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The national feeding frenzy starts in earnest; what meat there is on the bones is the point now

16th October 2008 By Latest News Leave a Comment

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Fleet Street's finest – or their modern day equivalents – all ploughed into the great 'match-fixing' debate this morning as national newspaper after national newspaper duly offered their thoughts on events of October 4.

Or rather didn't. For unlike the two Norfolk MPs who brought the whole 'story' into the public arena overnight with their use of parliamentary privilege to name the Norwich City versus Derby County game as the contest under question, each and every publisher thereafter has kept one eye on the laws of libel and slander.

And rightly so. In the current climate no-one will want to be following path News International was forced to tread in its lengthy legal battles with former Liverpool star Bruce Grobbelaar.

The Football Association and the Gambling Commission are currently investigating reports of unusual betting activity in the Far Eastern spread-betting markets was, basically, where the story started and finished. And until either issued even an interim statement into the whole affair, then no-one would be any the wiser.

There could, quite simply, be no story at all. Just so many Chinese whispers… or Singapore whispers, to be more precise.

So, in no particular order, in ploughed the Daily Telegraph whose sister title, the Sunday Telegraph, first directed the public towards suspicions circulating in the UK spread betting community concerning the level of half-time movement in an as then unnamed Championship fixture.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/championship/3209041/FA-to-investigate-match-fixing-claims-as-MPs-raise-questions-in-parliament-over-integrity-of-the-game-Football.html

The Guardian, The Times and The Independent swifty followed as the story gained a national life of its own.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/oct/16/derbycounty-norwichcity

and again…

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/mps-raise-matchfixing-questions-in-parliament-963265.html

and again…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article4954836.ece

None, however, gave the story any greater 'legs'; neither football club had added to their original statements – that they were both still waiting to be contacted by the FA – while from Soho Square itself, the line remain unaltered.

'An FA spokesman confirmed this was the game they were investigating and said: “We are investigating the reports about this game but we have no further comment to make at this stage.”' was the line from The Times.

All that you could say some 12 hours on was that a fairly meaty media 'storm' was starting to gather; one that – in every likelihood – would take a few days to blow over.

But unless the Singapore spread betting market proved both full and frank in the level of their disclosures to the UK authorities and provided hard and incontrovertible evidence that something seriously odd was a-foot – sufficiently odd to withstand a forensic examination in an English court of law – it was difficult to see where the current fuss and furore would all lead.

All it had achieved thus far was to leave a nasty, suspicious-looking cloud hanging over both clubs when – in Norwich's case, in particular – all thoughts and energies needed to be directed to digging the club out of their current, 21st spot in the Championship. Starting with a reversal of last season's fortunes at Ashton Gate on Saturday.

The pressure would now be on City boss Glenn Roeder to keep everyone's thoughts fully focussed on that trip to the West Country as opposed to be dragged into the current distractions – as serious, potentially, as they are.

If, of course, there was (a) actually a charge to be answered and (b), more pertinently, a water-tight case to be proved.

But if there is even the remotest doubt about (a), then the chances of ever delivering on (b) are likely to be slim to nil.

Which is why most commentators expect the storm to blow over – particularly once the national media have moved on elsewhere.


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