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Claus Lundekvam admits betting scam..


ToreSF

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This is going to get a hell of a lot bigger and, probably, much farther reaching. As others have said, the precedent has been set in cricket. It's an extensive investigation and jail time for those found guilty.

 

It's a huge embarrassment for the club - at least until former players from a much bigger club are drawn into it, which probably won't be long.

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Why are Claus' comments being investigated but MLT's were not?

 

Good question, but i'm sure they will be now. What an idiot Claus is. Does he really think he can just say "no comment" when the police ask him to name his accomplices and that'll be the end of it?

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This is going to get a hell of a lot bigger and, probably, much farther reaching. As others have said, the precedent has been set in cricket. It's an extensive investigation and jail time for those found guilty.

 

It's a huge embarrassment for the club - at least until former players from a much bigger club are drawn into it, which probably won't be long.

 

I don't feel the club should be embarrassed unless the whole club were in on it. Claus is one former player who has since been proved to have some serious issues...he is not Southampton football club

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Sky Sports ‏@SkySports

 

FIFA are to investigate former Southampton defender Claus Lundekvam's claims that he was involved in spot-fixing. Full story to follow.

Nothing will come of it. What do they have that they can actually investigate? It was 10 years or more ago.
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Good question, but i'm sure they will be now. What an idiot Claus is. Does he really think he can just say "no comment" when the police ask him to name his accomplices and that'll be the end of it?

 

MLT claimed he did it once and failed to pull it off ..ie he didn't win or lose any money. Claus is claiming it was a common occurance during his time at saints and players from other teams were involved. I imagine MLTs wasn't worth the time to investigate if Claus is hinting at PL wide betting scams that's a whole diffent level to MLTs claims.

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I don't feel the club should be embarrassed unless the whole club were in on it. Claus is one former player who has since been proved to have some serious issues...he is not Southampton football club

 

I don't disagree with what you say but that's not how it will be seen from outside the club and its fan base. Claus has a major brain fart and everyone else ends up smelling, whether they deserve to or not.

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MLT claimed he did it once and failed to pull it off ..ie he didn't win or lose any money. Claus is claiming it was a common occurance during his time at saints and players from other teams were involved. I imagine MLTs wasn't worth the time to investigate if Claus is hinting at PL wide betting scams that's a whole diffent level to MLTs claims.

 

This is key though......often you pull a thread and the whole thing will unravel so regardless of what MLT was claiming, it's a stupid thing to say. Who actually really knows if it was a one off or if any money was made? My guess is that a little more will be found out now and MLT will now live to regret saying anything.

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Or they will open a colossal can of worms, and make an initial example out of the only club whose players have now on two occasions, admitted to some involvement. We are not big fish in the PL, we have no oily nepotistic patron in the heirarchy of the FA or PL, they can send a nice, safe message to the rest of English Football.

 

I am worried.

 

I am also slightly concerned with where this could lead. However, since the idea of "collusion" to get the ball out of play after "X" minutes involves 2 teams - you can assume that we wouldn't be the only ones to get punished. And as long as it is not throwing the result. I doubt there would be that severe a punishment.

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Nothing will come of it. What do they have that they can actually investigate? It was 10 years or more ago.

 

potentially clubs, names, betting records, bank account records etc etc. How does anyone investigate anything which occured 10 year

s or more in the past?

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potentially clubs, names, betting records, bank account records etc etc. How does anyone investigate anything which occured 10 year

s or more in the past?

 

I'm assuming that these large bets would have been placed in a betting shop, and I doubt they keep records from a decade ago.

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I'm assuming that these large bets would have been placed in a betting shop, and I doubt they keep records from a decade ago.

 

Possibly. I would assume that records have to be kept for a period of time dependant upon how the area is regulated, precisely for these reasons. I wouldn't assume that nothing would be found just because it occurred 10 years ago.

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I'm assuming that these large bets would have been placed in a betting shop, and I doubt they keep records from a decade ago.

 

In this new electronic world - and it was electronic back then as well - very little disappears into the ether completely. I'm sure the big chains keep records, just in case stuff like this emerges later. I'm also sure that they're "on it" right now.

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Why are Claus' comments being investigated but MLT's were not?

Hampshire Old Bill said at the time they would investigate if a complaint was made, but none was. I believe the FA decided there was not much point as MLT was no longer involved in the game (in terms of direct involvement with an FA affiliated organisation). Think the difference this time is that there are others implicated not just at Saints but elsewhere and some of those are still involved directly in football, either with FA affiliated clubs or overseas, and can therefore be investigated for bringing the game into disrepute and being suspended etc, regardless of criminal investigations. I see Franny is denying this happened, but the fact is that Franny was not always around when Blabber Claus was, so may not have been aware. Just because Franny was not aware doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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I'm assuming that these large bets would have been placed in a betting shop, and I doubt they keep records from a decade ago.

Think you'll find otherwise. Tax records have to be kept for at minimum 6 years, most organisations keep stuff like this for much longer, if not forever. It will not be difficult for an investigator to dig up records from 10 years ago, if thats actually how long ago it was, my understanding was that it was less than that, 2005 or later.

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I'm assuming that these large bets would have been placed in a betting shop, and I doubt they keep records from a decade ago.

 

Almost certainly any bets of this type would not have been placed in any of the national "high st" bookies. Possibly independents. Highly likely they were laid oversees.

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I work in the construction industry, We have document records for reports etc that extend back to the mid nineties. Our designs extend until the 60's. Now, in betting, the detailed records are their bread and butter to our designs. That is what they do, formulate odds, take bets, and keep books. I think it would be very naive to assume that these records have not survived for 10years. Very Naive.

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Comments from another forum:

 

The bookmakers I've heard talk about it say it's a crock of ****.

 

None of them seem to know anyone who was offering 'time of first throw in' in the 90s and even if one firm did, the amounts that this would have attracted normally would have been miniscule, making a fix very VERY easy to spot. Especially at the levels that Le Tissier alluded to.

 

EDIT - and I'm not sure that Le Tiss would have been criminally liable had it happened anyway because the corruption law that saw off the cricketers was in the 2005 Gambling Act.

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I am also slightly concerned with where this could lead. However, since the idea of "collusion" to get the ball out of play after "X" minutes involves 2 teams - you can assume that we wouldn't be the only ones to get punished. And as long as it is not throwing the result. I doubt there would be that severe a punishment.

 

It is throwing the result though, because a single act of corruption corrupts the whole match. If player x hadn't colluded with player y to kick the ball out in the 3rd minute previous and subsequent play wouldn't have occurred.

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Everyone and his dog will deny any involvement leaving Claus on his own. He has left his brains at the bottom of his whisky glass

 

I hope he considers his 40 pieces of silver from The Sun worth the price of his reputation, because this story is how he'll be forever remembered. It's very sad that he has presumably blown all his money and is reduced to this.

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Bruce Grobbelaar got away with trying to match fix games. They even had video evidence of him talking to someone saying how he pushed the ball into the net in a match he played for us against Coventry. If he can get away with that then I'm pretty sure this will come to nothing.

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Apparently, FIFA are to investigate.............yes Fifa, that footballing organisation, which is whiter than white :rolleyes:;)

 

Yeah, ironic, isn't it? But they're also renowned for the "Do what we say, not what we do" mindset. And a lot of 'em don't have much regard for England or English football, and still think there's some score-settling to be done.

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I hope he considers his 40 pieces of silver from The Sun worth the price of his reputation, because this story is how he'll be forever remembered. It's very sad that he has presumably blown all his money and is reduced to this.

According to reports I've read, this all initially came out on a Norwegian newspaper and TV interview, for example....

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fifa-to-investigate-spotfixing-claims-of-former-southampton-captain-claus-lundekvam-7936144.html

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Almost certainly any bets of this type would not have been placed in any of the national "high st" bookies. Possibly independents. Highly likely they were laid oversees.

Claus says, "

We would then give the money to one of the staff who would put the money on for us, so we didn’t have to do it ourselves and so create suspicion".

I doubt he meant the staff were sent overseas to place the bet, unless they hopped on a Red Funnel ferry to Cowes. Given the time when Claus alleges this was happening, it is beginning to seem less and less likely to me that he is telling the truth, his story doesn't seem to quite add up any more (couldn't read the article earlier when I was online at work, now I can at home and seeing Our Claus arm in arm with Le God, I am thinking MLT will be quite annoyed to be implicated with Claus the Moron by this picture in The Sun.

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Think you'll find otherwise. Tax records have to be kept for at minimum 6 years, most organisations keep stuff like this for much longer, if not forever. It will not be difficult for an investigator to dig up records from 10 years ago, if thats actually how long ago it was, my understanding was that it was less than that, 2005 or later.

 

Might be the case but unless the person collecting the bet left their name and address I don't see how the bookies records can prove anything other than some bloke won a bet 10 years ago.

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What a shambles, and one has to question to what extent they took things to. Who's not to say matches in our relegation season weren't thrown, especially based on Claus's declarations and the manager we had in charge at the time. Coaching was maybe not only in football but how to throw games and earn extra money big time. Where does Bruce Grobbelaar stand in Claus's Saint's career?

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According to reports I've read, this all initially came out on a Norwegian newspaper and TV interview, for example....

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fifa-to-investigate-spotfixing-claims-of-former-southampton-captain-claus-lundekvam-7936144.html

 

Ah ok. In that case I was unfair and it was probably an idiotic error of judgement said on the spot and no doubt regretted now. I hope he holds himself together because all this sh/t could really send him off the rails.

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Ah ok. In that case I was unfair and it was probably an idiotic error of judgement said on the spot and no doubt regretted now. I hope he holds himself together because all this sh/t could really send him off the rails.

 

Agree. I always thought he represented our club well but this is all very unfortunate and quite why he's said it is a mystery.

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The weird thing is, at the infamous Villa game where we threw away a 2 goal lead so easily with three of the poorest goals you'll ever see Saints concede, I turned to my mate in the Kingsland and said casually "It's almost as if Saints have thrown this away deliberately". Someone in the next row overheard it and had a go at me - to be fair it was a flippant comment made in shock at how Saints hadn't tried at all and rolled over in the second half and even I didn't believe it - but it does make you think back now. I still think it's highly unlikely but it does highlight how rotten SFC had become by that stage and how unprofessional the culture inside the club was. That Man U cup game and Blackburn away also bring a shudder, two of the worst SFC displays ever.

 

Well, Claus has certainly ruined his legend status now. Just hope people now appreciate and realise what we have now all the more - great owners, great manager and a professional and honest set of players that I can honestly never see getting involved in this rubbish.

 

I hate to say this but i fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. We remember the Grobelaar stuff back in 94 and that opened a few peoples eyes to what 'could' go on in pro football. What you say about the above games in 2004/5 is what many others were thinking, i remember conversations with people about that villa game in particular and the Everton home game when we surrendered the ball with time almost up leading to a last minute Everton equaliser! I hate to say this this but a display by one of our players in a game last season had all sorts of thoughts going through my mind. I am sure some of you will know who and what game i refer to. I will not go public on here with it though. I have seen stuff happen in other non saints games over the years that raised question marks also. ANY player or ex player found to be guilty of fixing matches or even spot fixing should be banned from football for good and chucked in jail. Lets rid ourselves of the GREEDY BASTARDS!!!

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Alps, this is really uncalled for.

 

I dont think it is.

 

Imagine the Brian Mawhinneys of FIFA, the FA and the PL jumping all over this to set some sort of example or extract some sort of political advantage, and what impact this might ultimately have on all the hard work the players and staff of the latter-day club have put in...

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I dont think it is.

 

Imagine the Brian Mawhinneys of FIFA, the FA and the PL jumping all over this to set some sort of example or extract some sort of political advantage, and what impact this might ultimately have on all the hard work the players and staff of the latter-day club have put in...

 

 

 

Not really. They'll investigate the players involved not the clubs.

 

What political advantage is there for FIFA in any punishment that would impact the Southampton football club of today?

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I hate to say this but i fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. We remember the Grobelaar stuff back in 94 and that opened a few peoples eyes to what 'could' go on in pro football. What you say about the above games in 2004/5 is what many others were thinking, i remember conversations with people about that villa game in particular and the Everton home game when we surrendered the ball with time almost up leading to a last minute Everton equaliser! I hate to say this this but a display by one of our players in a game last season had all sorts of thoughts going through my mind. I am sure some of you will know who and what game i refer to. I will not go public on here with it though. I have seen stuff happen in other non saints games over the years that raised question marks also. ANY player or ex player found to be guilty of fixing matches or even spot fixing should be banned from football for good and chucked in jail. Lets rid ourselves of the GREEDY BASTARDS!!!

 

No Bart was just crap that day I don't think he was trying to fiddle the game....

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