Stupid thing to say, but yeah it's nowhere near as bad as match fixing. In theory, paying a team to win should be a pointless endeavour, as you'd expect them to be giving 100% either way, but I suppose that might not always be the case.
Say its the norm, & team near the bottom offers this incentive to a team playing a rival on the last day, it works, they stay up & pay the incentive fee. Then the next season the same teams meet on the last day, they offers the same incentive to maybe say lose................who is controlling these incentives.........sounds a bit dubious to me, would not be happy to be involved in that. Hang your head Michael.
Mr. Laudrup clearly hasn't been immersing himself in the English FAs rule book. He is a well travelled player in continental Europe and no doubt as commented has come across such payments in the past. It's a bit of a clanger but he may not be used to the British culture in sport of gentlemanly fair play. (this nation has a high horse on this issue). Whilst its a gaff he has done nothing wrong. I'm on the FAs side here with the issue as a whole. Best to keep things nice and simple and not allow third party involvement at all or things quickly get clouded.
Clubs offering win bonuses to their own players is one thing. This is often a desire to match costs with revenues - you pay more for a winning side! Offering payments to a third party to "influence" their game is another thing altogether. I know paying someone to win is not as bent as paying someone to lose, but if you paid someone £1 million to win, he might be tempted to pay an opposition player £200k to lose! Thin end of the wedge!
