Southampton police have contacted the FA regarding the Matt Le Tissier betting scandal.

The former Southampton captain and England international admitted gambling on a Premier League game in which he was playing.

Le Tissier admitted in his autobiography, Taking Le Tiss, that he gambled on the time of the first throw in the Saints' 2-0 win at Wimbledon in April 1995.

In a statement, police told the BBC: 'Police in Southampton have been made aware of a historic spread betting scam allegation at a Southampton football match in the 1990s.

'We have raised this matter with the FA and are discussing it with them.'

A spokesman for the FA confirmed police had been in touch and added: 'We will consider what action to take, if any.'

As Southampton skipper for the Premier League game, Le Tissier persuaded the Wimbledon captain to let the visitors kick-off in exchange for letting the Dons kick towards their own fans, he said in the book.

'It seemed to be going like clockwork,' said Le Tissier. 'We kicked-off, the ball was tapped to me and I went to hit it out towards Neil Shipperley on the left wing.

'As it was live on television, I didn't want to make it too obvious, so I tried to hit it just over his head. But, with so much riding on it, I was a bit nervous and didn't give it enough welly.

'The problem was that Shipps knew nothing about the bet and managed to reach it and even head it back into play.'

Nobody should be surprised that the police have contacted the FA regarding the scandal. Sportd betting scandals, as the NY Times acknowledges, are rather common. "They are the result of persistent economic incentives that can be traced to the structure of sports gambling markets."

The type of gambling in which Le Tissier partook raises several deeper questions. As the NY Times realizes, "a corrupt player or official is rarely asked to throw a game to one team or the other." Instead he is asked to influence something rather immaterial, like the first throw. This is profitable because it can be easily manipulated without public suspicion.

We know that at least one Premier League player participated in this kind of gambling. The scary thought arises because this kind of gambling is so sneaky vis-a-vis fans. It is well thought out, deliberately planned gambling; gambling that can be easily manipulated by players and avoids any public suspicion, a matter that raises the question of whether the Le Tissier incident was not isolated.

Football can be manipulated significantly by the actions of a single player and so is susceptible to gambling related corruption. To the corrupt participants, gambling on throws may feel like a victimless crime. "The same team, after all, still wins. And this ensures minimal scrutiny of their actions."

I hope that the FA fully cooperate with the police in investigating the incident.

I wanted to offer a comment on the Gael Kakuta case. This is a follow-up / extension of a post from fellow writer Cameron, so hopefully he can comment on my thoughts.

To give some background on Kakuta, in 2007, when the player was just 16 years of age, he transferred from RC Lens to Chelsea. This transfer was subject to a FIFA investigation that ruled the player had breached his contract with the French club. Chelsea were found guilty of having induced the player to breach his contract. Finding Kakuta and Chelsea guilty, FIFA fined the player €780,000 and banned Chelsea from signing any new players until January 2011.

It is not doubted that RC Lens were hit hard by the departure of Kakuta. He was their prized asset and Chelsea took him for minimal compensation. The small club, RC Lens, suffered damage at the hands of a richer club, Chelsea.

But at the highest echelons of FIFA as well as UEFA, the argument has been made with strong language that it was Kakuta who was exploited in the transfer to Chelsea. FIFA President Sepp Blatter labelled the transfer "child slavery" and Uefa president Michel Platini called it "child trafficking".

Clearly a dual message is being preached by FIFA. The organization claims that it wants to help both small clubs, as evidenced by the investigation, and young players, as evidenced by Blatter's statement on Kakuta.

My take on this is that FIFA is lying rather than properly addressing the tough issue of the signing of underage players. Cameron wrote regarding the Paul Pogba signing, "We can see from this story that any regulations of [the signing of underage players] are likely to hurt those everybody professes to want to protect: the children. See, for instance, UEFA's Michel Platini: "The question of minors is above all a moral and ethical issue. We have a duty to take concrete steps to protect young players and training clubs.

Platini's heart seems to be in the right place, but you simply can't protect [the clubs] without endangering [the children]."

To take on the matter of the investigation first, FIFA found Kakuta guilty of breaching his contract with his former team. The problem here lies in the fact Kakuta was just 16 years of age at the time of the transfer and hence a child, and FIFA have now made it the law that 16 year old kids are accountable to contracts. The question Cameron previously raised rings true, "Do we really think we are helping him, or the thousands of exploited footballing prospects flown in from Africa or South American by shady agents, if we create enforceable contracts for underage players?"

"Countries around the world recognize that children shouldn't generally be held to enforceable contracts, particularly on things like education, housing, and employment." So I would want to know why FIFA just opened this can. The repercussions of this case could be severe for thousands of underage players across the world. Now that kids are accountable for their contracts, how many shady agents and owners have suddenly licked their lips and run off to Africa to screw a kid? What if the kid decides he doesn't want to play football the following month? He's 16. Shouldn't this be allowed? What if the kid decides he'd rather live somewhere else? He's a kid. Shouldn't this be allowed? FIFA has now opened this issue. Of course small clubs will now be protected, but kids will suffer.

Now onto whether the inducing of underage players to sign for a club is detrimental to the kids? To steal from Cameron again, as I'm basically running his Pogba story but applying it to Kakuta, taking the Kakuta case in point: notwithstanding the shadiness of the deal, Kakuta made a lot of money out of his deal with Chelsea that RC Lens could not match. I don't see this as detrimental to the kid. I see this as benefiting the kid.

FIFA need to decide who they want to protect: the small clubs and shady agents or the children. If FIFA wants to protect the small clubs and shady agents, the kids will lose out on offers that will provide financial security to themselves and their families while potentially being locked into contracts that hold them to unkind terms. If FIFA wants to protect the kids, small clubs such as RC Lens will lose out on millions of Euros of potential cash. What FIFA cannot do is help both the small clubs and shady agents alongside the kids.

Ideally a resolution will come about, a resolution that helps smaller clubs but acknowledges that 16 year olds are kids. But this is not within my capability at the moment. What is clear is that FIFA is not moving toward a resolution of this issue; instead its leadership is stating that it is caring for both the small clubs and the kids when that is clearly far from the case.

England players diving.

Wayne Rooney


Steven Gerrard (go to the 50 second mark for best results)


Ashley Cole


I have always maintained with friends that the difference between the English view of diving and that of some other nations is that English football watching culture is markedly against diving and views it as cheating, while some other football cultures may see diving as simply part of the game. My opinion: diving is a disgrace. My solution to the disgrace: Diving is the simplest thing to eradicate from the game. All we need to do is use something called video evidence to see if a player dives. If the answer is yes, you stay quiet and do nothing...I mean you penalize the player.

Darren Fletcher is a really, really good football player. He is competitive, runs hard and is above average in possession of the ball. And he has so far this season made an extraordinary jump in his level of play.

Alan Hansen recently referred to the midfielder as "the unsung hero of Manchester United" and "the player that sums up the difference between [Man Utd] and [Arsenal]". David McDonnell of The Daily Mirror referred to him as "arguably Sir Alex Ferguson's most influential midfielder" and "the closest thing to Keane that Utd fans have seen."

To paint a more tangible picture, Fletcher averages 60 passes per game, 15 above average for his position, passes at an 85% success rate, again well above average for his position and so far this season is putting up "a good day's Javier Mascherano" like defensive numbers alongside those passing stats. We have not played much this season but Fletcher has increased his tackles per game from 3.4 last term to 8 this term. 8 tackles per game is better than what Javier Mascherano and Jon Obi-Mikel are managing in their games, and they play more singularly defined defensive roles than the Man Utd midfielder. Fletcher is running box to box, stopping opponents (literally) and contributing a little to attack (It should be noted that Fletcher is on pace to give away 140 free kicks this season, maybe a new EPL record. He has been a persistent fouler. Make your own decision on whether this is good). He is everywhere on the pitch. In short, he has been an almost dream midfielder.

I have in the past lauded Fletcher as an underrated EPL player. That was two seasons ago when he was a bit-part player and I believed that he would be the best midfielder on many an EPL club. Two seasons ago Fletcher averaged 52 passes per game and 5 tackles per game. Last season he played more and averaged 59 passes per game and 3.4 tackles per game, excellent numbers, but you can see that the step Fletcher has made so far this season has been defensive.

Two years on and Fletcher has articles in the major English newspapers calling him the difference between two of the best clubs in the world, a phrase worthy only for world class players. I'm not yet going to jump on the bandwagon. Three games does not make "above average" Darren Fletcher "world class" Darren Fletcher. Three games won't make my decision for me. Fletcher must keep up his form, which requires extraordinary fitness, to make his mark on the football world.

EPL watchers should keep an eye on Fletcher to see if he can keep up his level of play. I would be surprised if his current level is retained for the duration of the season, but the retention would be good to see.

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edit: another take on this which I forgot to mention but deserves mentioning is that Man Utd are not as good this season. They've lost width in the form of the World Player of the Year which is putting more pressure on their central midfielders both offensively and defensively: offensively to be better at retaining possession through the middle of the pitch and defensively to tackle opponents who will undoubtedly see more of the ball in the Man Utd half than in previous seasons.

An interesting article about distance covered per game in the EPL from 2006.

In 2005/06, the average EPL midfielder ran 11.49 kilometres per game. The average EPL centre-back covered 9.96 kilometres per game.

From the article, "the average distance covered by players in matches has changed little [between 2002 and 2006] but the amount done at top speed has almost doubled. What ProZone class as “high-intensity activities” — runs made by players at three-quarters of sprint pace or faster — have increased from 627 per team per match in 2002-03 to 1,209 in 2005-06, and the ground covered by players while sprinting has increased by 40% over four years. A sprint is classed as a run made at quicker than seven metres per second, equivalent to running 100m in a sharp 14 seconds."