MOBGATE
The Biggest Systemic Matchfixing Scandal Ever To Hit English Football
When the relatively minor English Matchfixing Crisis of Nov/Dec 2013 surfaced, Sir Bob Russell MP stated "English football is rotten to the core."
Here is proof that he was correct.
The events outlined below suggest a conspiratorial structure involving the Premier League's Professional Game Match Official Board (pgMOB) refereeing body, one particular referee, an ex-referee, the largest betting exchange in the world, and a leading football agent linked to a national newspaper.
The reality exposed would happen by chance once every 93 billion years.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old.
(We areinterested in discussions with mainstream media bodies outside of Britain with regard to this post plus the betting patterns and other inputs that back up our thesis - email us at footballisfixed02@googlemail.com or follow us on Twitter @FootballisFixed and we'll follow back allowing Direct Message. British media need not approach)
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HISTORY
We have published 8 separate posts on Football Is Fixed blog highlighting the disproportionate number of BT Sports live tv matches given to referee Jon Moss. Also mentioned on numerous Twitter feeds.
John Colquhoun, a football agent, and Moss have been "acquainted" with one another since their time together as players at Sunderland in 1992.
Mr Colquhoun also 'oversees' football output at the Guardian newspaper where an entirely inappropriate symbiotic relationship exists between the paper and himself resulting in excessively positive PR for his clients and the squashing of stories that might impinge upon his empire building - the Guardian is the only mainstream media outlet not to cover the Delroy Facey matchfixing court case where an agent, players, fixers and betting bodies allegedly conspired to perform matchfixing!
Additionally, we have tweeted and blogged on several occasions about close links between Colquhoun and Alistair Campbell, a war crime apologist with close links to Burnley FC.
Keren Barratt refereed the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday in 1993 - an appointment regarded as incredulous by many in the refereeing community. He is one of only four referees to receive such an appointment without being on the International List.
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TIMELINE
Jan 19Published post "How To Spot Matchfixing"on Omertà blog (1). This post itemised suspicious betting patterns on two matches.
Jan 27Tweet regarding 7 Key Sports players at Middlesbrough with transfer of Adam Forshaw (2).
Feb 10Published post "Once Dead The Good And The Bad Are Covered By The Same Moss"on Football Is Fixed blog. Published on the following day on Omertà blog (3). This post showed highly suspicious betting patterns positively correlated with in-match decisions in Premier League matches officiated by Moss. Furthermore, the post also revealed statistically significant tilts in decision-making by Moss in favour of West Bromwich Albion, a team whose unofficial club agent is Colquhoun of Key Sports.
Feb 16 Keren Barratt, the pgMOB official with sole responsibility for selection of Premier League referees, makes appointments for weekend of Jan 21/22 - Moss is given live BT Sport event between Tottenham and West Ham.
Feb 22 Spurs draw 2-2 with the Hammers with a penalty 6 minutes into injury time which was described by BBC Sport as follows: "The striker [Kane]went down in the box under the slightest pressure from Song" (4).
Feb 23 Barratt appoints officials for Jan 28/29 and the following midweek. Moss is given Burnley v Swansea at the weekend and Aston Villa v West Brom in the midweek.
Feb 28 The suspicious betting pattern structure itemised on Feb 10 post existed on the Burnley v Swansea game but was offset by insider money surfacing elsewhere in the market. We warned our Twitter followers of this manipulated structure via a tweet pre-match (5). The pattern that historically was 100% robust was inversed as the visitors won by that very rare occurrence - a double own goal.
Mar 2 Barratt releases appointments for March 7/8. For the first time in season 2014/15, Moss is given an appointment outside of the Premier League. By fluke, the match that he is given is Nottingham Forest v Middlesbrough in the Championship.
Mar 3 Moss referees Villa v WBA and, for the first time in 18 occasions that he has refereed the Baggies, he gives a penalty/sending off against the Albion. We have been told that some media people at BT Sport were privately trading on this outcome. The delirium in the tv studio post-match appears to confirm this reality - Villa won with an injury time penalty after a bizarre collection of refereeing decisions in the game. We tweeted this reality immediately after the game finished (6).
Mar 5 We published the post "Farcical Absurdity"on Omertà detailing the strange officiating by Moss in the West Midlands derby on Tuesday (7).
Mar 7 We warned followers on Twitter about the insider trading on Nottingham Forest v Boro and published "Mocking The Zeitgeist"on Omertà blog detailing the structures (8) (9).
Mar 9 Moss is given Leicester v Hull in the latest set of Premier League appointments.
Mar 14 Moss erroneously (according to unanimous assessment by Sky Sports' Gillette Soccer Saturday pundits) sends off Tom Huddlestone for an alleged foul on Key Sports' client Jamie Vardy.
Mar 18Keren Barratt, the pgMOB administrator who has chosen Select Group officials throughout referee chief Mike Riley's reign, is removed from his post without warning and prior to the end of his contract. He is replaced by Howard Webb.
Mar 19 We tweeted a mocking message on Twitter regarding our exposure of the shenanigans that led to this sacking of Barratt and published "The Sting"on Football Is Fixed blog (10) (11).
Mar 24 Published "Making A Long Nose On The Sly"on the Football Is Fixed blog (12). In this post, we detailed further history behind this chain of events by itemising a fixed Premier League match between Fulham and Wigan in 2008 - a game exposed on Football Is Fixed blog at the time (13) - and the resultant threats received that were traced back to the offices of Mr Colquhoun.
Mar 30 I sent a letter to Colquhoun offering my "kind regards" and asking for details of his lawyers. No reply was received.
Apr 1 Published "Whistleblow While You Work"a lulzly mocking of the whole affair on the Football Is Fixed blog (14).
Apr 10 Published a blog post entitled "800 Billion To One"on Football Is Fixed blog detailing the incredibly unlikely probability that the above scenario could have happened entirely by chance - such a reality would occur naturally once every 90 billion years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old! We removed this post to archive to make way for the post that you are now reading.
Apr 12 We publish "Bet (Not So Feckin') Fair After All"questioning why Betfair both allow insider trading and why such inside activity is not exposed to the authorities by the market maker (15).
Apr 15 We contacted Colquhoun again asking for a face to face or telephone meeting (as he obviously didn't want his lawyers involved). No reply.
Apr 19 We publish the first part of "MOBGATE"on Football Is Fixed blog where we reveal the Timeline, the Statistics and the References relating to this affair. The Betting Patterns and Other Inputs are redacted until a later date.
Multiple Dates In the first four rounds of Premier League games under the selection stewardship of Howard Webb, Moss is given the live tv match between Chelsea and Stoke in the first round, is 4th official for both West Brom v Leicester (where Jamie Vardy scores winning goal in a suspicious betting market)and the live tv match between Man Utd and Man City in the second round of matches, and is referee for Crystal Palace v West Brom in the third round of matches, and a BT Sport live match between Southampton and Spurs in fourth round of games (statistics relating to this are excluded from below as we wish to focus on the Colquhoun/ Moss/ Barratt triumvirate).
Having said that, three tv games and two more WBA games is revealing as to the new entity.
And, in an act of considerable chutzpah, Webb has given this year's FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Aston Villa to...
... Mr Jonathan Moss (16).
Once we break this story in European/Australian mainstream media, this act is going to appear like systemic self-harming!
But it is worth noting that Mr Webb was referee for the fixed match between Fulham and Wigan (13) and a further massively suspicious match involving Fulham - their last day of season victory at Portsmouth that saw Reading relegated from Premier League instead of Fulham.
We have no evidence that Webb had any inappropriate part to play in these two match outcomes.
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STATISTICS
Betting Patterns On Premier League Matches Officiated By Jon Moss
To the thresholds outlined above, Moss had refereed 41 EPL games in 2013/14 and 2014/15.
There had been suspicious betting patterns in the same time window at the same bookmaker in 11 of these matches.
All these insider trading patterns were winners and major decisions in game were 11 penalties/sendings off in support of the market activity and one against - the one against was a penalty given to Spurs in a match where Man City were given three penalties plus the sending off of a Spurs player and an offside goal.
The Burnley v Swansea match was the first occasion in 42 matches where this structure was invalid and inversed.
Decision Making On West Bromwich Albion Games Officiated By Jon Moss
In his career as a professional referee, Moss had officiated WBA on 18 occasions.
In these matches he had given 11 penalties or sendings off in favour of Albion and no sendings off and no converted penalties against - some of these decisions were laughably dubious.
In the two promotion seasons for WBA in the Championship, Moss refereed Albion 5 times.
This resulted in 5 wins with 7 sendings off or penalties in favour of the West Midlands club and, obviously, none against.
The Aston Villa v West Brom game was the first occasion in 19 matches where a penalty or sending off was given against WBA.
Selection Of Referees For BT Sport Live Matches
There are 21 referees used for Premier League games.
Given equal selection, each official has a 1 in 21 chance of being chosen for BT Sport live matches.
In the aftermath of our reporting, Moss was given two of the next three BT Sport live matches (Spurs v West Ham and Villa v Albion) - he couldn't have been given the third as it was on the following night to the latter game.
There was a 1 in 21 chance of Moss getting either of these games.
Selection Of Moss For Championship Game Between Nottingham Forest And Middlesbrough
Post-threshold of our exposure, Moss was given his first non-EPL appointment of the season in the 36th round of Football League games.
The match was one of 36 Championship and Football League matches occurring in that round of games.
There was a 1 in 36 chance of Moss refereeing outside the Premier League in this round of matches and a 1 in 36 chance of the match chosen featuring Middlesbrough.
Selection Of Moss For Burnley And West Brom Game Following Our Exposé
Moss was chosen for WBA and Burnley Premier League matches in the two rounds of games after our blog posts.
There was a 1 in 5 chance of Moss getting Burnley or WBA for first round of games and a 1 in 9 chance of him getting WBA in the next round of matches.
Match Outcomes
The market likelihood of Burnley, West Brom and Middlesbrough all losing were 26.9%, 28.7% and 30.0%.
Statistical Likelihood Of These Events Happening By Chance
The probability of these selections and inversions coming to pass entirely by chance is 885 Billion to One.
These events occurred in a 14 day window covering 4 rounds of games following our exposés.
There are 38 rounds of games each season in the EPL so the chance of this structure happening in any one season is One in 93 Billion i.e. these realities would occur by chance once every 93 Billion Years.
Our universe is 13.8 billion years old.
So if our universe were seven times older than it actually is and if human beings had existed on our planet from the point of the Big Bang until now and if football was the very first thing that these humans invented and if such invention led to the immediate onset of the Premier League, MOBGATE would have happened just once.
The fact that it happened after our exposé is worthy of note!
NB. These statistics are based on means and don't attempt to market-make the reality at hand.
For instance, Moss historically gets more than one in 21 EPL games although the refereeing chat rooms (such things exist!) think he should receive next to no such appointments. The mean provides a ballpark evaluation to demonstrate the statistical significance of the structure.
It is for isolationist reasons that we don't break down the analytics any further.
There are also Bayesian techniques to address the statistics but any difference is not in orders of magnitude.
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REFERENCES
1) "How To Spot Matchfixing" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/how-to-spot-matchfixing_19.html
2) 7 Key Sports players at Middlesbrough tweet - "With the arrival of Adam Forshaw, there are now 7 Key Sports-represented players at #Middlesborough!"
3) "Once Dead The Good And The Bad Are Covered By The Same Moss" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/once-dead-good-and-bad-are-covered-by.html
4) BBC Sports report on Tottenham v West Ham http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31476002
5) Tweet warning of inversion on Burnley v Swansea - "@JohnboyMaclean The outcome will be a defeat for the integrity of #PremierLeague football. But beware, market structure is not obvious."
6) Tweet on the inverse in Aston Villa v West Brom - "Jon Moss - 18 matches reffing #WBA 11 Pens/S Offs in favour
0 against
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/once-dead-good-and-bad-are-covered-by.html …
Next game, Moss gives inj time pen against #WBA"
7) "Farcical Absurdity" blog posthttp://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/farcical-absurdity.html
8) Tweet warning about Nottingham Forest v Middlesbrough - "If you are considering betting on, attending or otherwise taking an interest in #NFFC v #Boro
READ: …http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html …"
9) "Mocking The Zeitgeist" blog post http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html
10) Tweet mocking the systemic nature of the operation and Barratt's sacking - "We mocked a #matchfixing operation.
They mocked us back.
We saw through their mockery and re-mocked.
A job is lost.
…http://trichotomoustriptychities.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/mocking-zeitgeist.html …"
11) "The Sting" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-sole-individual-who-selects-select.html
12) "Making A Long Nose On The Sly" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/a-pre-epilogue-beginning-of-end.html
13) "Happy Anniversary To Roy Hodgson" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/happy-anniversary-to-roy-hodgson.html
14) "Whistleblow While You Work" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/whistleblow-while-you-work.html
15) "Bet (Not So Feckin') Fair After All" blog post http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/bet-not-so-feckin-fair-after-all.html
16) Mark Halsey @RefereeHalsey http://www.kicca.com/RefereeHalsey/posts/55374d48aed1d94c8aac84e1
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