Match Fixing Hits Football

The world of Manchester United, Barcelona and other football fans was shocked today by the announcement by Europol today that they were investigating what could possibly the most titanic match fixing scam in sporting history, eclipsing that of the cricket match-fixing scandal involving the Pakistan cricket team.

In fact, 700 football fixtures including Champions League and World Cup qualifiers are under investigation for having some involvement by a Singapore criminal gang - yes you read right, good old Singapore, the country which could do no wrong, not like its dastard brothers in Hong Kong that featured in gangster films like The Departed. Yes, angelic and clean Singapore is now the centre of quite possibly the biggest scandal to hit football ever.

Singapore - centre of a major match-fixing scandal in football

Should we be surprised though? Betting in Singapore's S-League has been rife and 1 in 2 Singaporeans are followers of football - a quarter of Manchester United and Liverpool fans are based in Asia with most of them based in Singapore. Plus Singapore is one of the great financial centres in the world. So really it's a recipe for a betting scandal!

Perhaps, news of this should not be of any surprise in what is after all the most followed sport in the world with plenty of money flowing in and out of the sport. Anything is possible in this day of age where computers rule and the thieves and criminals today are now more likely to be the computer nerds we used to bully in school.

Dirk Kuyt scores the winner for Liverpool against Debrecen

What is of greatest interest is which games have been fixed. The Sun has reported that Liverpool's Champions League game against Debrecen in September 2009 is one of the games of interest. Debrecen's keeper, Vukasin Poleksic was allegedly paid to ensure there were more than 2 goals in the match -  feat he failed to achieve as Liverpool won 1-0 on the night. Poleksic has since been banned from all football activities for failing to report match-fixing activities.

Argentina's World Cup qualifier against Bolivia was also featured as speculation mounts as to which games were affected by players wanting to make more money by placing a bet on not the result but rather when a goal would be scored or how many would be scored.

Let's not forget Juventus' coach, Antonio Conte, who is currently serving a ban for match-fixing in a country where match-fixing is quite a familiar story as we saw back in 2006 when Juventus was banished to the 2nd division for years of match fixing.

Australian rugby league fans would be familiar with this - former Bulldogs rugby league player, Ryan Tandy was banned from the sport after being found guilty of betting on his team getting a shot at goal against the North Queensland Cowboys during the NRL season.

It is the sort of betting which is banned in England and most European leagues but is prevalent in the Far East and it is certainly quite a lucrative market.

Whatever the story, it is certainly a sad state of affairs for football who will recover and be stronger. But all illusions that football was free of the scandal that had dogged other sports including cycling has finally been banished for good.