Germany has never won against Italy in an official tournament match until June 2022. Everton didn't win in Anfield for 22 years. And, we're all familiar with the scene of a player scoring against his old club. And finally, what's the deal with Manchester City's easy draws in the Champions League?
Is football really scripted?
Of course, I wouldn't claim to have an explanation for all of this. But these questions are as old as the game itself. The first thing these questions face is that people asking to get accused of believing in conspiracy theories as if that's an insult.
Psychologists say that there are three reasons to believe in conspiracy theories.
Epistemic Motives: You basically want to learn more information about a big event that happened in front of you.
Existential Motives: You want to feel some sort of control and power when facing that big event.
Social Motives: You want to feel superior over normal people who couldn't explain the same event.
These are all natural feelings that we all have. That's why Dr. Karen Douglas from Kent University says that we all somewhat believe in conspiracy theories to different degrees, this includes people who consider believing in conspiracy theories an insult. The question becomes; is it really an insult when we have such a long history filled with events where results were pre-determined?
Before we start, it should be noted that when it comes to "Football Scripts" and match-fixing there are two kind:
- Direct bribe: that's when a club's owner or president gets together with a referee and pays him to help his team win.
I would never be the one to deny this thing doesn't exist but it is very difficult to prove it. Therefore, it can't go any further than basic accusations like "UEFAlona", "LiVARpool". and whatever play on words you could think of. Those are only accusations between people on Twitter and never meant much.
So, beyond accusations with many of them built on extreme bias or narrow vision. The situation of direct involvement may exist. But there's no actual way we could prove whether there was any struck deals that led to Manchester United, Juventus, or whatever club wildly accused of bribery and matchfixing. The only example I found where a club is directly involved is of Olympique de Marseille in their 1993 UEFA Champions League Final against AC Milan.
The second kind is actually the more likely and more influential despite most people speaking so little of it.
- Bets: There hasn't been any single activity in history that caused as much corruption, scripts, and resultfixing in sports as betting.
Why is betting so influential?
The skyrocketing rise of betting offices around the world can be attributed to many factor, but the most important one is globalization.
If you're an old viewer then you probably remember a time period where a large portion of sponsors and advertisers were alcoholic production companies. In the late 90s and early 200s you had Newcastle, Liverpool, Blackburn, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, and Tottenham all had alcohol sponsors. The Premier League itself was known as FA Carling Premiership after Carling Brewery.
As the Premier League became more global as a product with international viewers people realized that alcohol-based advertisements weren't really doing much since many countries had them banned or they were frowned upon for religions reasons. However, with the rules of betting loosening in the U.K in 2005, the Permier League found new sponsors in betting companies.
Now, betting is as frowned upon in religions as drinking alcohol but the introduction of the internet and smart phones it became easier to access and also easier to keep private unlike alcohol. But, that's in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Europe
Europe's situation was more difficult as we found out that at some point 9 out of the 20 teams in the Premier League are sponsored by betting companies. In the Championship that number goes to 17 out of 22. As for lower divisions than they're all sponsored by Sky Bet. That isn't something new of course. What is new is the following.
A researcher for the University of BATH observed English football fans for two years and found that there wasn't a moment in the history of England where the youth was as obsessed with betting on football matches as today. The researcher said that some of the youth weren't even able to enjoy watching a football match without betting on it. Betting became a bigger addiction to a large portion of English youth than drugs, alcohol, and sex.
Psychologists attribute that to something called positive association. Since you're seeing so many betting companies sponsoring many clubs with the blessing of the government of the football association, you get an internal permission that it is okay to bet. And if those clubs are successful or at least get a win while you're watching them, that leads to you associating between the sponsor and the result subconsciously. Either way, you're focused on the positives of betting and ignore the negatives of it.
The result
The English Gambling Commision said that between March 2017 and April 2018, people in England lost 14 and a half billion pound in betting. The Permier League, as a whole, has a value of 19 billion pound. That's why the government has started efforts to limit betting companies advertisements out of fear that the new generation wouldn't see anything wrong with gambling because that's one of the greatest perks betting companies provided which alcohol couldn't, easy access.
The English Gambling Commision also said that it found over 450,000 English teenager and adolecense between the age of 11 and 16 using betting apps, 55,000 of which were categorized as addicts.
What does this have to do with football match fixing and football scripts?
Obviously, you don't care about kids in England or the country's problems with betting. But, the reason this matters in the context of football match fixing and football scripts is that it provides with the "why". Betting is THE main factor behind football scripts and match fixing. This goes from the 4th division of the Roman league if there's even such a thing, all the way to the Serie A and Champions League.
But, more on that in the next post.
In conclusion
Betting is now an industry of its own. Worldwide, betting is an even bigger market than the sport it covers. It has become an unstoppable juggernaut, an almost irreversible force that has been unleashed. With billions of pounds to be won worldwide, you'll definitely find people willing to work the odds in their favors.