Athlone match-fixing investigation a warning for Irish sport

When news broke of a suspected international match-fixing scandal involving Athlone Town versus Longford Town I suspect most people's reaction was the same – who in the world gets their kicks betting big on League of Ireland football?

And second-tier stuff too. The League of Ireland’s Premier Division ague can seem a cosy incubator for those fervently proselytising local purity but pouring both passion and money into the level below is devotion above and beyond the call.

And they’re out there. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be betting for the unscrupulous to manipulate in the first place.

However when Athlone players, officials and coaches are interviewed on Monday it won’t be in the context of a couple of hundred die-hards mooching in to watch the ‘Midlands Clasico’ with loyal fiver dockets in their arse pockets.  Instead it’s the near half a million quid the match reportedly generated in a specific scoreline market which is the most important figure in all of this, a figure that has nothing to do with the enthusiasm of a tiny few but the calculated intent of those prepared to exploit it.

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It’s tempting to adopt ‘same as it ever was’ resignation here. It’s not like match-fixing is anything new. Long ignominious lists of past scandals have been dutifully unfurled over the last few days, sorry testament to greed and the lure of an easy buck.

And it’s true that not much has changed in terms of motive. What has changed utterly though is both the scale and opportunity involved in the modern gambling environment.

In fact the wonder is not that there are those intent on queering the pitch but how anyone can reasonably presume it couldn’t be the case, even in the little old League of Ireland. Perhaps the only real surprise in all of this really is that people might be surprised.

We’re talking nearly half a million here, or at least that’s what’s been thrown out which, considering the betting industry is notoriously imprecise in its headline-friendly totting, might or might not be near the mark.

But, whatever the precise figure, it was bet on one market in a second-level League of Ireland match between two clubs surviving on minuscule crowds watching players mostly either dreaming of going somewhere else or eking out a few more quid before age gets in the way.

Digital betting

Such on the ground action might suggest old-school gambling of the stubby pencil variety but the scope of the digital betting reality is too sophisticated to indulge such nostalgia.

Football isn’t unique in this. Every day of the week there are gaff races worth four figures in prizemoney, with jockeys being paid a couple of hundred to risk their necks, that can generate up to half a million in betting on a single exchange.

It takes stupidity, naivety, and maybe a large dollop of cynicism, to presume even a rough tot of such figures isn’t going to at least prod people into examining the odds on not getting caught if they do break the rules.

Sports organisations around the globe have learned to appreciate the bitter reality of just how tiny the betting world can be when there’s universal access to pictures and home is where the ‘send’ button is.

That’s important since there’s often a disconnect here when sports betting scandals get put in the context of ‘Asian’ bookmakers.

It conjures far-off images of exotic Jackie Chan figures pulling off martial arts moves in Shanghai sweat shops rather than some chancer much closer to home putting the bite on a chilblained youngster who might be tempted by the prospect of an easy few quid, or encouraged to be.

Where such human contact takes place is irrelevant when the universal urge to bet is so easily accommodated and it’s so simple to get on, whatever the sport and wherever it takes place.

It means the onus on sports bodies to take integrity seriously has never been more vital despite which some appear to be playing serious catch-up.

On the surface it’s hard to credit how Athlone can become the property of investors who, publicly at least, no one seems to know anything about. Widespread unease about the situation was treated it seems to FAI assurances which come across as little more than ‘ah sure it’ll be grand’.

Fig leaf

Even when the financial implications of a club’s activities could be judged from a collection bucket, that wasn’t good enough. Now it’s just not on, not with the sort of money bet worldwide on the timing of a goal in a nondescript match which in this case happened to be in the middle of Ireland.

Except the worry is that it didn’t just happen to be here but that here provided opportunity

And that’s a wake-up call, not just to the FAI but to all sports governing bodies. New betting realities mean integrity can’t be just an exercise in optics, some convenient figleaf of probity that allows everyone get on with their business as before.

The idea of major sporting bodies in Ireland not budgeting for integrity units, or setting up the sort of structures that encourage and protect those prepared to blow the whistle, automatically encourages cheats to think the odds are in their favour.

That requires investment and there are long-term questions here in terms of the betting industry paying a bigger slice of turnover towards the cost of maintaining the integrity of sports they have an obvious interest in keeping clean.

The outcome of investigations into this specific match will be important in terms of the message of intent it sends out.

But more important again will be lessons it teaches those at the top of Irish sport about the scale of the fight to preserve integrity here. Preserving public confidence, and being seen to do so, is expensive. But it’s a lot cheaper than having to retrieve it.