Former FIFA officials indicted on fraud charges in Switzerland

Former FIFA officials Michel Platini, left, and Sepp Blatter were charged with fraud and other offences by Swiss prosecutors on November 2 | AFP/AFP / GETTY IMAGES

ALL IN: How gambling swallowed sports media

Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney-General David Lametti announced August 12 the legalization of single-event gambling beginning August 27. One week after Bill C-218 received Royal Assent, the US Penn National Gaming purchased Score Media for $2.2 billion and is now set to be a big-time operator in Ontario. Along with provincial lottery corporations they are being joined by the monopoly media. By its own account, “Torstar Corp., which owns the Toronto Star, announced in March it plans to launch an online casino betting brand in Ontario and has also indicated it plans to offer single-sport wagering.” It has recruited Steve McAllister, editor-in-chief of the Parleh sports betting newsletter to write a regular column in its sports section. An indepth investigation by the Columbia Journalism Review exposes “the increasingly comfortable relationship between sports journalism and gambling [which] has, not coincidentally, developed alongside a decline in sports media – and a collapsing market for the press at large.”

By Danny Funt, CJR

(August 2) – Gamblers would give anything to peek at Ian Rapoport’s notes. In late April, Rapoport – a reporter at the NFL Network, known on air as an “insider” – was sitting on a scoop about the draft’s most intriguing story line. Until then, it had been considered a done deal that the San Francisco 49ers would select an Alabama quarterback named Mac Jones with the third overall pick; bettors, expected to risk tens of millions of dollars on the draft, were counting on it. But Rapoport’s sources told him that the 49ers were seriously considering Trey Lance, a quarterback from North Dakota State otherwise thought to be a long shot for the top five. Landing the story placed Rapoport in a devilish dilemma, one that sports journalists now confront often: publish the news and send sportsbooks scrambling to update their odds, or wait a few seconds, place a bet first, and give himself a good shot at winning a small fortune. “It’s kind of like insider trading,” he said.

Russ Conway, 70, dies; His reporting led to a hockey boss’s downfall

While the Canadian sports media was mute, a US journalist detailed the corrupt acts of Alan Eagleson, the head of the NHL players’ union – a former Tory Party president – laying the groundwork for successful prosecutions in the United States and Canada. One of the most important conclusions, although not dealt with in this article by RICHARD SANDOMIR of The New York Times, is how easily the media back then was fooled by so many spinmeisters like Eagleson. As today, there was no shortage of journalists reporting that everything was hunky-dory in the NHL. 

The sportswriter Russ Conway in 1999 after learning that he would be receiving the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for his reporting on the head of the N.H.L. players’ union | Carl Russo

How mafia and corruption scandals rocked Italian football

High-profile cases of corruption, ticket touting and match fixing have led Italians to lose faith in the beautiful game, writes criminologist Anna Sergi.

Football could be considered Italy’s most popular sport, with world-class teams worth billions attracting a dedicated following across the country. But more than that, football shapes the nation’s collective identity, bringing people from the smallest village to the biggest city together in their love for “the beautiful game”.

But over the past decade, media investigations and research have uncovered an unseemly lack of virtue within the industry. Mafia infiltration and corruption have come to characterise Italian football to the point that malpractice, deviance and criminal behaviour might seem to be the norm.

Journalist in Ghana who exposed soccer corruption shot dead

FRANCIS KOKUTSE AND GERALD IMRAY, AP

ACCRA, GHANA January 17) – An investigative journalist in Ghana who helped expose a high-ranking official at world soccer body FIFA as corrupt was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike as he drove home alone at night, police said on Thursday.

‘Sports integrity’: The surreptious Saudi campaign to steal the World Cup away from Qatar

Currently, a battle is going on between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, one that is affecting international football as well. There is no doubt that Saudi Arabia wants to take the World Cup away from Qatar in 2022. The “Foundation for Sports Integrity” was launched in a lavish setting in London in May with buzz words about “transparency” and “corruption” that made several participants ask about the source of the money. Two of them were Andreas Selliaas and Jan Jensen*, who have tried to track the secret backers of the new initiative. Jim Waterson of the Guardian also weighs in with additional facts. Interestingly, with regard to awarding the FIFA World Cup 2026, which was announced later in Moscow in July, Saudi Arabia backed the winning, so-called “United” bid of the United States, Canada and Mexico, while Qatar backed the Morocco bid.

Panel discussion at the FFSI conference | Andreas Selliaas

(London, Updated 28 June) – The Foundation for Sports Integrity (FFSI) was launched at the fashionable Four Seasons Hotel at Ten Trinity Square in London on 31 May. The founder of the FFSI is Jaimie Fuller, the Chairman of SKINS, one of the persons behind the initiative New FIFA Now and a familiar face to those attending Play the Game conferences.

FIFA defends bans for defamation, spreading ‘false information’

By ROB HARRIS

AP (Aug. 15) – Justifying an overhaul of its ethics code, FIFA asserted Tuesday that people who “tarnish the reputations of others” must be banned from soccer.

The Associated Press revealed Monday that a new offence of defamation had been added to the document governing the conduct of participants in soccer, with scope for a ban of up to five years from the game.

2018 World Cup: How England threw a game

In football/soccer to deliberately lose is match fixing. In the NBA and the NHL it is called “tanking” and is – wink wink – rationalized to get a higher draft position.Either way, both are fraud, unethical, corrupt and a violation of the norms of sportsmanship.

At the 2018 FIFA World Championship, with the pretext of “resting players,” England played eight subs – only three of its outfield 10 were from the Premier League. Belgium responded with nine subs and decisively won a farcical game of two reserve sides 1-0. Both teams were tied 2-0 going into the third and final game of the opening round. FIFA looked the other way, not even offering ticket refunds to the tens of thousands of fans who paid big bucks to watch a world class competition not to mention those watching on TV. BILLY HAISLEY of deadspin.com reprises how a scandalous match unfolded. – Tony Seed

Photo: Matthias Hangst (Getty)

Basketball: Organized cheating and corruption by US universities

Here is the case in a nutshell

ABC News (Feb 23, 2018)  – When Yahoo! Sports published documents from the FBI’s investigation into corruption in college basketball, it showed that players from more than 20 of the nation’s top programs were implicated in possibly breaking NCAA rules. It’s a complicated case with a lot of layers, so here is a breakdown of the key teams, players and others who have been involved since the charges were first unveiled in September:

Basketball: US documents detail high-profile schools in organized cheating

Court docs in the college hoops corruption case spell out who ASM Sports paid and how much | Yahoo Sports

As the 2018 edition of “March Madness,” the premier, billion-dollar US college basketball tournament comes to a close on April 2 in San Antonio, Texas, what’s rarely mentioned in the ballyhoo is the latest US college basketball scandal. The media blackout can be contrasted to the hysteria over Russian Olympic athletes, although both cases allegedly involved organized cheating. Further, one of the targets of the US investigation is the German Adidas sportswear monopoly while not a word is breathed about its competitors such as Nike, etc. It is a typical case in which the real perpetrators, who are the people at the top of the corporate university organized in the NCAA, a sports cartel, are cast as the victims who have been taken advantage of. And the actual victims, who are the young high school and college athletes at the very bottom of the system, are cast as the perpetrators. 

Reporters Pete Thamel and Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports “viewed hundreds of pages of documents” they say detail payments from people at the centre of the scandal.