Dear WSC
Congratulations on the article about match-fixing (Crimes and misdemeanours, WSC 283). Paul Joyce did a superb job reviewing the many different cases of corruption in European football. As the German police investigation began, partly because of the controversy around my book, The Fix, I did want to take him up on one issue. He mentioned that “Germany lies second in the match-fixing table” – this is true but it is not because corruption is more prevalent in German football. Rather it is because the German authorities are now, after years of denial, actually taking the issue seriously and are vigorously investigating match-fixing – and the more they investigate, the more they find. This proactive attitude is in stark contrast with British football authorities who seem to have adopted the attitude of “don’t know, don’t want to find out”. The circumstances in British football are similar to other European countries: thousands of relatively badly paid players; lots of poor clubs and lots of interest in the gambling markets. However, the British authorities have not yet fully woken to the dangers. I can only hope that they do before they discover a similar problem to the one in Europe.
Declan Hill, Oxford
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Stories
While some stadiums are shut, others are furiously debated. Robert Shaw reports on problematic preparations for 2014
With the Homeless World Cup played in September in Brazil some of the country’s clubs might have felt entitled to stage their own version. The stadium-building and renovation programme for the 2014 World Cup has already left several clubs without a home ground as work begins in earnest to prepare the 12 venues.
Bratislavia’s oldest club don’t seem to be missing their brief period of domestic success and European glory. James Baxter explains
Anyone who has registered MSK Žilina‘s progress to the group stages of this season’s Champions League may also recall that the last team from Slovakia to get this far was Artmedia Bratislava, in 2005-06. But, while Žilina fans have been in bitter dispute with their club over ticket prices for home games in the competition, FC Petržalka 1898, as Artmedia are now known, are experiencing life outside Slovakia’s top division and, so far, seem to be enjoying it.
The uses that organised crime groups have for football are changing, in both scope and style. Matthew Barker reports
Stories of organised crime latching onto football are nothing new. Illegal gambling rings, match-fixing, extortion, money-laundering – the globalisation of the game has seen a parallel growth in criminal activity.
Several football grounds now double up as venues for professional rugby. Roger Titford suggests that competition from another sport is becoming a problem for clubs that are already struggling
Once upon a time, about 130 years ago, football and rugby sat happily enough alongside each other as almost alternative flavours of the same basic sport. Then came professionalism, division, social change and a century or so of estrangement, with each finding security in its own territory. Times are changing again.