Putting your foot in the can of worms

The unfortunate comments attributed to Lord Triesman, chairman of the FA and head of the 2018 World Cup bid, have opened up a can of worms which the football world has long seemed determined to keep closed. It has still not actually been confirmed whether he said that the Spanish would try and bribe referees at the World Cup with the help of the Russians, but his decision to stand down as chairman of the bid committee may be interpreted not only as an obliged political manoeuvre but also as an admission of guilt.

There are three possibilities – that Lord Triesman made the comments as a throwaway observation, in which case his brain works in truly mysterious ways; that he voiced suspicions that were based on absolutely no evidence, in which case the man is a fool; or that he has evidence to support this serious allegation, in which case the usual powers in the game will silence him faster than you can say “match-fixing”.

Modern football is under constant suspicion of cheating. Declan HiIl’s book “The Fix” lays out in great detail the influence that betting syndicates exert on the modern game; the book was largely ignored in the media, even though it has been demonstrated that the leagues in Portugal, Germany, Brazil and the United States have been affected by bought referees during the last decade. UEFA has been obliged to investigate more than forty European fixtures in the last couple of seasons; all the matches turned out to be in the “poorer” (less influential) football countries of Eastern Europe, even though it has been patently obvious to fans that Barcelona have continually benefitted from refereeing “mistakes” in the Champions’ League. And then there’s Italy.

World Cups are never exempt from controversy either – the tournaments in 1930, 1954, 1966, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 (eleven out of eighteen tournaments) have all been sullied by questionable sportsmanship and refereeing.

So based on the evidence it is possible that attempts will be made to influence the outcome of games in this summer’s tournament. But what about the two countries allegedly mentioned by Lord Triesman?

Russia is widely recognised as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Last year even Russia’s interior minister admitted that “parts of the police had become criminal businesses”, while the court system is under constant scrutiny from Amnesty International. Extortion by corrupt officials is forcing western companies out of the country, while the government admits that bribes in Russian universities have reached a billion dollars a year. Russian football has suddenly become one of the richest leagues in the world, with the new oligarchs pouring money into the game for their own individual reasons. Estimates as to the level of corruption in the world of Russian football leave one thing perfectly clear – there is no doubt that the league is as riddled with cheating as the rest of the country.

On the surface Spain seems to enjoy a much better reputation as a country and as a people; closer scrutiny, however, suggests an alternative reality. The Spanish have a very different idea about what constitutes cheating from the accepted idea in other countries – cheating in university and public employment exams is considered an art form, tax evasion is a way of life, mass political fraud and political influence are rife in every region of the country and in every party and property development has long been a quick way to make a dishonest buck, and yet all those things are considered perfectly acceptable (with the only exception of when the political party is the one you don’t support).

In terms of football, every year for the past few years the RFEF has ordered new investigations into match-fixing. In 2009 a wholesale investigation was started after suspicions arose that Spanish players were betting on matches. The Málaga-Tenerife game which clinched Málaga’s promotion to La Liga in June 2008 was called into question after the Tenerife player Jesuli was accused of throwing the match. The player threatened to sue, but interestingly it was only because a telephone conversation had been recorded, not because the accusation may have been false. The Athletic-Levante game which guaranteed that never-relegated Bilbao would not be sent down on the final day of the 2006-07 season was also under suspicion because of evidence that Levante had thrown the game.

But by far the most unsavoury part of Spanish football is what they call “primas a terceros”, or incentive payments to third parties. Everybody, from the players and managers to the media and the government, admits that it happens, and in ever-increasing quantities. At the end of each season undisclosed and undeclared amounts of money are offered by teams to other teams as an added incentive to achieve a result that would benefit more than one club. It happens in every division and at either end of each one and is now an accepted part of the season. The fans – and more worryingly the authorities – treat the subject with the same lax attitude as they would tax evasion or land fraud and accordingly it is now inherent in the Spanish game.

It is unclear whether Lord Triesman has concrete evidence to accuse the Spanish and the Russians of any wrong-doing; however, it must be said that if the shadow of suspicion were to fall over any country, both Spain and Russia would be high on the list of suspects. Unfortunately, in the case of such influential countries (ie rich within the football world) football’s governing bodies will turn a blind eye and keep the can of worms firmly closed.