Lets get this out of the way first: Finland soccer is not good. Outsiders who do not know any better might think that its a big time soccer country because of the reputation that the other Nordic countries are starting to build. The highest-tier league is hardly professional. So when an insane match-fixing scandal arises in their lower-division Kakkonen, chances are its more likely to be true than not.
The Dirty Money
The Kakkonen is the third-level of soccer in Finland. Their league is divided up into divisions based on location for travel purposes: North, South, East, West. There are no big time athletes in this league who have a reputation to lose.
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Most of the information regarding the game is written in, well, Finnish. At the time that I am writing this article there is only one person employed by Frostbet. Thats me. And the last time I checked, I do not speak Finnish.
Lets play a game of broken telephone with Google Chrome’s Translate Page feature. I am sure nothing will go wrong.
Tulosmanipulaatiosta!? I am sorry to hear about your diagnosis.
The following exerts are directly translated from MTV.fi’s website. The full article can be accessed by clicking here:
The article details that a five-figure sum was allegedly placed on the large road underdog KaaPo from an unknown location in Asia. The wager was accepted by a very well known bookmaker who wanted to remain anonymous. Considering the size of the wager, the bet would most likely have to be placed with an individual or locally-ran sports-book as opposed to a more well-known online betting site.
If you are not familiar with sports-betting, its important to know that it is very difficult to get down five-figures at once on any given game. It is also much more difficult to get down five-figures on a third-division Finland soccer match that no one knows anything about. Most mainstream sports-books will accept around a maximum of $5,000 US on the major American sports-leagues, and around $2,500 on major soccer leagues. Bet365’s limit for Kakkonen matches fluctuates between $1,000 – 2,000 US. This makes it very likely that the wager was placed with an individual or local establishment.
The Game
The match ended 2-1. The road underdog KaaPo scored an early goal at the 15′ mark of the match. MuSa equalized at 72′. The game looked like it was going to wrap-up with that final score until KaaPo went ahead at the 90+3′ mark from the penalty spot, with the game ending less than a minute later.
Whenever there is a late goal in a soccer match it always causes uproar. To be honest, its actually very common for goals to occur at the end of the game. The defenders are likely to be more tired than the strikers, making for a lower-quality of defense and thus a higher chance of a goal occurring.
The problem is that its hard to draw concrete conclusions without seeing it with your own eyes. I may need to change my cable provider because I do not get Finland’s Kakkonen West matches on ESPN. Wall-to-wall LeBron James coverage is far more important to these peasant americans for some reason. You uncultured degenerates cannot appreciate a perfectly seasoned match-fixing.
There is no footage of this match, so we cannot see what happened on the last play of the match (or with all of the other plays, for that matter). Lets take a look at how the betting odds moved before the game:
The Betting Timeline
All of the sports-books that provided a line for this game followed a similar trend. For the sake of using a reputable sports-book, we will look at the line featured at Bet365, which out of all the presented options would be most likely to receive fair and equal action aside from the dirty money. The line opened up at +600 on July 18th at 5:30 AM EST. The line made its first move on July 19th at 3:38 AM EST. Although this was a 100-cent jump, it is normal given that they are the road underdog. You will always find a few degenerates looking to throw their money on some random home favorite.
After that move, the line went on to collapse to +550 at 7:02 AM EST. Over the course of 3 hours and 10 minutes, it continued down the same path, going all the way to +320. It is always strange to see such a sharp drop on a road underdog in an obscure game. Its hard to think of the people who would be voluntarily betting on KaaPo to such a significant degree. Because the line dropped progressively, we also know that there were multiple people betting on them at this time.
Once the line reached +320, it rose for about half an hour up to +450. Just before game-time between 10:55 AM and 11:29 AM, there was another collapse in the line and it dropped from +450 back to +320. It then closed as the game began at 11:30 AM eastern.
Now that is a suspicious betting trend. The two distinct drops (which are observed at every other sports-book taking action on this game) are constant with what would be expected from a fixed match: Early action when the line reaches its optimal peak, followed by clueless people betting on the favorite just because they are a favorite and the line became more reasonable, followed by late tip-offs of the fix just before the game began. There is a lot of evidence of known fixed matches having an identical trend.
The Verdict
There is definitely cause for concern here. The betting trend, the scoring summary, and the large wager are all consistent with what you would expect from a fixed match. My issue is that if we take away the idea of a five-figure wager being placed on the game, how much attention will this match receive? You have a late goal scored by the road underdog from the penalty spot. It happens.
If all of the information that was released by Finland’s sports media is true regarding the large wager placed on the match, then I would be inclined to lean in the direction of suspicious activity. However, I do have a hard time believing that any individual bookmaker who is successful enough to accept five-figure action on a +700 line would take a wager on a bottom-division Scandinavian soccer match where the entire team are looking to get the game over with so they won’t be late for their dishwashing position that pays the bills.
Something does not add up.
I have presented the facts. I will post a follow-up if any new developments arise.
New Developments
There have been new developments in the Finland match-fixing investigation. Please click here to view the corresponding article.