Match-fixing in European grassroots football

ABSTRACT

Research question: As empirical evidence on match-fixing within the European grassroots football context is scarce, this paper seeks to demonstrate that match-fixing is a serious organizational problem for the grassroots of football. Moreover, it aims to detect protective organizational capacities – alone and in concert – against match-fixing and explain them theoretically.

Research methods: Match-fixing is discussed from a sociological and economic perspective and analyzed within the organizational capacity framework. The empirical evaluation is based on n = 3004 European grassroots football clubs in five countries. Descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression models demonstrate the effects of organizational capacities alone and in concert.

Results and Findings: Empirical evidence on scale and dispersion of the organizational problem match-fixing is provided. Results from the regression models indicate that particularly revenue diversification and socio-structural capacities are protective capacities.

Implications: It is important to analyze both, individual and in concert effects of organizational capacities on the problem of match-fixing. Practical recommendations are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Match-fixing
• organizational capacity
• European grassroots football
• sport club
• public secrecy

Acknowledgments

The content of this paper is the work of the authors alone and does not necessarily represent the views of UEFA opinion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives for racketeering conspiracy and corruption in May 2015 (Department of Justice, 2015a). In December 2015, 16 additional defendants were charged with ‘racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with their participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer’ (Department of Justice, 2015b, para. 2). Additionally, the Swiss criminal system reached out to the FIFA President himself, Sepp Blatter, who is – as of early March 2016 – under investigation by Swiss authorities for criminal mismanagement and misappropriation (Reuters, 2015). Bayle (2015, p. 1) argues that FIFA failed ‘to understand that only by transforming the federation’s culture would it meet the pressing demand for greater control, transparency and efficacy in the governance of world soccer.’

With respect to the ongoing investigations on the alleged bribery and World Cup 2006 vote-rigging scandals, the interim president of the DFB, Rainer Koch, admitted that the internal control mechanisms within the organizing committee for the World Cup 2006 in Germany and the DFB’s executive board have failed completely (Reuters, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for supporting this research within the UEFA Research Grant Programme 2014/15.