Why sport needs to find a new Eliot Ness

I NEVER seem able to place the kind of bets that are apparently available if you’re a follower of international cricket.

Maybe you’ve got to know a little man off the Gowalia Tank Road in Mumbai, or visit that nondescript shop next to the chapati manufacturers on Pandit Nehru Avenue in Agra but I can’t for the life of me find a European bookmaker who will let me gamble on the number of times that Graeme Swann will tie his shoelaces before the lunch break or how many tweets Kevin Pietersen will write during the 20/20 season.

Sure Paddy Power have offered a few off-the-wall wagers this season. You can back John Terry and Wayne Bridge to share a handshake at the City of Manchester Stadium on September 25 at 3/1, or Alex Ferguson to replace Roberto Mancini at 500/1 or even what Andrey Arshavin will moan about next (English women at 12/1 looks attractive).

Unhappily I missed the opportunity to fill my boots on which team would be the first to have a player named in a newspaper sex scandal where Manchester United were priced at a tempting 6/1.

But what’s been going on with international cricket, and spot betting, is a horse of a different colour and one which is likely to tax the resources of Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the former chief constable of the PSNI, who is serving his first month as the chief enforcer of the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

Flanagan took office just in time to catch the fall-out from Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer and Sunday’s suggestions of match-fixing from Yasir Hameed and this week he drew a comparison between the whistle-blowing methods needed to combat terrorism in Ulster and the scale of support required to challenge the unregulated gambling markets of Asia.

Even for a country like Ireland, which enjoys a bet, the scale of money at play regularly is of stunning proportions. Analysts calculate that each match in the Indian Premier League – a competition worth around €3bn annually – generates €120m in illegal gambling.

As there are more than 90 games between the likes of the Deccan Chargers and the Chennai Super Kings throughout an IPL season this produces revenue streams, much of it going to underworld syndicates, at least double those flowing into the sport. And, said a Delhi court last week, a percentage of the unaccounted money is being used to fund terrorism and drug trafficking.

The judge also observed that if the practice was legalised it would generate a revenue stream for the government, as if egalitarian crime cartels would be happy to share their proceeds with society.

There is an irony, of course, in the fact that the current investigation centres on the activities of the Pakistan team. While gambling is rife in India it is, like alcohol, proscribed under Islamic law over the border.

While this particular scandal focuses on cricket it would be a grievous error to imagine that any sport is immune from levels of manipulation. Last week in Monaco, UEFA’s bigwigs were updated on the Bochum Commission which has been studying the methods by which Croatian criminals earned more than €9m after paying bribes to fix results. It is soccer’s biggest corruption inquiry covering more than 270 matches in at least nine domestic leagues – including Germany and Turkey – plus international competitions. Two men have been charged and police say there are more than 250 other suspects. Since April 70 arrests have been made including a club president, six coaches and several goalkeepers.

The operation, codenamed Flankengott, has intercepted phone calls, e-mails and text messages from across the continent and has completed detailed analysis of betting patterns on the European and Asian markets.

One British-based Asian bookmaker took more than 6,000 bets from the group worth over €32.5m. The crime team estimate that more than €1.5m was paid to influence European players, referees and officials.

Back in April the German newspaper Bild revealed one case study – the visit of Bosnian club NK Travnik to the Swiss team Young Boys, recent opponents of Spurs in the Champions League qualifier, for a pre-season friendly. According to the allegations Travnik were instructed to fall three goals behind and then bets would be placed in London that a further goal would be conceded. One minute after the wager was confirmed Young Boys scored, and the conspirators landed €82,000. Travnik played five pre-season friendlies, yielding profits of €304,000 for the conspirators.

Other, more prestigious, clubs are also under scrutiny including Dinamo Zagreb whose roster of famous former players include Luka Modric, the ex AC Milan star Zvonomir Boban, Igor Bišcan once of Liverpool, Vedran Corluka and Niko Kranjcar of Tottenham. One of the games being reviewed was their 3-0 home defeat to Arsenal in a 2006 Champions League qualifier.

So worried is UEFA President Michel Platini that he has called for the creation of a “European sports police” – a 2010 version of Eliot Ness and his Untouchables – to concentrate exclusively on this area of crime. Perhaps he should get together with Sir Ronnie Flanagan and the UK Gambling Commission. Different sports, but same techniques. And at the moment, it seems, the Devil has got all the best tunes.

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