The Rational Ref | Humble coin toss will confound fight against football graft
Seemingly simple flip of a disc will confound those battling graft in football, since there are no rules on how refs must conduct it
How much is a coin toss worth? Can foolishly faking a frivolous flip and flick of a thin metallic disc prove financially tempting? You bet. Five years ago, the going rate was 100,000 yuan (HK$124,000).
This was the amount Chinese referee Huang Junjie accepted from fellow referee Zhou Weixin to rig the coin toss between Manchester United and FC Shenzhen in 2007. Huang fixed the flip to ensure Shenzhen kicked off the match in Macau.
Huang and Zhou admitted this in court when they became the first referees to face trial in December 2011, following a two-year crackdown on soccer corruption in China. Soon after, Lu Jun, a former World Cup referee, stood trial. Lu was previously considered China's most respected referee, nicknamed the "golden whistle" for his impartiality.
Lu was found guilty of accepting 350,000 yuan for fixing a match in 2003 and subsequently received a five-and-a-half year jail sentence. In an instant, China's golden match official joined the ranks of corrupt referees on the mainland, who are dubbed "black whistles". These infamous black whistles also received life bans.
In recent weeks, major organisations have declared match-fixing to be widespread. A report by Europol revealed about 700 matches worldwide, including Champions League ties and World Cup qualifiers, were suspected of having been fixed.
And last week, Interpol met with Fifa officials at a conference in Kuala Lumpur jointly hosted by the Asian Football Confederation to set tougher laws in the battle against criminal syndicates suspected of match-fixing.