The league, along with both teams involved, have released statements regarding yesterday’s match-fixing scandal in Finland’s third-tier Kakkonen West division.
If you have not read the first story, please click here for all the details.
The Statement
Earlier this morning, chairman of KaaPo (the team that scored a 90+3′ penalty to win the game as +700 road underdogs on the opening line) Olli Tuominen released the following statement with regards to the match-fixing allegations:
In his statement, he claims that none of the players on his team had any involvement in any suspicious activity that could have taken place during the game. The problem with this statement is that it means nothing. There was never a doubt that none of the KaaPo players would have any involvement in any potential suspicious activity.
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The rumored five-figure wager discussed in our previous article was placed on KaaPo to win the match at a price between +500 ($500 profit for every $100 risked) and +800 ($800 profit for every $100 risked). They would never enter this match with the intentions of not winning. Involving them in any potential match-fixing scandal would be a bad idea if you needed them to win. Telling their players that you have placed a large sum of money on them and you need them to win would do two things: 1) Give the match-fixer a much higher chance of getting caught, and 2) make the players really fucking nervous. We can pretty much conclude that no KaaPo players had anything to do with this.
If any suspicious activity was to occur, it would have been with the parties who would have the greater impact on the match: The team that was suppose to lose, and the officiating team. MuSa, the team that ended up losing as heavy home favorites, released a statement saying they would be assisting in the investigation.
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How to fix a match
The first rule of Match-Fixing Club is that you do not talk about Match-Fixing Club. If you want to pull off a successful fix, you want to involve the least amount of people possible. Not only does this mean each person involved gets a higher percentage of the money, but there is a less chance you accidentally included a Nervous Nancy who is going to crack under the first sign of pressure.
Lets talk hypotheticals. Remember, I am not accusing anyone of anything. I just started this website, and I would rather not get sued on day one! If I was going to be conducting this fix, where the +800 road underdog was going to be winning straight-up (remember, a draw would equal a loss for betting purposes), who would be the best people to involve in this scandal? Lets make a shopping list.
The first item on our grocery list are eggs, or should I say a lack thereof. We need to ensure that the road team does not lay an egg and get shutout. When you are dealing with a +800 road underdog, there is a very good chance that the home team turns in a clean-sheet, which would mean a guaranteed loss for the bet. While you cannot approach the visitors and tell them to play better (because they are already going to be trying as hard as they can), the best source for goals would be the referee. He has the power to put the road team’s players at the penalty spot, where they are very likely to convert a goal. The referee can also be biased in his distribution of fouls and cards. Involving the second and third officials manning the offside flags would be too much. We will leave them off our hypothetical list.
You might be thinking that you should just involve the home team’s goaltender. The problem with this is that in a soccer game where one team is significantly better than the other, it is entirely possible that the weaker team will not get an attempt on net at all. Its far too risky to leave that up to chance. Even if the goaltender refused to make any attempt to stop the ball, there is a decent chance his defense would still let him turn in the clean sheet.
If the referee agreed to give us goals, we now need to ensure that the home team does not get any for themselves. The strikers are the primary goal-scorers in soccer. If you ensured that they stayed off the scoresheet, you would cut the team’s offensive production by a majority margin. Teams can field anywhere from one to three strikers, depending on the formation they elected to run.
MuSa’s lone goal did however come from a striker (Sami Rantala). This was an equalizer late in the match that would have put a potential fix in jeopardy. I think it is safe to cross him off the list of this theoretical investigation.
Where do we go from here
I am curious to see how the league carries on with their investigation. I believe there are only a small group of people who need to be checked. There are virtually no scenarios where a member of KaaPo would have anything to do with this. However, it is a necessity for the league to do its due diligence to ensure that they find out everything that each player knows, if anything at all.
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