Ask HN: Are FIFA games being manipulated? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are FIFA games being manipulated?

1 pointmgh28 comments

Statistics: What is the probability of unlikely events happening so frequently at roughly the same time? Saudi Arabia wins Argentina, Japan wins Germany, Cameroon wins Brazil, Morocco wins Spain AND Portugal...

As a business, if >60% of my high-income viewers (gen Z + millennials) follow the "woke" ideology, I want to cater to their wants by creating an "underdog" narrative so that I can gain viewership, market share, and loyalty (fans) in this demographic (age & region) to increase my merchandise and ad revenue.

Audience stats: https://www.digitalturbine.com/blog/consumer-research/world-cup-2022-global-audience-global-preferences/#:~:text=Who%27s%20Watching%3F,in%20close%20though%20with%2022%25

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Brazil had already won their group when they faced Cameroon and would face no consequences if they lost, so they rested players. This sort of thing happens often when a team wins their group with a game to spare.

It feels like the first games in the group stage often throw up weird results. It’s like sometimes teams need a game to get up to speed. You’ve pointed out Argentina vs Saudi, but the same could be said of Iran vs England — Iran were much better in their next two games. But you weren’t expecting Iran to get through anyway.

Germany aren’t that good anymore. I don’t know why you think Japan beating them was so unlikely.

There is always a team that does unexpectedly well. It is a knockout tournament after the group stage — you have to expect unexpected things to happen. This time it’s Morocco getting through to the semis.

I don't think they the games are rigged. Fifa did a lot better than pro wrestling, and there's a reason for that.

Likewise, 7/8 group winners defeated the #2s in the round of 16.

But the lower ranked teams have excelled in getting nationals from higher ranked associations, and as they play together with less turnover, they might be better teams, if the players themselves aren't as good individually. E.g a large chunk of Morocco could have played for Spain.

Corruption history: https://www.britannica.com/event/2015-FIFA-corruption-scanda...

That is about FIFA executives being corrupted… not about games themselves being rigged.

Is it that farstretched to think that corruption will likely affect other activities?

Who would have guessed Facebook or Google manipulates results based on ad bidding? This is a similar model

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlKVfJg4hHE&ab_channel=Vox

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-0CebFpF_s&ab_channel=Vox

Are you alleging referees are corruptly making incorrect decisions? (As opposed to incompetently making incorrect decisions.)

Are you alleging that teams are throwing World Cup matches?

Do you have any evidence to back up your allegations?

I think viewership would increase for Portugal vs Argentina though.

Maybe, but Ronaldo hardly played in the last games - we don't have access to the back story https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/ronaldo-leave-manch...

Messi fits more to the underdog narrative: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139976898/messi-economics

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