Sunday 12 October 2008

Championship match fixing scandal

BBC Sport reports:
'The Football Association is to examine match-fixing allegations involving a Championship match sent to them by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. Bookmakers reportedly detected a "massive movement" in bets in Asia in an unspecified Championship match at around half-time.

As well as the FA, the Sunday Telegraph has sent a document to the Gambling Commission over the betting patterns. "We will consider any evidence brought to our attention," said the FA.'

I'm sure it's not us despite the unsuccessful floodlights 'scam' and events some fifty years ago. Maybe it's without foundation, but it would be interesting to know which teams were involved.

4 comments:

Pedro45 said...

I worried about this too Wyn. Beating Wolves and Preston at half time and losing may not look bad, but it will if there were bets involved in those games at half-time on the eventual outcome. Could it be that our great news from Friday could be tempered by being tainted (and dare I say, the club relegated if found guilty) by such an accusation being attached to one of our matches? Is this the way to "balls-it up" that has been mentioned?

Second Division And Proud said...

came here to say what pedro45 has (agin) beaten me to ;-)

perhas the surrey ladies team will be relegated as thy've been losing a few this year

JOIN THE REVOLUTION !!!

Anonymous said...

A bigger worry might be this story on "SoccerBlog.com". Be ironic if the FA finally start to take the "fit and proper test" seriously and we are the victims.

BEGINS

The Maktoums seem to be intent on purchasing Charlton but they have not given up their interest in Liverpool either.

Zabeel Investments, headed by Mohammad Ali Al Hashimi, Zabeel's CEO who is fronting the Addicks bid but the brain trust behind Zabeel appears to be Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum who seems to have set up this company two years ago which focuses on real estate and asset management. Sheikh Hamdan is the son of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and the founder of Dubai Holdings whose investment arm, Dubai International Capital (DIC) made a failed bid for Liverpool before it was tragically given away to two American mountebanks, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

It appears as if the investment companies bidding for Charlton and Liverpool are separate entities that are owned by family members of the Dubai royal household which would set up a potential conflict of interest. With the FA struggling with transparency issues in club ownership and the EPL's lax enforcement of the fit and proper test, these ownership concerns should be given more scrutiny.

ENDS

Wyn Grant said...

I think that one has to realise that the Dubai royal family is very large. It's not like the British royal family, although that is large enough. Therefore I do not think that a conflict of interest argument could stand up in court. However, in the meantime, the bidders might have disappeared. If that would happen, the future for Charlton is bleak. This could be our last best chance to secure a successful future for the club. Whilst I think that we could probably avoid going into administration - which we came very close to - we would probably face managed decline. I know that we have been at League 1 level before, but it would be harder with the current stadium and having been in the Premiership.