Today the rolling banner screams 'Italian arrests. Juventus coach and Lazio captain in match-fixing probe'. Now anyone reading that would quite rightly assume they have been arrested over match fixing and probably involving their own teams. Only in the last few words of the verbal report do we get a hint to the truth, which is: In Italy, anyone involved in professional football is not allowed to bet on professional football. The 2 individuals are accused of placing bets on matches not involving their respective clubs. These bets are on matches with no link to them whatsoever and under no consideration with regards to match fixing. And that is all. Yes, if found guilty they broke the rules on betting but where does the match fixing allegation come from? Only is it an offence because of how tight the Italian betting rules are. Can you imagine how many arrests into 'match fixing' would be made in the UK every time a professional footballer bet on another team's result?
They are accused of having received money to fix matches for betting syndicates, whose head is believed to be based in Singapore. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...etted-by-police-over-match-fixing-claims.html
They're really not, I promise you. Not Conte, Mauri or Croscito anyway. It's the same as Calciopoli a few years back. Again it was reported in the UK as match fixing and there was no match fixing element involved. The penalised teams simply stated to the FIGC that they didnt want certain refs appointed to their games, nothing more ntohing less, something I have heard Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez (at Liverpool) and Mark Hughes do. It is purely poor reporting.
I wasn't actually giving an opinion, merely quoting from the Telegraph article, I know nothing at all about what's going on.
The Tele article judging by the same wording appearing in nearly every other article is simply a sindicated one from PA.
Why would the telegraph and sky sports fabricate a match fixing element? By doing so they are guilty of slander making themselves targets for large lawsuits and bad publicity. Where are you getting your information that the story different to how it is been reported?
From BBC Sport... "Police said Conte was being investigated on suspicion of sporting fraud and fraudulent association over allegations concerning a match between his previous club Siena and Novara in April 2011. However Conte's lawyer, Antonio De Rencis, said: "Conte's reaction is that of someone who is completely innocent and strongly determined to prove his total innocence." That seems pretty clear cut what he has been accused of. The BBC doesn't say what Mauri is suspected of, although it does say that he has been arrested by police investigating match-fixing..
This is precisely the point I am making - people assume it is match-fixing without any evidence whatsoever because of the way it is reported in the Uk. It's like if I asked your average English football fan why Juve were relegated a few years back and Milan et al deducted points they would say match fixing but it simply wasnt. I will say it again, these arrests are because the individuals are accused of betting on football matches. In Italy, professional footballers and indeed other personnel at clubs are not permitted legally to bet on professional football. It gets skewed here because if they reported the real reason for arrest everyone would shrug and say 'so what - thousands of footballers in the UK do that every weekend'. Same as calciopoli - as I said Ferguson, Benitez and Hughes have publicly done EXACTLY the same and nobody bats an eyelid.
They arent, they're blindly running a story from PA assuming it is correct without checking the 'facts' for themselves. Sadly that's how newsrooms work nowadays - fewer directly employed journos and they get their feeds from agencies. The Express for example have about 3 sports Journos and they just write their stories udner pseudonyms (sp?) to make it look like a slick, multi-staffed operation.
But haven't the police arrested Conte for allegations relating to his time as manager of Siena (April 2011)?
Quiet day innit? I was trying to demonstrate the power sports journalists have to influence without any evidence.
Yes - for betting on another game that didnt involve his team. The situaiton was an end of season affair when 2 teams facing each other both needed a point. It didnt take a genius to work out that a draw would be the result and Conte bet on it. Simple as. Yes he broke the Italian law and if guilty should be punished but it wasnt match-fixing. If you just read the article you would understandably think he was betting on his own team and then influencing the result. It's a ****ing disgrace to be honest.
You may be right, but the quote attributed to the police below suggests it was his own team, not betting on the result of another match... "Police said Conte was being investigated on suspicion of sporting fraud and fraudulent association over allegations concerning a match between his previous club Siena and Novara in April 2011"
Three quick points on this subject: 1. I don't live in the UK anymore and I base my information on other sources. Including a couple of books, some people and other sources. 2. I hate mass media, always have, they are the scum of the earth so I will always do more research before I talk about a topic. 3. Is it just me or is Italian football boring up to the point where it is barely watchable?
I think so, and I think a 'big club' in Italy can remain big and famous for years after they stop achieving anything which annoys me a bit, like a league full of Leeds, but BCC is a big fan of it.
Is that going back to when a game was on Channel 4 every Sunday? They always semmed to have the only 0-0 of the day, whilst there were 3 or 4 games had 4 or 5 goals in them.
