Fixers in Finland during season 2015

Guess I caught your attention!

This is a sensitive area. You do not really want to attack at any club or player and accuse them of manipulating the game unless you have proof, and in this kind of criminal activity proof are especially hard to find. Massive market moves are never enough proof, especially in the lower leagues where anything can happen at the market with or without a reason. The markets are NOT liquid enough.

There is one club I am absolutely sure of and in my understanding there is a file on them also at Betradar, but as mentioned above there is no point in naming them directly.

So I will take another approach here are share some of the rumours and actions taken by Finnish monopoly bookie and some media jokers. I have to stress here that in general these clubs/players are not on my black list, only that some action has been taken by bookie Veikkaus and "investigative" journos.

Veikkaus have a tradition of banning lower league clubs from their offering and usually they are not that keen on reasoning why. Some of their actions seems over-reactions and pure amateurism, but possibly there is some wisdom behind it. Hard to tell as there is lack of evidence or discussion.

This season they have kept FC Myllypuro banned all season and this is a ban which will likely continue for ever. Myllypuro themselves have not helped the issue and their relations with Veikkaus seem rather bad. There have been wild market moves and crazy results, partly they can be understood if you have seen them play as Myllypuro do not have that many defensively oriented players in the squad and the coaching stuff seems short of class. Partly the bad reputation itself creates a hype at betting markets if and when odds start to make a strong move, it only gets stronger as there are people looking for a fixed match and free money.

Atlantis FC have some proven dirty history years back with a Russian goal keeper - who accidentally now is the goal keeper coach at FC Myllypuro - and their reputation has always been somewhat shady. The Atlantis of 2015 is in my eyes clean unless otherwise shown, and their ban at Veikkaus seems to be some kind of bullying by almighty Veikkaus. Even if their official explanation for this was "market moves at international betting markets" it seems like a poor analysis of Kakkonen market behaviour at Asian markets. Or was it something they just said to look legit? Possibly they are even right, hard to tell.

The history data of all odds - also live - are available for example at Nowgoal but the interface is challenging to navigate for the less experienced readers.

1.  Antti Koivula retweeted

   Veikkaus Vedot ‏@veikkausvedot  Jul 1

   @akaa89 #AtlantisFC toistaiseksi pois Veikkauksen kohdelistoilta kv-vedonlyöntimarkkinoilla kauden aikana tapahtuneiden heilahtelujen vuoksi

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OPS and AC Kajaani had their match removed from Veikkaus a few rounds back and at that point it was not clear which club was now the main problem. It looks like  they both are as they still are not offered at Veikkaus. No explanation for this has been given, a wise thing to say would had been simply to say " we have difficulties in estimating the fair odds as there are so many unknown players", but they have decided to be quiet at Veikkaus.

There is one common thing in all these clubs. They all are full of foreigners. Myllypuro is mostly full of players from Russian or African origin even if they are not paid to come here, they may even have born here.

Atlantis have "always" been a immigrant-friendly club. Most of the starters have been black in colour, but with a solid background in blue & white Finland for other reasons than football. There was also a season when all team was replaced during the season by Lithuanian players who had lost their club because Lithuanian FA had banned them from local league... but that is history is it not?

OPS is a curiousity. Super odd manager Miika Juntunen has been called a lot of names because of his ambitions for success and promotion, and short temper. They indeed do sign massive amounts of foreign players every season and that naturally involves a risk of a few rotten apples every now and then. Some might say the manager himself is not the greatest example of how to run a club, and even at the moment he is banned himself from the official club role for violent action after a match towards the referees.

AC Kajaani can also pride themselves of having almost all-African starting lineup. Some of the players are way above regular Kakkonen class.

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Naming any players is a big mistake unless you have 100% proof. Personally I do not understand these "investigative" journos who look for personal glory and  who suggest and hint dirty players in social media without showing any kind of proof. Making players look dirty even if they possibly are not. The reputation of the player takes at least a small hit. Possibly, even probably some of the players are dirty as there are so many foreign players from smaller leagues with a short term contract in Finland, but my trust in these kind of journos' understanding of dirty players and especially of Asian betting markets is below zero. Yet if the suspicion is raised by an established journalist from a big media house people may automatically think it is true. I do not really mind it fans raise these questions in an outrage of a poor performance as it does not have any public impact but if have reader base of 100 000's you should think better.

 One of the players recently suspected/named by just someone in the media is Inter Turku defender Petros Kanakoudis. I do not know everything about everything and have not studied his actions combined with possible market moves too carefully, but at first hand I am not at all convinced that there would be much to it. A passionate and tough defender who also makes mistakes, but the betting markets have been calm. The journalist here hides his responsibility by leaving everything in the open and letting the readers make the conclusions... but officially this is not saying he is suspicious, right?

" Good reaction by manager Dragtsma to substitute the full-backs at the the break. The performance of Kanakoudis should be internally investigated..."

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   "Hyvä reagointi Dragtsmalta ottaa laitapuolustajat pois tauolla. Kanakoudiksen otteet on syytä tutkia seuran sisäisesti... #FCInteofficial"

     

"Edited and removed  the name and identity of this example journalist as he is not the point of this article or important in the story, and it is also a bit rude to call anyone a trash journo.  It is the whole blame and shame - culture without any evidence which annoys me."

   
 For a  good reason or not there is now a cloud shading also his name whether you believe in foul play or not. "Oh this Petros, wasn't he suspected of fixing in Finland.."

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There have also been false alarms because of unexpected random market moves and strange refereeing, but I am now more willing to believe that for example that this EIF vs JJK penalty decision on last Wed was just poor refereeing and the early live massive market moves had nothing to do with it. So far no Finnish referees have been suspected or caught for manipulation and even if the market move of 0.4 - 0.5  (JJK odds  rose from 1.7 to 2.2 within minutes of the start of the match) require some real money it is far from Wilson Perumal scale.

Take a look at the penalty given by the referee. Take a close look at the challenge.

EIF equalizer

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A few other minor occasions have happened, but they involve either data scouts or in the worst case scenario operators, and there is no reason to name the matches where these things have happened. A classic data scout trick of delaying the goal long enough to get some bets in after the goal has been scored have happened with 100% certainity as I have witnessed some myself at venue,  all it takes is to be the only data scout at the match - very low profile leagues like U19 or womens championship needed - and to be ruthless enough.