoUniversity of San DiegoThe University of San Diego is a Roman Catholic university in San Diego, California. USD offers more than sixty bachelor's, master’s, and doctoral programs...
's men's basketball teamSan Diego Toreros men's basketballThe San Diego Toreros basketball team is the basketball team that represent the University of San Diego in San Diego, California. The school's team currently competes in the West Coast Conference. The team played in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 2008.-NCAA tournament...
—one was the team's all-time leader in points and assists; another was a former player; and the third was a former assistant. Games at the University of California, RiversideUniversity of California, RiversideThe University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
, where the second indicted player also played, were also mentioned as potentially being fixed. - In June 2011, trials started for people allegedly involved in fixing FinnishFinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
football matches. One team, Tampere UnitedTampere UnitedTampere United is a Finnish football club, which played in the Veikkausliiga, the premier football league in Finland, until the 2010 season, but is currently excluded from participating in Finnish football. The club comes from the city of Tampere. The current head coach of the club is Jarkko Wiss,...
was indefinitely suspended from Finnish football for accepting payments from a person known for match-fixing. - In July 2011, As part of a major match-fixing investigation by authorities in Turkey, nearly 60 people suspected to be involved with fixing games were detained by İstanbul Police Department Organized Crime Control Bureau and then arrested by the court.The case did not come to a conclusion yet and the teams that are being accused of match-fixing are participating in the Turkish league currently.
See also
- Bookmaking
- Match fixing in cricketBetting controversies in cricketCricket has had a number of controversies relating to players being involved with the betting aspects of the game. In particular, numerous players have been approached by bookmakers and bribed to, throw matches, aspects of matches Cricket has had a number of controversies relating to players being...
- Sports bettingSports bettingSports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.-United States of America:Aside from simple wagers such as betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl, sports betting is...
- 2011 Turkish sports corruption scandal2011 Turkish sports corruption scandalThe 2011 Turkish Sports corruption scandal is an ongoing investigation about match fixing, incentive premium, bribery, establishing a criminal organization, organized crime, extortion, threat and intimidation in Turkey's top two association football divisions, the Süper Lig and First League, and...