By Matt Scott
December 3 – Clubs should run background checks on their players’ betting habits before recruiting them or they will risk becoming targets for match fixers. That is the view of Peter Limacher (pictured), one of the foremost authorities on the illegal activities that threaten football from within.
He was familiar with the names of those alleged to have been behind the recent match-fixing scandal that rocked English football and two men facing charges in court last week.
Limacher feels that as football’s riches grow, so too do the stakes for the criminal elements and for honest players, club executives and owners alike. And as the young men whose activities generate those riches often spend small fortunes on betting, at times running up debts that are unsustainable even for them, unseen perils are forever present.
Asked in an exclusive interview with Insideworldfootball about the risks those players with gambling habits run for their careers and their clubs, Limacher was forthright. “I see it like this: would you see any bank who would not be concerned if a top employee goes regularly to a casino and bets a lot of money,” said Limacher.
“They would launch an investigation and then say: ‘Stop’. The same attitude is what in my opinion clubs need as well. What do players do when they are not at training? If they spend their time in casinos this is where they can be approached by the shady figures involved in the fixing. That’s the reality.”
Offshore dominions, which are widely and entirely legitimately used in the game for tax efficiencies around club ownership and player-image-rights payments, are a weakness. They present a double incentive to those who would consider breaching the game’s rules – and national laws – by rigging a match. If affairs are carefully structured, these havens offer both a tax-avoidance mechanism and the protective anonymity of a secrecy jurisdiction that even law-enforcement agencies can find difficult to penetrate.
“The temptation [for a player or official] is sometimes too big,” added Limacher. “It is even easy money because it is hidden and there is no tax to be paid.
“We still have a problem in Europe where we have no investigative powers under national legislation, especially here in Switzerland, so it is not helpful for a sports federation.”
While he sees some limited value in education programmes such as UEFA’s “Don’t Fix It” initiative, Limacher wants to see a proper, joined-up intelligence network for all of sport wherein the authorities can share information across national borders. Currently, he regrets, everyone is “tending their own garden”, making such an ambition difficult to realise.
But in the absence of meaningful intervention from federations and confederations, he hopes trusted third-party organisations such as his own, SIC, can provide a means for clubs to protect themselves.
“We can help clubs by gaining intelligence,” he said. “Before buying players they should know what profile a player has. Within that we have an assessment with a risk analysis about gambling and everything else.
“That is key. With our network we can help with this intelligence and clubs can gain an advantage.”
Limacher adds that it is imperative for sport to adopt the kind of approach the investigative media has employed in uncovering match-fixing scandals. “Sports should work with specialists who are used to undercover operations because we are talking about having to have contact with every side of the scenario.
“The only way to obtain information from illegal markets is to have inside information from those who have been involved in it.”
See Matt Scott’s latest column: Thinking of fixing a match? You bet your life (http://www.insideworldfootball.com/matt-scott/13720-matt-scott-thinking-of-fixing-a-match-you-bet-your-life)
Contact the writer of this story at matt.scott@insideworldfootball,com