Author Archives: Albert Edwards

Fifa’s Half Hearted Approach?

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This is a good article about the smoke and mirrors that goes on behind the scenes.  Who do you think has more control when that is Fifa’s reaction, leagues themselves or the fixers on the outside?

Fifa generated a surplus of $631m between 2007 and 2010. Fifa has over $1.2bn in financial reserves

 

And they don’t want Interpol to investigate anything, just brainstorm and talk to the players, coaches and officials about morality and the in’s and out’s of prison life.

http://pitchinvasion.net/blog/2011/05/09/fifas-half-hearted-tackle-on-match-fixing-in-soccer/

Convictions for Finnish Football League Match-Fixing

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Nine people were convicted in the case.  There will always be those who try and beat the system believing the hand is quicker than the eye, and there will always be those who are vulnerable to using a little extra cash for whatever reason.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8496787/Wilson-Raj-Perumal-the-convicted-match-fixer-who-ran-international-empire-yards-from-Wembley.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700142825/Match-fixing-trial-opens-against-10-in-Finland.html

Cricket Scandal in Pakistan

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Everyone loves a good game of cricket and it comes as no surprise that in an emerging country where players receiving what would be considered part time pay in America, three people have been sent to prison to match fixing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056982/Pakistan-spot-fixing-players-corrupt-agent-jailed-cricket-betting-scandal.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/gallery/2011/nov/01/pakistan-cricket-betting-scandal-in-pictures#/?picture=381270914&index=3

 

 

 

 

NFL Commish Acting as Agent for Philadelphia?

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I don’t know what this is all about.  Only two of the least desirable places in the NFL offer Michael Vick a sniff after prison and the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell asks Vick if he’d join the Eagles.

Am I missing something, Is Goodell he Andy Reid’s errand boy?

http://technorati.com/sports/football/article/did-goodell-steer-vick-to-eagles/

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8218ce01/article/unique-circumstances-led-to-goodells-steering-of-vick

Does the UFC Have a Secret?

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Ben Fowlkes over at thescore.ca claims that the Dana White and the UFC treats it’s athlete’s use of performance enhancing drugs the same way my boss treats my use of marijuana at work.  They may turn a blind eye to the usage even if they smell something funny, but if we get caught by an outside party look out.   Self righteousness will reign.

http://blogs.thescore.com/mma/2011/06/30/plenty-of-blame-to-go-around-in-nate-marquardt-situation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SpinalTapOut+%28Spinal+Tap+Out%29

 

In the end the UFC is following suit with the other major league corporations.  PED’s make their products better.   But the usage of them is seen by the law as wrong and therefore bad for business.

Major League Baseball enjoyed the usage of steriods through the 1990′s and 2000′s as baseball left the park at record rates and players stayed and excelled playing the game long after their contemporaries from another era were either long gone from the playing field or batting below the mendoza line, well before the average .200 had a name.

But when steriods became too hard to hide any longer and baseball players linked to PED’s became as long or longer than the list of players not linked MLB had no choice but to crack down on detectable steriod usage.

Part of that result for MLB is that the past two World Series (’09, ’10) have had the lowest television ratings in years….something that Dana White and the UFC definitely don’t want.

Lance Armstrong

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This just in…

The director of the Swiss anti-doping laboratory informed federal authorities last fall that Lance Armstrong’s test results from the 2001 Tour de Suisse were “suspicious” and “consistent with EPO use,” The Associated Press has learned.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com

During the majority of the 1990′s and early 2000′s, use of performance enhancing drugs was rampant in professional and amature sports, included in this is the sport of cycling which may be the hardest hit sport of all and is struggling to recover from the taint of it’s recent past.

The list of champion cyclist’s who have been caught using PED’s reads like a who’s who of the cycling world over the past 20 years

A timeline of cyclist’s who have been caught doping can be found here, with a more abbreviated version  found here.

Lance Armstrong with the help of  his US Postal Team not only beat them all, but outright dominated them constantly and consistently during his physical prime.

All without the help of PED’s?

That just doesn’t make sense.

In recent weeks  it has come to light via Armstrong’s former US Postal Team teammate and Olympic Gold Medalist Tyler Hamilton that it indeed wasn’t without the help of PED’s, saying the the whole team used and Armstrong in fact encouraged it.

And like previous deniers of PED usage who have had the finger pointed at them only to be found out as liars and cheats, there seems to be no indication from the Armstrong camp that he plans on suing his former teammate for liable or slander…something I would do vehemently if I were innocent.

Of course it is a double edged sword in Armstrong’s case as his LiveStrong Foundation has raised and continues to raise  millions and millions of dollars for cancer research.  If Armstrong never won the Tour de France, he perhaps would just be a cancer survivor who happened to be a cyclist and he may have started a foundation still but may have only raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, if that, being an unknown athlete.

All in all, this may be the one case where it would be better off if we the public never know the truth if only to keep the dollars coming in for cancer awareness and research.