Okay, So Brazil Didn't Lose... But It Was Interesting

((HT: ESPN/FIFA))

Here's the turning point in the Brazil-Croatia match and it was a HORRIBLE CALL!!!


Sufficed to say, the Croat coach decided to speak out...

"We better give it up now and go home," Niko Kovac said. "We talk about respect, Croatia didn't get any."

"If that was a penalty, we should be playing basketball," Kovac said. "Those kinds of fouls are penalised there.

"That is shameful, this is not a World Cup referee. He had one kind of criteria for them and another for us. The rules were not the same."

And there you go... FIFA is off and running...

Match Fixing Investigation In Britain Steps Up...

((HT: SkyNews/The Telegraph))

Match fixing shouldn't be a surprise to any of you...

In relatively impoverished countries with sports as an outlet, it makes sense for athletes who aren't paid well to take steps to feed their check books...

The Telegraph ran an undercover investigation that traced match fixing back to Malaysia and interviewed one of the lower-level players in the process to get most of their background...


And now open for discussing...


Former footballer Delroy Facey, now an agent, was one of six allegedly arrested as a part of the investigation by the National Crime Agency- the British version of the FBI. There is talk that some of the fixing in British circles was in the Football Association and not in the Premier League.

Debrecen-Liverpool Now Under Investigation

((HT: youtube))

Europol has been investigating several hundred matches involved in an alleged match-fixing scheme out of Malaysia. And the reach has now gone into teams based in Great Britain- Liverpool to be specific, but they're not being implicated...just observed and linked to a Hungarian squad...

Debrecen confirm their 2009 UEFA Champions League match against Liverpool is a part of the investigation.

UEFA had taken action against goalkeeper Vukasin Poleksic in 2010 for not reporting being approached by game fixers (or something like that) before two matches - Liverpool and Fiorentina.

Here's the analysis from that one highlight in 2009 versus Liverpool...


Debrecen released a statement: "The [UEFA] disciplinary committee's position was that Vukasin Poleksic neglected his obligations when he didn't report in time that, before two international matches of DVSC, unknown persons attempted to persuade him to influence the outcome of the matches.

"The two matches were the away game against Liverpool and the home encounter with Fiorentina.

"Neither DVSC nor the player wish to react further, all the more so as all the information has been released about this affair during the summer of 2010."

More when we know more...