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There is rock bottom and then there is being reduced to plaguerising some vomit that Peter Savill threw up earlier in the week.
So football betting scandals haven’t knocked public confidence/turnover on the game? Have you tried to get on some backend Italian game recently?
As for a bit of play acting being in some way comparable to racing’s problems, words fail.
Give it up mate, you’re embarassing yourself.
Well said Glenn.
To remind you Zorro you wrote:" but attitudes to sport have changed massively … now it really does seem the only real shame is not even getting caught; it’s getting caught and not trying to bend the rules in your favour".
Do you really believe sports fans couldn’t care less about corruption, that racehorse owners and racing punters aren’t turned off the sport by the HRA’s predecessor’s perceived attitude to tackling corruption? If you do, then I’d suggest you inhabit a different morality than most people.
I’d be interested to know whether you really believe what you wrote, or whether you were directed to write some such stuff as part of the RP’s obvious distate for the HRA’s actions, or was it just that you had a deadline to meet and just dashed off the first thing that came into your head?
Be interesting to know too whether the Editor of the RP takes an interest in what his columnists write, or is he just grateful to get the copy in time? Quite understand if you don’t want to answer that question.
richard
Nobody tells me what to write or ever has, thanks.<br> I really do believe the habit of cynicism is so ingrained that most fans of most sports now expect their heroes to try to cheat successfully. I also believe many professional sportsmen, particularly in football, see more shame in failing to cheat, if by cheating they might save their team from defeat, than they do in being caught cheating.<br>I shouldn’t have to say this, but I suppose I’d better, for the benefit of those who either can’t understand what I mean or else pretend to misunderstand it so they can have an easier target to shoot at, that this belief is not incompatible with the belief that cheats, if caught, need punishing.<br>And I still don’t think the trials will have much effect on betting turnover.:)
(Edited by Zorro at 6:05 pm on July 8, 2006)
By the way Richard, you inserted an ‘and’ between ‘caught’ and ‘not’ in ‘caught not trying to bend the rules’. This produces a subtle change of meaning. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.
I found the royal "we" business a bit strange this morning and felt Zorro was doing a good job mimicking his editor in yesterday’s shocker.
That said, Zorro is "celebrity"  member  here and shouldn’t be ambushed. We need a few  celebrities and we don’t want him doing a Barry Bismarck now, do we ? :biggrin:
But that’s just my opinion ;)
Thank you for the reply Zorro and my apologies for the extra "and". Don’t know a thing about Footie, but guess we’ll just have to differ about the general level of cynicism.
A general point though is that IMHO the HRA’s actions are beneficial to racing because they show a determination to tackle corruption, so maybe people like me who cut back on their betting considerably ‘cos I just didn’t trust certain types of races could be encouraged to bet on more races.
richard<br>
i would say that a great number of us less informed dont want to feel stupid but who is Zorro??
SHL
Um, yeah sorry but i’d like to know who Zorro is too….and more to the point, who the hell is Barry Dennis?;)
Quote: from EC on 11:43 pm on July 8, 2006[br]http://www.zorro.com/
:biggrin: <br>
Hes got a mask on…so I still dont know
SHL
Sorry if this seems like an ambush, but there seems to be no end of pressure on journos from the ‘racing community’ to tow the party line and tell lies. Is it so wrong to exert a tiny bit of counter pressure to ask for the truth?
World Cup Final of the ugly game today. A game, which if you only read the racing pages, you would believe is more bent than horse racing.
Well let me tell you a few things that won’t be happening this evening:
1) The BBC commentary team won’t be sans its best reporter on account of the fact she once wrote something critical of one of the players.
2) The former FIFA chairman won’t be checking his ‘special deals’ account with his bookie, to see how much he’s made from the inside info that some teams were fielding their second eleven for the first three group games.
3) The groundsman won’t be lumping on the team that wins the toss, having created a bog on one side of the pitch.
4) If one of the star players get injured, the first thing the journos will do is report it rather than start lumping on the opposite side then report it.
5) If you want to back one of the teams to win a non-trivial amount you won’t be greeted by a set of layers/bookies who really don’t want to know, who’ll lay you tenners here and scores there while halving the price.
6) The two teams won’t have come from a round of 16 where sides were balloted out in order to suit bookies’ profits and short change punters.
7) Thierry Henry won’t be doing a version of the birdy song when he gets a goalscoring opportunity, having drifted to any price you like on the first goalscorer market pre-match.
I could go on………..<br>
(Edited by Glenn at 10:34 am on July 9, 2006)
There’s a clue in the frame here  somewhere but I just can’t find it:
Great post Glenn.
Shame then that I’ve still managed to lose my conkers on this World Cup! Some expensive "buffet" that turned out to be.
Zorro, hasn’t Glenn just written your next article for you? Best put your feet up this week and catch up with some ball tampering.
There’s no reason why Zorro should be given an easy time of it on here. While we’re all sensitive to criticism I’m sure he views himself as more than capable of arguing his case on here, or even admitting a mistake if necessary. The point of such a forum as this is that it gives everyone an opportunity to comment, praise and criticise. It also gives everyone (banned members apart of course, although the slimiest ones will still find an avenue)  an opportunity to argue back.
Regarding Zorro’s point I think that the view that public ‘indifference’ to rule breaking and a lowering of standards of integrity can be ably supported by a quick glance over history.
Throughout the history of racing the sport has been hit by scandal after scandal relating to sharp practise of various types. Doping, jockeys being ‘bought’, trainers laying them out, jockeys going to jail for non-payment of tax, 4 year olds winning the Derby, ringers, imaginary races, etc, etc. Each time the public come back for more and turnover is not affected in the great scheme of things. Was turnover on betfair down yesterday in the wake of recent events? I doubt it.
Regarding football. The Argentinians and Uruguayans have been scything people down for decades and the game goes from strength. Klinnsman, Beckenbaur’s heir apparent, did just as much diving as any of today’s stars (although, admittedly, one C.Ronaldo is not quite as adept at it as the Californian was). All of the holier than thou English slating Ronaldo should look at the videos of crucial penalties ‘won’ in World Cups gone by by Owen and Lineker before casting aspersions on our Portuguese friends!
It is harder to cheat at football than ever before and, as I suspect will be the case by 2010, by the time video evidence is examined in real time it’ll make things more and more difficult.
The general public don’t like cheats nor condone it necessarily (unless it happens to benefit their team, as illustrated by the comments re-Owen and Lineker). However I think the cynicism alluded to by Zorro is deep rooted and people do have a level of tolerance over these matters which is significantly higher than some people, perhaps guided by their own, higher, standards of morality, would expect or wish to be the case.
Finally, Glenn’s point regarding ‘backend Italian games’ is not pertinent to this debate. His difficulty in getting on is nothing to do with punters lack of confidence, it is down to bookmakers being switched on. In addition lack of turnover in such games, especially if coming from such shrewd personnel as our aforementioned correspondent,  is hardly likely to have Ladbrokes shareholders losing any sleep I suspect.
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