Why non-League football will always be a haven for match-fixing
Ian Ridley, former chairman of Weymouth, says non-League football is always an easy target for gamblers.
George Rolls, former chiarman of Weymouth FC Photo: REX
By Ian Ridley
10:00PM GMT 30 Nov 2013
The view of non-League football is frequently romantic, a perception of heart-of-gold, part-time players who are butchers, bakers and candlestick makers the rest of the week.
The attitudes mostly surface around FA Cup ties because, bless ’em, clubs and players like the rare attention - and the money it might bring.
In fact, while it might not be big business, life below the Football League is a serious one. Having been a chairman, written about it in a book called Floodlit Dreams, I can confirm the same amount of intrigue, politics and half-baked economics as at higher levels. Just with fewer noughts on the cheques.
It is precisely because of the lack of attention on the non-League game, particularly from television, that it has been targeted in betting stings, as The Daily Telegraph has revealed. It may seem bizarre that big money “fixers” with global operations would target semi-professionals from small-town clubs playing in front of just a few hundred people at Spartan, windswept stadiums.
There is, however, shrewdness in their methods. These days, all Premier League matches are shown live around the world. Football League games have second-by-second coverage on the internet. There is also TV focus, if mainly in highlights, on the Championship at least.
Besides, given the sums of money players earn at the top level, bribing them to influence incidents and results is almost certainly too expensive. Lower down, footballers earn fractions by comparison, even if the majority of the population would like to earn a living for what should be such an enjoyable job.
The non-League game is much easier to get at. With little or no TV coverage, glaring, suspicious errors are subject to less scrutiny – gone in a moment without being replayed. And players are usually not on contracts, or if they are, just on one year. Most move from club to club as a matter of course. Those few jealous, disillusioned, maybe with debts but not the integrity and loyalty of the vast majority, are vulnerable to approaches.
Stories, anecdotes, abound. This week, I was talking to a former Premier League manager who has operated at every level of the game. He told of the non-League chairman whose club were tussling with his for promotion, who once rang him to offer him money to leave out certain key players ahead of a big game.
Naturally, the manager declined the bribe. I came back with the tale of a club manager who, I had it on good authority, did take a five-figure bung in a brown paper bag in the car park for his team to lose a game that would give the opponents promotion. It is all difficult to prove, however, which has always been the Football Association’s problem, even when people go to them with testimony.
I know. I have done. Those two tales come from an era before football betting was the industry it is now. And despite all the clampdowns, the edicts on who can and cannot bet and on what, the potential for corruption is higher than ever, especially in the game’s backwaters.
Just last year, a successor of mine as Weymouth chairman, George Rolls, was banned for five years and fined £10,000 for no fewer than 3,076 breaches of FA betting regulations while at Weymouth and his previous club, Cambridge United. I also heard after I had left the club of an alleged betting coup involving Weymouth when several significant figures, including a Premier League player, were privy to inside information and won heavily on the outcome of the game. The FA, I understand, looked into it but no-one was charged.
This year, bookmakers stopped taking bets on matches involving three Essex clubs in the Skrill Conference South, including Billericay Town, whose own officials, I understand, have their suspicions about at least one of their games that attracted more bets than for a Barcelona game.
Episodes of betting in recent years and the odd player being fined and suspended seemed to be down to just a few greedy men looking to make dodgy sums of money. Now you can only wonder whether some results have been down to a wider influence exerted by worldwide gamblers, with corrupted players themselves “lumping on”.
The main problem for domestic punters with low-profile games now is the bookmakers’ sensitivity to unusual betting patterns, which may often preclude large stakes. The tactic, therefore, is to spread many smaller bets around different outlets. There are few such worries worldwide, however, notably in Asia, where betting is less informed, more haphazard and often without the same computer sophistication as in this country.
“The race is not always to the swift and the strong - but it’s a safe way to bet,” Damon Runyon once wrote. In view of recent revelations, the safest way to bet may well now be on the less swift and the less strong.
How the Telegraph broke football's betting scam
What are the allegations?
The National Crime Agency arrested seven men last week following an investigation by The Telegraph that found match fixers were targeting games across Britain. One allegedly internationally known fixer was arrested in the UK on Tuesday. In a series of covertly recorded conversations over the past fortnight, he claimed that lower-league matches could be fixed for as little as £50,000 and correctly forecast the outcome of three games played by the same team.
Who is involved?
Chann Sankaran, 33, from Hastings, East Sussex and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, 43, from Singapore, appeared in court on Friday charged with plotting to defraud bookmakers. Neither man was required to enter a plea and both were remanded in custody to appear at Birmingham Crown Court on Dec 13. Five others were bailed pending further inquiries. The men arrested include at least three footballers and Delroy Facey, a former Premier League player turned agent.
Which matches and teams were affected?
Details of the games under investigation have not been made public for legal reasons. One of the alleged fixers claimed in a covertly recorded conversation that he had manipulated World Cup qualifiers and named Scotland and Ireland as among the countries he could “do”. The two countries’ football federations insisted that there was no indication that any of their matches had been compromised. It has also been alleged that referees across Europe will allegedly manipulate the results of games for £20,000 and that an entire African national team are controlled by fixers.
How widespread is fixing in English football?
The present case is the first time in decades that police have amassed enough evidence to hold those suspected of fixing in Britain. Betting experts this year flagged up the fact that more than £1 million was staked on Asian betting exchanges on a game between Welling and Billiericay Town – a bigger market than on a Champions league match involving Barcelona on the same night. Craig Edwards the manager of Billericay Town said the club was “whiter than white”, but the club’s chairman, Steve Kent, accused the Football Association of doing nothing about the incident.
How have the authorities reacted?
Fifa, the world governing body, described fixing as a “cancer” that must be eradicated. The FA said that it had worked closely with the authorities in relation to the present allegations.
What happens now?
The outcome of the NCA investigation and legal proceedings remain to be seen, but, in the interim, pressure is growing on the authorities and the Government to take further action to help weed out any potential fixing in the British game and put more money into the issue. Kent has called for all the FA to demand that betting on all non-League games is banned to combat the threat of match-fixers.
