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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (55544)	6/8/2014 12:13:16 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71475

The Fixer Offense in Soccer By THE EDITORIAL BOARDJUNE 7, 2014 the main story[iframe frameborder="0" class="ad-frame frame-for-article" style="border-width: 0px; width: 300px; height: 600px; "][/iframe] The passionate rivalries of World Cup soccer will soon be enthralling sports fans across the globe, along with throngs of fanatic gamblers placing untold millions in bets. As the opening matches in Brazil on June 12 draw near, there are rising doubts that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, has enough security and personnel to protect the quadrennial competition from the threat of match fixing that has been bedeviling the sport. The results of an estimated 680 global matches from 2008 to 2011 — including some World Cup qualifying matches — were found to be suspicious, according to Europol, the European Union’s police agency, which counted more than 400 officials, players and criminals involved in match fixing. The agency increasingly has its eye on gambling syndicates that exploit the vast and largely unregulated Asian gambling markets, where an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars in bets are wagered each year. Opinion: Throw FIFA Out of the GameJUNE 6, 2014According to an investigative report by Declan Hill and Jeré Longman of The Times, fixers have found teams and referees from impoverished countries to be particularly vulnerable to bribery. FIFA promises that the Brazil matches will have tighter security and more rigorous screening of referees and players. But gambling on global soccer is booming, and the syndicates are experienced at beating the game with protection muscle, locker-room infiltrators and businessmen capitalizing on fixes. Rigged: Part 1 of a Two-Part Series: Fixed Soccer Matches Cast Shadow Over World CupMAY 31, 2014FIFA already has a backlog of 90 cases of suspected fixing it deems worthy of investigation, but it has had only six investigators responsible for assorted security needs. The investigators have no subpoena or criminal law authority in an area that needs a considerably larger staff devoted full time to investigations. “There are no checks and balances and no oversight,” Terry Steans, a former FIFA investigator, warned after a notorious exhibition match four years ago in South Africa in which a syndicate fixer later bragged he paid $60,000 to a referee to influence the score. Global gambling is so frenzied and lucrative that fixers have even staged a tournament in a largely empty stadium devoid of television coverage, all the easier to guide bribed referees and players to the desired result — with no shortage of electronic bettors ready to be fleeced. No games are watched as intently as World Cup games. FIFA owes it to the world to strengthen its watch so soccer fans can cheer without any doubts. Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »