Low wages, journeymen players and proximity to south east Asia mean match-fixers have an eye on Australia football
On Sunday we learned two things. The first is that football in Victoria isn't perhaps as clean as we thought. The second is that VPL isn't simply an acronym for the Victorian Premier League, but also Twitter slang for "visible panty line". A diverse hashtag, by midday it was trending in Australia.
It was the best, if the most bizarre story of the day. Fairfax Media alleged that an organised syndicate has been fixing the outcome of matches in the Victorian Premier League – the club in question, Southern Stars, have denied any knowledge of the claims – apparently earning millions of dollars from the fixtures off Asian betting markets.
If nothing else, it made Nick 'Queenslander' Meredith look like a prophet after this timely op-ed piece on the FFA's website a little over three weeks ago.
Having organised a press conference within hours of the news, the FFA came out on the front foot, with David Gallop assuring us all that "the integrity of football will be protected", and that the detection systems are working. According to Victoria Police, the FFA pointed them in the direction of the syndicate after several suspiciously heavy losses were incurred by Southern Stars, a club based in Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs.
The FFA was tipped off by Sportsradar, a sports betting intelligence agency based in Switzerland. The Southern Stars position at the bottom of the competition ladder, not to mention some comically bad performances had raised questions with the Swiss company.
While match-fixing is hardly a new phenomenon in football, the fact that the VPL has been involved in allegations may come as a surprise to many. The metropolitan Melbourne football competition is hardly a bastion of glitz and glamour, with most of the players on semi-professional contracts for community clubs that are organised on the sweat of volunteers. With precious little media promotion in Victoria, most VPL matches struggle to attract more than 1,000 fans.
Perhaps this is part of the problem. According to a 2012 FIFPro report, player mistreatment is a root cause of match-fixing. If players are paid low wages there is a real possibility they may be tempted by match-fixing syndicates.
A lower league competition that relatively few people care about makes for easier pickings. As David Gallop admitted: "This highlights the fact that lower league games, which aren't under the scrutiny of things like TV broadcasts, are potentially more susceptible to this kind of activity."
In this case, those accused of being involved have come from overseas to play in the European off-season.
While a high-ranking Football Federation Victoria official said that the FFV was "shocked" at the developments in a press release, perhaps a few questions need to be asked of the state's governing body. How is it possible for alarm bells not to ring when five foreign players waltz into one club, with no desire to be paid for their services? The Southern Stars president, Ercan Cicek, explained to AAP yesterday that the board said "Oh beautiful, five players for free, we're not going to pay anything, it's a big big bonus."
According to one VPL club official, it has been common knowledge that Southern Stars are broke for at least a year. While praising the FFA on its diligence, the official, who didn't want to be named, expressed his dismay that the FFV allowed the Stars to sign so many players in the transfer window.
Whether this should have been enough to grab the attention of the FFV may be a moot point now. The season has been tainted, which only adds to the woes for the state's governing body. The FFV is also fighting a court case involving many of the state's biggest clubs over the rollout of a new state competition, which is scheduled to begin next season.
Fairfax have revealed that the main suspect is "the world's biggest match fixer" Wilson Raj Perumal, who operates from Hungary. The events will no doubt act as a cautionary tale for the FFA, not to mention other sports. Illegal sports betting has found a comfortable niche on our doorstep in south east Asia, and tackling the issue is made all the more difficult by the fact that it is beyond Australia's jurisdiction. As Sean Ingle pointed out recently in the Guardian, legalising betting in south east Asia may help, but is more of a pipe dream than a realistic solution.
In February this year, the Victorian deputy police commissioner, Graham Ashton, told Fairfax that match fixing was "this thing coming down the highway and we have to be prepared." Now that it has arrived, Ashton says that it's "just the tip of the iceberg."
Match-fixing
Australia sport
Joe Gorman
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