Triesman's Claims Were Unfounded
Amidst the battle for the right to host the 2018 World Cup, England’s bid was dealt a severe blow as British paper, The Mail On Sunday decided to run a story which stated that Lord Triesman (who at the time was the head of the English F.A and the England World Cup bid) suggested that Spain and Russia had an agreement, in which Russia’s bid would be supported by Spain if Russia helped bribe referees in Spain’s favour at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. FIFA investigated this claim and found no evidence of any wrong doing by either the Spanish F.A or the Russian F.A. Triesman’s comments appear to be somewhat unfounded, and you have to believe that if he truly believed that this corruption was occurring he would have spoke out about it sooner or at least informed FIFA in a silent matter. But the question in the title of this blog stems from a conversation I had with one of my housemates a few months ago, and we both believed that there was a fair amount of bribery and dodgy dealings in not only football but sport in general. Another one of my housemates joined the conversation about half way through and laughed off such an idea; but the fact is that you don’t know that these things are happening until the people involved are caught.
In 2002, it was suggested that South Korea’s wonderful run in the 2002 World Cup was of some convienience to FIFA, as a number of bad referee decisions saw cries of match fixing from the likes of Italy and Spain. I recently saw an interview with James Richardson, who is the oracle of Italian football in England, in which he some what suggested that he agreed with them claims, but in the end there was no investigation and instead Sepp Blatter put it down to ‘poor standard of refereeing’. This season, Southampton great Matt Le Tissier revealed that he was involved in a betting scam in which he was asked to kick the ball of play so he could see a big return. This was something Le Tissier had on his concince for about 14 years before the public knew about it, although it doesn’t seem like a significant alteration to the match, it does make you wonder how many times this happens, because if it was done correctly – like Le Tissier’s fix – no one will ever know.
There is also the huge Italian football scam revelation that rocked the Italian F.A and saw punishments brought upon a number of clubs that thought they were some what untouchable. And then there was an investigation from FIFA into a number of Eastern European sides that were attempting a big pay out from European competitions, a scam which involved a lot of games in some of the biggest competitions in the world. I won’t even go into Messers, Redknapp and Souness who have had their own dodgy dealings come under the spotlight, but these isolated incidents don’t necessarily suggest that the governing body’s caught every incident.
I’m not sugggesting that football has turned into WWE, where it is pre-determined what the outcome will be in every case. But anyone who has played a video game will know how fallable people are to exploiting the system in order for their own gain. I’m a big fan of the FIFA game series, and in particular the Ultimate Team add on, but lately on the Xbox 360, people are using a cheat in which they control the players of your team, making the game unplayable. I’m more interested in what other people think and what their feelings on the subject are and think it is an interesting disscussion point. Do you think that Match fixing and bribery is common? Do you think that FIFA had a say in South Korea’s 2002 World Cup run? Is it possible to cause corruption at the biggest tournament in football?
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I doubt FIFA fixed anything in 2002 but that doesn’t mean that the ref wasn’t bribed….
Find it odd that Joao Havelange’s very loud accusations of foul play in 1966 didn’t pop up in the context of the Lord Triesman affair. He was head of the Brazilian FA at the time.
I thought this was an interesting post and a real eye-opener! I wanted to include it in my blog post review. Check it out! http://watchtheworldcup.net/recent-world-cup-events/blog-posts-to-check-out.php
These things are notoriously difficult to prove – Havelange’s accusations about 1966 and 1974 mainly refer to the nationalities of who reffed Brazil’s games but without rewatching it’s impossible to say whether they were cheated or whether it was simply tough, European opposition playing in familiar conditions.
It’s ironic that the most valid claim Brazil have to be aggrieved was in 1978 when Peru lost 6-0 to hosts Argentina which gave Argentina 1st spot on goal difference over Brazil in the second group phase and with it a spot in the final. Before the game, Peru players had been told about the importance of “unity” and had been large aid donations by Argentina.
In 2002, I don’t think Italy could really moan about refs – they lost to Korea because they couldn’t kill the game. Korea even missed the penalty they were awarded. The Spain match was slightly different but the whistle to disallow Morientes’s goal was before the ball had been hit towards the net and Spain failed to score a second goal or come out on top in a legitimate penalty shoot-out.
However in many places corruption is rife in the game and with so much money floating around while there may not be cheating there is certainly widespread manipulation and clandestine practices at FIFA and in national football associations.
But the crucial thing is that, excluding national associations, no one stands to gain a large amount of money (excluding betting) from results at the world cup. The corruption will come in relation to advertising, sponsorship and all the deals that involve FIFA squeezing every penny out of the tournament they can muster.
It is feasible a player with a smaller team that may not earn much professionally could be persuaded to act a certain way in a game but the nature of qualification means the teams here are here because they’ve played the best football continentally and have wanted to get here based on competitiveness, not to make a cheap buck.
We must be vigilante but it is far too simple and fickle to start attaching conspiracy theories to shock results, poor refereeing decisions or disputed goals
Italy???Really??????? What are they complaining about??they are the cheating spouse that accuses their spouse of adultery.(how about every time they play the U>S> we get a at least one red card) Korea played well in 2002, not sure what FIFA would gain, in fact they would stand to gain more from a Italy final(sub Brazil, England, etc…)
There is no doubt that shennigans and tom foolery exist in football, but that part makes no sense.
I think it was more FIFA like the fact a home nation can do well because everyone wants the home nations to progress usually, especially when they’re were a somewhat unknown team like South Korea
Everyone always points out Italy because they’re very recent, but a similar thing happend in England with Bruce Grobbelaar and John Fashanu
It’s usually betting syndacites that have got to a player when they are talked into match fixing, although Triesmans one was something that heavily surprised me. I don’t know if you’re aware of the sport of snooker, but recently allegations came out that one of the top players, John Higgins I believe, was involved in match fixing and they interviewed another player (can’t tell you the name for the life of me) but he said that he knew of four other players in the game that had done a similar thing at one time or another. Thats quite worrying, and I can tell you that there is a lot of money involved in snooker, maybe not as much as snooker but the top players earn a lot.
‘Say it isn’t so in the beautiful game, but wherever large amounts of money are concerned you can’t count out corruption especially with such a global interest. Blatant corruption is easy to detect – it’s the little stuff that erodes the spirit of a truly healthy worldwide endeavor. I refuse to entertain thoughts of corruption as I watch these wonderful games unfold.
ADDIDAS AND NIKE CONTROL FOOTBALL ROONEY, GERRARD AND LAMPARD SHOULD BE SENT HOME