In response to the nonsense going on in Italy, the Premier League has come out with a rather amusing attempt to convince everyone that such corruption would never exist in England. So…pretty much exactly the same statement that Italian officials would have released if asked before it all went to hell.
Premier League chairman Dave Richards had these empty words to say,
‘There are barriers in place for match fixing, for people throwing games. We have certain things in place to stop all that.’
‘I’m not saying it isn’t something that happens – but in the UK we pride ourselves on being on top of that.’
How convincing.
Given how much money is pouring into the league, and how much more is being poured in by less-than-upstanding foreign businessmen with connections to organized crime, is it really that unbelievable that Graham Poll is going to wake up on the even of a title decider to the ol’ horse-head-in-the-bed trick. If he owned a horse…which he probably doesn’t. So maybe some kind of dog or hedgehog.
Anyway, are we really to believe that the English league is impervious to such behaviour? No matter assurances the Premier League, the Premier League’s dad, or Jeff Winter gives us – it feels more than a little naive to think so.