The last few weeks were really tough for German football fans. As if the tragic suicide of our very popular national goalkeeper Robert Enke didn`t shock us enough, another shocking news ripped into the German football heart. Football betting scandal in the Bundesliga! Sepp Herberger, coach of the German World Cup winning team of 1954, once said: "The spectators go to the football, because they do not know how it ends."
Not the only, but one of the main reasons why football is so absorbing and activates millions of people around the world since decades. Herberger's legendary record is strongly challenged by the latest revelations about match-fixing and scratches immense at the positive image of Germany's most popular child - the “Bundesliga” -.
National and international newspapers and magazines such as "Manager Magazin", "Der Spiegel", "Die Welt", "Telegraph UK", report since days extensively on the subject of illegal-betting and manipulation of sporting events.
One article tries to illuminate the structures of the betting-networks, another article is discussing the impact of the recent victimizations to the sport. What is striking in the different reports further that there seems to be not only one network of betting-cheater , but rather a bunch of cheating networks which are operating independently from each other and which have one in common: They are badly damaging the Network Fussball Bundesliga by their intrigues.
On closer examination it becomes clear what the articles suggest:
Over years different networks of criminal people tried to divert the functional and homogeneous system Fussball Bundesliga from its intended use to exploit it for their own purposes by manipulation games and breaking crucial rules of that network and, by doing so, calling the right of existence of the network Bundesliga into question because they undercut a substantial part of the basic concept which is "the uncertain outcome of the games."
Would the Bundesliga still fascinating millions of people, would we still see the twinkle in the football fans eyes when fans begin to doubt whether what they see every Saturday on the field is really "honest work" or more a “collusive game”? Probably not. One thing is certain: The network of betting-cheater has successfully brought a once homogenous network comprising fans, players, clubs, TV stations out of their inner balance.
My lesson: Protect your network !
The next questions that came to me out of the above discussion were the followings: How can I protect my network and if so, is it permanently even possible? Am I ever able to identify potential threats to my network which is the crucial bases for effective protection of my network?
The example of the Football League and the sport provides evidence that, since the long history of the Bundesliga, there have always been betting-scandals once in a while and the people who have committed to illegal-betting and manipulation were rarely the same.Activities and high technology control systems introduced and installed over the last years by German and other European football associations as well as legal-betting firms in order to foreclose and discover manipulation of football games were not able to prevent the newly formed networks from trying to attack the network football again and again successfully.
Those who believe to banish manipulation and illegal-betting via high technology systems and the possibilities that arise from technological progress are wrong. Despite all the technology that is used to prevent and detect, as perfect as the systems might ever be, these systems would never be able to fix the biggest flaw in the “manipulation chain”: The manipulation of humans by humans.
A network driven by people will always be manipulated!
Christoph Wachtmeister
Articles around the manipulation in soccer
http://www.spiegel.de/thema/fussball_bestechung/dossierarchiv-4.html
Die Spielverderber – Article gives one example how manipulation in the Bundesliga might work
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-59673704.html
http://www.11freunde.de/bundesligen/125869/dieser_gegner_ist_zu_stark
Manager Magazin
http://www.manager-magazin.de/sport/fussball/0,2828,662706,00.html
T-Online
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/wettmafia-die-spur-fuehrt-nach-malaysia/id_16115684/index
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1 comment:
Yes, the Enke tragedy happened while I was in Leipzig, followed by the more sordid story of the cheating scandal. I really like your approach, as you've chosen a story that everyone can immediately understand. You focus on the negative; is there a way that SNs can be used to prevent this kind of cheating? I'm thinking of fans using Twitter at matches when they see some suspicious playing. It can be subtle, but so many fans are expert observers that they can tell when things aren't quite right. Now there's an interesting entrepreneurial idea for you, fan that you are!
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