English Premier League Thread II

luke07 · Feb 3, 2013

reina

manutd fan · Feb 3, 2013

Reina

Wonder if he'll get the DDG treatment :fp:

Congo Powers · Feb 3, 2013

Wow I watched the Liverpool Manchester city game..very nice goals

Az. · Feb 4, 2013

Match-fixing: Champions League tie played in England 'was fixed'

A Champions League tie played in England is one of 380 matches across Europe investigators say was fixed.
European police did not reveal the identity of the match they believe was corrupt in England.
But Europol did say that they had uncovered an organised crime syndicate based in Asia that was co-ordinating the operation.
Some 425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals are suspected of being involved.
Europol, which has been investigating for 18 months, said suspected matches included World Cup and European Championship qualifiers, two Champions League ties and "several top football matches in European leagues".
It is believed criminals had made eight million Euros in profits and made payments of two million Euros to those involved.
The biggest payment to an individual was 140,000 Euros.
Europol believes a crime syndicate based in Asia was liaising with criminal networks throughout Europe. It believes match-fixing has taken place in 15 countries and 50 people have so far been arrested.
Officials said they feared this was the "tip of the iceberg".
Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said: " This is the work of a suspected organised crime syndicate based in Asia and operated with criminal networks around Europe.
"It is clear to us this is the biggest-ever investigation into suspected match-fixing in Europe. It has yielded major results which we think have uncovered a big problem for the integrity of football in Europe.
"We have uncovered an extensive criminal network."
Europol gave the details on Monday at a news conference in The Hague, Netherlands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21319807

Burn the cunts!

The Bear · Feb 4, 2013

I refuse to believe that match-fixing, at least on some level, doesn't exist in a huge brand like the Prem, where there's so much money at stake. I mean you have ex-players like Matt Le Tissier coming out and joking about how they threw games, if that happened in Italy there would be endless investigations. In a country like Italy where corruption is endemic, suspending players even for failing to report that someone approached you to fix a match is the only real way to sort it out.

But I think in England there's probably a mutual understanding between everyone involved, from the FA to journalists, that any scandal would severely tarnish the Prem's brand in the long-term, despite the media frenzy it would create initially.

crazy4milan · Feb 4, 2013

The Bear said:
I refuse to believe that match-fixing, at least on some level, doesn't exist in a huge brand like the Prem, where there's so much money at stake. I mean you have ex-players like Matt Le Tissier coming out and joking about how they threw games, if that happened in Italy there would be endless investigations. In a country like Italy where corruption is endemic, suspending players even for failing to report that someone approached you to fix a match is the only real way to sort it out.

But I think in England there's probably a mutual understanding between everyone involved, from the FA to journalists, that any scandal would severely tarnish the Prem's brand in the long-term, despite the media frenzy it would create initially.

Same. I believe it happens in every single league, it's sad that it does, but its just soo much money involved, that it's naive to believe it's clean. And I can understand why its covered, look at what Calciopoli did to Serie A, it was good that it happened, but Serie A is still in a mess, 6-7 years after, and now EVERYTHING is called match fixing/corruption.

Armin__m · Feb 4, 2013

crazy4milan said:
Same. I believe it happens in every single league, it's sad that it does, but its just soo much money involved, that it's naive to believe it's clean. And I can understand why its covered, look at what Calciopoli did to Serie A, it was good that it happened, but Serie A is still in a mess, 6-7 years after, and now EVERYTHING is called match fixing/corruption.

Yeah, and it will drag on for years.. Every time a referee makes a big mistake, you can sense that people think of Calciopoli even if they don`t always say it..

Christian · Feb 4, 2013

So in 2008 Liverpool played Debrecen in the Champions League, several of Debrecens players, among them their goalkeeper, had agreed to let Liverpool score at least 3 goals. Liverpool however, still wasn't capable of scoring more than 1 :lol:

http://sporten.tv2.dk/2013-02-04-medie-liverpool-kamp-ramt-af-matchfixing

And regarding match fixing in general, it obviously happens, probably in England as well, but as far as I can tell. Alot of it though seems to mostly involve stuff like who gets the first corner, and that sort of thing, especially in the lower leagues. Actually I'd be surprised if those 'harmless' bets weren't very common for players who aren't payed millions a year.

The Bear · Feb 4, 2013

crazy4milan said:
Same. I believe it happens in every single league, it's sad that it does, but its just soo much money involved, that it's naive to believe it's clean. And I can understand why its covered, look at what Calciopoli did to Serie A, it was good that it happened, but Serie A is still in a mess, 6-7 years after, and now EVERYTHING is called match fixing/corruption.

I think that's a separate issue though, and more likely down to Italian society's suspicious nature of corruption in general. The fact is that a poor ref is seen as incompetent in England, in Italy a poor ref is corrupt and on the take. That's been the case even before Calciopoli simply because Italian culture dictates so.

I mean look at how the post-match shows in Italy analyse refereeing errors, the ref becomes more of a talking point than the match sometimes.

And if I'm not mistaken, Fabio Baldas' weekend programmes showing refereeing errors in Juve's favour was one of the first things that led to suspicions and the consequent investigations in 2006. Which is ironic really, given that he and Moggi had a deal in place: exclusive news about Juve in return for Baldas concealing refereeing bias on his programme.

Hugh Janus · Feb 5, 2013

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/2641675.stm

:lol:

crazy4milan · Feb 5, 2013

The Bear said:
I think that's a separate issue though, and more likely down to Italian society's suspicious nature of corruption in general. The fact is that a poor ref is seen as incompetent in England, in Italy a poor ref is corrupt and on the take. That's been the case even before Calciopoli simply because Italian culture dictates so.

I mean look at how the post-match shows in Italy analyse refereeing errors, the ref becomes more of a talking point than the match sometimes.

And if I'm not mistaken, Fabio Baldas' weekend programmes showing refereeing errors in Juve's favour was one of the first things that led to suspicions and the consequent investigations in 2006. Which is ironic really, given that he and Moggi had a deal in place: exclusive news about Juve in return for Baldas concealing refereeing bias on his programme.

True. Though I think its even worse now than it was before Calciopoli. Before Calciopoli it was talked about and moviola had its place and the analysis of ref errors was detailed but it was a 2 minute thing at most. Post calciopoli world has at least 7-8 minutes discussion of ref errors, everybody screams corruption at the most basic error and everybody has a detailed count of the ref errors against their team and in favour of their rivals.

Needless to say an own goal or a big mistake by a defender or a forward first thing people do is to look for his past as a juventino/interista/milan/etc. player. TBF, rarely people think "ohh he's gambling so he made this mistake!" (which is weird cause I would say the most possible match fixing situation that can happen is exactly that, specially with smaller teams invovled, though to be fair people don't focus on that cause rarely players from Milan, Juve, Inter, etc would do it, but its far more likely that this is happening than refs being bought).

Post calciopoli has made everyone much more paranoid than they were before (and that's a lot) and internationally the league has a way worse reputation than it had before (before calciopoli no one outside of Italy really looked at thhings happening as fishy), eventhough, its the only league that has taken real action on this scandals.

neutral · Feb 5, 2013

I can only laugh

Alex McLeish leaves Nottingham Forest after 40 days in charge

Nottingham Forest's season has descended into farce after Alex McLeish left his post as manager at the City Ground only 40 days after replacing Sean O'Driscoll. McLeish's departure, which comes as no surprise after he was left deeply frustrated with the lack of activity in last month's transfer window, means that the al-Hasawi family, Forest's Kuwaiti owners, are now looking for their fourth manager since they took control of the club in July.

Rumours surfaced last Thursday night that McLeish had walked out after being bitterly upset with the club's refusal to sanction a deal for George Boyd, whose move from Peterborough collapsed because of an alleged eye defect. It was one of a number of signings that McLeish had hoped to make on a deadline day, only for none of the deals to come off. Forest's chairman, Fawaz al-Hasawi, insisted there was no truth in the rumours, and that he and McLeish "have a very good working relationship and it troubles me greatly that people think otherwise".

Although McLeish stayed on to take charge of Saturday's away game at Birmingham City, where he was returning for the first time since his highly controversial switch to Aston Villa in the summer of 2011, he did nothing to dampen the speculation about his position when he refused to answer questions about his future after the 2-1 defeat at St Andrew's. There was a sense of inevitability that he would soon be moving on.

That news arrived on Tuesday morning, when McLeish issued a statement, via the League Managers' Association, confirming that he had left Forest by mutual consent after seven games in charge that delivered one win, two draws and four defeats. "I am extremely saddened to be leaving after such a short period but even so it has been a privilege to be manager of such a fantastic football club and I want to thank the players, staff and fans for their support and wish Nottingham Forest the best of fortunes ahead.

"Both parties entered into the relationship in good faith. However, there was a difference in the understanding of the development strategy of the football club and it was felt by both parties that we should part company."

Nigel Adkins has been installed as the early favourite for the position, although it would be a brave man that takes the Forest job under the current owners and with so much turmoil behind the scenes. While it may not have come as a huge surprise when the al-Hasawi family sacked Steve Cotterill within 48 hours of completing their takeover, the decision to dismiss O'Driscoll, only hours after Forest had defeated Leeds United 4-2 to leave them only one point adrift of the play-off places, went down badly with many supporters.

Fawaz al-Hasawi, Forest's chairman, said on the clubs website: "I'm bitterly disappointed – as is Alex – that it has not worked out as we had hoped. I would like to put on record my thanks for his services and wish him every success in the future."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/05/alex-mcleish-leaves-nottingham-forest

manutd fan · Feb 5, 2013

The difference between England and most other leagues is the media. They're constantly trying to find out about corruption amongst other things, and they'll happily break laws to get that information.

If there was some proper match fixing going on in the Premiership (i.e Fergie paying a ref), they'd be onto it in a sniff. There's nothing they'd like more than to stick one to a major name. Look at the phone hacking scandal - people in football have been targeted (including SAF).

Those who think there's some unofficial agreement that they won't tell anyone because it harms the EPL brand clearly has no clue how the print media work in the UK. It's dog eat dog. Do you have any idea how much praise would be heaped on the newspaper that managed to prove Fergie, Mancini or Mourinho are corrupt? It's possible there's corruption, but the idea that the print based media are aware of it but choose to remain silent is ridiculous.

If The Sun had proof that Mancini paid Howard Webb, they absolutely would run with it. Not only because it gives them an insane amount of credit (and thus increase their sales, which is where all print based media are falling atm), but they literally could not afford to let another paper get hold of the information and release it themselves.

That being said, the whole 'who gets the first corner' stuff might be the closest we come to corruption on the field - especially as in the past gambling as been a major issue with Premiership players. Gary Neville said in his book that half the England squad in the 90's were obsessed with it and would piss away thousands on the coach too and from games.

Senatore_M84 · Feb 5, 2013

Here's the thing.... i agree with both bear/c4m on culture and man utd fan on english media

but the epl is too risky to try and match fix. The players are too well paid, too much to lose.

The match fixing, which is caught is almost exclusively on lower league games. And it wouldn't shock me if that happened in england or anywhere else. And it's a lot more likely players are paid to throw a game or perhaps a coach, than ref being paid (Albiet not impossiblE)

_

And thats why calciopoli was a real shame. I'll troll juve about it, but reality is... there's no clear evidence they actually did anything different than milan or inter. Galliani and Moratti broke same rules as Moggi (perhaps less arrogant about it as moggi).

Sommescopoli is more like type of match fixing stuff which does happen everywhere and go figure it's.... serie b

Arsene · Feb 5, 2013

The Bear said:
I refuse to believe that match-fixing, at least on some level, doesn't exist in a huge brand like the Prem, where there's so much money at stake. I mean you have ex-players like Matt Le Tissier coming out and joking about how they threw games, if that happened in Italy there would be endless investigations. In a country like Italy where corruption is endemic, suspending players even for failing to report that someone approached you to fix a match is the only real way to sort it out.

But I think in England there's probably a mutual understanding between everyone involved, from the FA to journalists, that any scandal would severely tarnish the Prem's brand in the long-term, despite the media frenzy it would create initially.

If you believe that then you really dont know the English mentality. When we say rivals in England we mean it, not like Milan and Inter who share a ground and do business with each other. We never do business with Spurs or would never share anything with them. We took CL spot from them twice in the last day of the season, so if you think their owners would show us any loyalty by covering for us and lose out all that money, then you are wrong.

I dont want to upset people her, but Italians are simply more corrupt than the English. Dont get me wrong, Im sure there has been individual players who has taking bribes from bookies. But I cant see any management or owners be part of it like in Italy, or a manager like Conte keeping it quite. Wenger says the English are far more honest than the french and thats one thing he respect them about. And lets be honest here, the Italians are even worse than the French when it comes to bending the rules

tuxedo · Feb 5, 2013

neutral said:
I can only laugh

Alex McLeish leaves Nottingham Forest after 40 days in charge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/05/alex-mcleish-leaves-nottingham-forest

It seems like there is no middle ground with some of these investors. Either throw wads of money at Man City or PSG or do the opposite at Forest or Malaga.

crazy4milan · Feb 5, 2013

manutd fan said:
The difference between England and most other leagues is the media. They're constantly trying to find out about corruption amongst other things, and they'll happily break laws to get that information.

If there was some proper match fixing going on in the Premiership (i.e Fergie paying a ref), they'd be onto it in a sniff. There's nothing they'd like more than to stick one to a major name. Look at the phone hacking scandal - people in football have been targeted (including SAF).

Those who think there's some unofficial agreement that they won't tell anyone because it harms the EPL brand clearly has no clue how the print media work in the UK. It's dog eat dog. Do you have any idea how much praise would be heaped on the newspaper that managed to prove Fergie, Mancini or Mourinho are corrupt? It's possible there's corruption, but the idea that the print based media are aware of it but choose to remain silent is ridiculous.

If The Sun had proof that Mancini paid Howard Webb, they absolutely would run with it. Not only because it gives them an insane amount of credit (and thus increase their sales, which is where all print based media are falling atm), but they literally could not afford to let another paper get hold of the information and release it themselves.

That being said, the whole 'who gets the first corner' stuff might be the closest we come to corruption on the field - especially as in the past gambling as been a major issue with Premiership players. Gary Neville said in his book that half the England squad in the 90's were obsessed with it and would piss away thousands on the coach too and from games.

I don't think this scandal is involving the bigger names, like I hinted in the other post and in the Corruption in Football thread...its players from lower divisions or from small clubs, they are the vulnerable population to get approach by the mafias. The media won't make a big fuzz in England cause you guys are interested in big names, not in the Sculli's of your league.

That said, I still have my doubts over how "clean" the EPL might be in general, it doesn't have to be SAF buying refs or Mancini paying off the rivals...but it can present itself in other ways, the media can only prove so much without whistle blower (and we're talking about part of the media, I assume for example SKY would be primarly interested in not letting anything out), and yes the brand of the league does come in play here.

EPL took a lot of time to build to where it is right now...it went through a traumatic build up. And as much as you guys are "real rivals unlike the others that share players", the money the league makes its equally important to all of you, and I suspect that the foreigner owners from your teams are part of the reason that things are kept shut. After all they invested big in teams from a fresh, and clean league that got rid of all the rotten apples that are still present in every other league.

Sage · Feb 5, 2013

championship players are well paid AFAIK

Senatore_M84 · Feb 5, 2013

Sage said:
championship players are well paid AFAIK

definitely better than other 2nd divisions but still..... no where near EPL.

And I was talking even lower. Wasn't there a bunch of stuff in like division 1?

Kalac#16 · Feb 5, 2013

neutral said:
I can only laugh

Alex McLeish leaves Nottingham Forest after 40 days in charge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/05/alex-mcleish-leaves-nottingham-forest

McLeish is a horrible manager. It wasn't ever going to work regardless of January dealings

As far as Championship wages go, from what I gather it's kind of in 2 tiers, the small clubs can't pay much more than about 7-10k a week and that's for top, top players. Then the bigger spending clubs will pay closer towards 20 for their best, with Leicester being the exception.

Average is probably 8k

manutd fan · Feb 5, 2013

crazy4milan said:
I don't think this scandal is involving the bigger names, like I hinted in the other post and in the Corruption in Football thread...its players from lower divisions or from small clubs, they are the vulnerable population to get approach by the mafias. The media won't make a big fuzz in England cause you guys are interested in big names, not in the Sculli's of your league.

This simply isn't true. Sure the big names get the big headlines (usually negative), but when it comes to things like corruption, racism ect the lower leagues still get a lot of attention - more so than their actual football. Particularly the Championship as sides like Leeds, Middlesborough, Forest, Blackpool, Sheffield United, Crystal Palace ect still hold a lot of weight in the press.

That said, I still have my doubts over how "clean" the EPL might be in general, it doesn't have to be SAF buying refs or Mancini paying off the rivals...but it can present itself in other ways, the media can only prove so much without whistle blower (and we're talking about part of the media, I assume for example SKY would be primarly interested in not letting anything out), and yes the brand of the league does come in play here.

Sky wouldn't have a choice, because if they had the information it would quickly be found out by the newspapers. If Sky had the information proving that a top club was corrupt, they would absolutely let the public know because it's too risky.

Rupert Murdoch is close to the government and has already been ravaged in the press for the phone hacking scandal - he + his son have been called to give evidence many times, where he apparently 'didn't know anything about it'. It almost ruined his relationship with the government which over the years has been (too) tight, I think potentially he could have faced criminal charges, it's cost him millions in compensation + legal costs ectIf it got out, which it eventually would, that his company knew about curruption at the highest level then that's him finished. He couldn't risk it.

EPL took a lot of time to build to where it is right now...it went through a traumatic build up. And as much as you guys are "real rivals unlike the others that share players", the money the league makes its equally important to all of you, and I suspect that the foreigner owners from your teams are part of the reason that things are kept shut. After all they invested big in teams from a fresh, and clean league that got rid of all the rotten apples that are still present in every other league.

The EPL definitely isn't clean off the pitch. At the end of the day it's a business and the vast majority of global businesses will have engaged in some dodgy work over the years with contracts, deals ect.

And as Arsene said, clubs are struggling just to survive these days with the debts and costs going up - there's no way say, Dave Whelan (Wigan Chairman) will keep his gob shut if he found out other clubs were match fixing.

It's a bit far fetched to believe all the foreign owners like Lerner, Glazers, Henry, Abramovic ect are all involved in some massive cover up.

neutral · Feb 5, 2013

Kalac#16 said:
McLeish is a horrible manager. It wasn't ever going to work regardless of January dealings

I never expected it to work , saw some of Mcleish's work with Villa and disliked what i saw. The sacking of SOD was the major failure though imo. Not sure if the ownership is taking drugs atm but i cant for the life of me understand the direction they are trying to head in.

neutral · Feb 7, 2013

Looks like Billy Davies is on his way back to Forest.

Sage · Feb 7, 2013

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan
You're missing the key Neymar quote, Le Pitbull @Joey7Barton - he'd never heard of you.

Joseph Barton ‏@Joey7Barton
@piersmorgan i'll introduce myself to him if he ever decides to leave the sanctuary of the amazon jungle league...

G.Costanza · Feb 7, 2013

It's amazing how Joey Barton is still an active pro football player.

nuttela · Feb 7, 2013

what a volatile person. Picking fights with everyone on the planet and making stupid ass comments

jammin · Feb 7, 2013

de nuttela said:
what a volatile person. Picking fights with everyone on the planet and making stupid ass comments

Piers Morgan or Joey Barton?

nuttela · Feb 7, 2013

jammin said:
Piers Morgan or Joey Barton?

nice one

I'm referring to JB

manutd fan · Feb 8, 2013

New Premiership rules have been introduced:

The 20 club chairmen agreed to two significant controls on Thursday - to limit players' wage bills from next season and to longer-term measures that will restrict the amount of losses clubs can make to £105million over three years.

Clubs whose total wage bill is more than £52m will only be allowed to increase their wages by £4m per season for the next three years, but the cap does not cover extra money coming in from increases in commercial or matchday income.

All Premiership clubs voted and it was 13-7 in favour of the change. Fulham, West Brom, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Swansea and Southampton all voted against, everyone else voted for.

Surprised Chelsea voted for. Over the last 3 years Chelsea, City and Liverpool would have been in breach of the rules. All but 6 six clubs would have been in breach of the new wages rule.

More details: http://www1.skysports.com/football/...eduction-if-they-breach-new-spending-controls

Also, Jamie Carragher will retire.

vB9 · Feb 8, 2013

^^ Also news, Fergie got fined 12 quid.

English Premier League Thread II

Who will win the EPL title this year?

Manchester City

Chelsea

Arsenal

Manchester United

Liverpool

Other

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pour l'éternité

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