Comments on: Soccer match-rigging, straight out of a Gibson novel

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:50:00 +0000

Doesn’t the title of this post answer that?

By: UhhhClem

UhhhClem — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:02:00 +0000

Brian Phillips, by the way, is the author of the Pro Vercelli story, the single best gaming epic ever to appear on the Internet. It’s even better than the Saga of Boatmurdered. Few who have read it will ever forget Phillips’s detestation of Walter Columbo, the fantastically incompetent assistant coach who is an entire Bartleby constructed from a couple of statistics. Seek this out. It’s magic, and also utterly insane.

By: Beanolini

Beanolini — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:35:00 +0000

half the time the weakest (and we admit that 10% is a huge difference) team wins.

If that were true, then the result of any knockout tournament would be completely random. So why have Chelsea won the FA Cup four times in the last decade?

By: L_Mariachi

L_Mariachi — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:34:00 +0000

It does seem unlikely that a book as popular as any of the Pippi Longstocking series would wind up in a remainder bin.

By: Greg Van Antwerp

Greg Van Antwerp — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:57:00 +0000

Is it me or are there and alarming lack of comments attached to an article posted 12 hours earlier. Could it be indicative of my feelings toward the sport (professional version)? which is “meh.”

By: B E Pratt

B E Pratt — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:51:00 +0000

I was just thinking about this. I don’t think you could do this kind of thing at all with football simply because it is not a world-wide sport. That seems to be the big key.

By: B E Pratt

B E Pratt — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:40:00 +0000

Er, uh, and just who do you talk to about implementing this change?

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:32:00 +0000

Yet another reason I like my sports like I like my “spirituality”… not organized. Well, unless it was organized by mother nature, that is:

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 20:51:00 +0000

I was just liking the writing ok until that line at which point I flat out loved it.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 20:44:00 +0000

Its nothing like Arthur C Clarke's version

By: NotthefakeLevi

NotthefakeLevi — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:44:00 +0000

Do you have independent reasons for thinking the NFL is at risk?
Because this scandal provides no reason for thinking so. Rigging mostly refs or players at low levels who earn very little with the refs being assigned by minor leagues doesn’t translate well to the NFL. NFL refs are paid much more in comparison and have a single organization overlooking their performance.

By: James Penrose

James Penrose — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:44:00 +0000

I’ve always assumed most pro “sports” were rigged to begin with. Far too much money involved to just let these things be determined by skill and luck.

“Bread and circuses” bankrupted Rome but modern day sports keeps the mob opiated *and* turns huge profits.

By: tnmc

tnmc — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:30:00 +0000

You’re making a couple of false presumptions here. The first of which is that there is an average of one goal per game. That is not remotely true:
http://www.soccervista.com/soccer_leagues_ordered_by_number_of_goals.php

A second false presumption is that betting is only on goals and results. That’s also not true. Bets can be placed on virtually any aspect of a game; the number of yellow cards, who will score the first goal, etc…

By: annoyingmouse

annoyingmouse — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:52:00 +0000

Hmmm. Not sure about some of the points in the article that are completely out of context. For example, the goal in the footnote which he claims is “hard to explain” is actually very easy to explain. Football referees don’t use video evidence and can’t magically see an aerial shot. It is perfectly possible to make that sort of mistake especially when you’re human. Don’t forget that for every goal like that disallowed there’s a Russian linesman who’ll help you out. Linking in every dodgy ref decision with corruption gets us nowhere. Of course, there’s an easy solution to it but that’s a different story.

Another point seemingly missed is that there’s an awful lot of clubs out there desperately struggling for money at the moment who surely should be rolling in bribes if it’s so widespread?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s far too much corruption in the game but I don’t see how that means the entire sport should be dismissed.

By: KevinRaposo

KevinRaposo — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:30:00 +0000

I think this is something that we all knew was going on. Think about it, it’s a sport that’s played all around the world. This doesn’t surprise me one bit!

By: bluehenbear

bluehenbear — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Replace the FIFA acronym with NCAA…

By: rastronomicals

rastronomicals — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:10:00 +0000

I was understanding him fine until I ran across this:

“FIFA rhetoric is to action what a remaindered paperback copy of Pippi in the South Seas is to the Horsehead Nebula.”

By: vonbobo

vonbobo — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:57:00 +0000

Agreed. Not looking forward to the day when the NFL is busted.

By: Dorkomatic

Dorkomatic — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:53:00 +0000

It’s impossible for such a big money-rich system NOT to get gamed by crooks. But the scale and intricacy of this is mind blowing.

By: Guillaume Dargaud

Guillaume Dargaud — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Soccer is a random game anyway. Here’s the rational:
- imagine there’s 10% difference between the two teams.
- Well, first imagine there’s 10% difference between two 100m runners (the 1st one is gold, the 2nd one won’t even qualify for the nationals), or two Tour de France Cyclist (the 2nd one would arrive 2 days later). So we agree that in pro sport 10% of difference is HUGE.
- Now apply this to, for instance, basketball where there’s an average of, let’s say, 100 points per game. It means that one team will score 65 vs 55 on average. Still pretty significant.
- Now apply this to soccer with an average of ONE point per match. It means that if you ran about TEN games between them, one team would score about 6 times and the other one about 5 times. Now pick a game at random in there: half the time the weakest (and we admit that 10% is a huge difference) team wins.

Hence soccer is a shit random game. There’s also another rational that explains that the more random a sport outcome is, the most rabid the supporters, but that’s another story.

By: grimatongueworm

grimatongueworm — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:46:00 +0000

Donning my CPU and checking Milgrim out of rehab.

By: Comboman

Comboman — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:41:00 +0000

“The system is stacked so it’s gamblers further down the chain who bear all the risks.”

Sounds a lot like Wall Street.

By: Jonathan Peterson

Jonathan Peterson — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:39:00 +0000

If all the game fixing amounts to bribing referees, the solution is to have a pool of referees with random, blind game assignments with no access to communications after assignment.

If you don’t know who to bribe, or the person you’re bribing doesn’t know which way to impact the game, you can’t fix the result.