News
Arrests made in football ‘spot fixing’ case
INTEGRITY I
t appears that cricket is not the only sport with ‘spot fixing’ issues if the latest activity of the Mersey- side Police is any indication. Detectives executed war- rants at 10 addresses across Merseyside and Glasgow and arrested nine men as part of an investiga- tion into suspicious betting activity. The arrests were the culmination of a joint opera- tion with the Gambling Com- mission and the nine who have been arrested for con- spiracy to defraud, with four of the men bailed pending further enquiries. The investigation relates to a match between Mother- well and Hearts on 14 December 2010 where Liv- erpool-born Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings received a red card for dissent late into the match. Bookmakers, noticing a suspicious spate of bets on a red card to be issued during the match at odds of 10/1, reported the issue to the Gambling Commis- sion’s Sports Betting Integrity Unit, which fol- lowed it up with its own investigation in conjunction with Merseyside Police. What has added spice to the issue is that two of the men arrested have been named in the press as Wayne Rooney’s father and his uncle. Jennings himself was also arrested. Whether the series of events can be classed as match fixing or application of insider knowledge is down to the authorities and maybe even the courts to decide. In fact, the Gam-
bling Commission has just issued a consultation on the definitions of those terms (see page 16). But the issue of corruption in sport is being taken very seriously, as the jail sentences for the Pakistani cricketers demonstrates.
Meanwhile, Chris Eaton, head of security at FIFA, has suggested that organised criminals may have made as much as 2bn euros from fixing Italian soccer matches over the past six years and revealed that the organisation is considering an amnesty period next year for those who have been involved in match fixing. According to Reuters, he
said: “We’re going to have a rewards programme for one month from January, fol- lowed by a hotline and amnesty programme proba- bly for three months, all managed independently. This will then be followed by an assessment programme, followed by some sort of amnesty for the players who have been unfairly compro- mised, and there’ll be reha- bilitation for those players. FIFA will engage upon that next year, finished by the middle of the year and then we will follow the Sepp Blatter doctrine, which is absolute zero tolerance.” He added: “We can’t give an amnesty from criminal prosecution. It will be the first time that (rewards and amnesties) have been offered by FIFA, perhaps any sporting body - allowing players, administrators and officials to make a clean breast of it.”
£72.4m Levy scheme agreed without
determination
Racing and the betting industry managed to agree, sort of, on the 51st Levy LEVY
T
THE GAMBLING COMMISSION INVESTIGATED STEVE JENNINGS’ RED CARD
BettingBusinessInteractive • NOVEMBER 2011 2
he 51st Levy Scheme has been agreed, but not without some predictable con-
troversy. The Levy’s govern- ment appointed members (GAM) sided with the Book- makers’ Committee in order to push through this agree- ment by a majority vote, with racing claiming it could not support a target yield outside the range of £73.7m to £80.8m.
The 51st Scheme is esti- mated to yield £65.9m with an additional £6.5m pledged from Betfair bringing the total to £72.4m. Unusually,
the big three bookmakers - William Hill, Ladbrokes and Gala Coral - have agreed to guarantee that their com- bined contribution in the 51st Levy Scheme period will be not less than £45m. The 51st Levy Scheme will in most respects con- tinue the terms of the 50th Levy Scheme with a head- line rate of Levy at 10.75 per cent of bookmakers’ gross profits on British racing, and with uprating for inflation the thresholds applicable to Licensed Betting Offices (LBOs) and the fixed-sum payments in certain other categories. For an operator
with 100 or fewer betting shops, an abated rate will apply to those of its LBOs (up to a maximum of 30) which have gross profits on BHBB of less than £52,500. ABB chief executive Dirk
Vennix said it was good to see that the 51st Levy resolved. “We hope that this year’s settlement offers the impetus to find a long term and sustainable solution for the future funding of racing. The settlement provides a benchmark for future nego- tiations, provides protec- tion for small and medium sized bookmakers who face difficult trading conditions
and provides a roadmap for an effective fixture list. “Both betting and racing need a strong set of fixtures to be successful. We are therefore pleased that a minimum number of fix- tures for next year has been guaranteed, and hope we can now work with racing to slow the decline of horseracing as a betting product by, for example, ensuring a minimum number of runners per race.”
The British Horseracing Authority chairman Paul Roy complained: “There are positive elements to the 51st
ACTION IMAGES / PETER CZIBORRA
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