Ref!

IT LOOKS like a mismatch. On one side are the authorities who run the world’s favourite game, only occasionally aided by governments and the police. On the other, determined professional gangsters, intent on fixing matches and laundering money. Their antics—such as the arrangement, in 2010, of a fake game between Bahrain and a bogus Togolese team—can seem ingenious, even amusing. But their repertoire includes violence and blackmail as well as sophisticated betting software. Several national leagues, notably China’s, have been severely discredited by their rackets.

All Europe’s big political institutions have inveighed against sports corruption. Tax authorities, which in the past turned a blind eye to liabilities on player transfers and salaries, have belatedly begun to intervene, notably in Britain and Italy. In Finland, one of several European countries in which criminals have taken over clubs for nefarious purposes, the sports ministry has helped to develop a smartphone app that lets players report match-fixing suspicions anonymously. South Korean officials have banned scores of players after a scandal in which dozens were jailed.