Rampant Match-Fixing: the Clear and Present Danger to Sports

On the day that the FBI announced a major investigation into illegal gambling, the Mafia and the National Basketball Association (NBA), we re-release our CrimeWaves interview with Nicholas Raudenski.  

Nicholas is a former Homeland Security Agent who fought against Latin American drug cartels before moving into the international sports arena. He has been fighting a tough, difficult fight against organized crime in sports.   

In this interview, he speaks about the widespread corruption and presence of mobsters in sports and the resulting match-fixing.

After listening to this podcast, you will never look at sport in the same way again!

Please subscribe, rate, review or like this episode of CrimeWaves at YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.  
For more information on CrimeWaves please see - 
www.crimewavespodcast.com
www.declanhill.com
Twitter: declan_hill

Transcript

Nick Raudenski Podcast December 2021

[00:00:00] Declan Hill: And so it begins. If you're a sports fan, your brain is about to explode because after you listen to this podcast, you will never look at a sports event in the same way ever again. Let me give you some of the words you're going to hear. Fixing is rampant. Fixing is regular. Fixing is something that always 
happens.

[00:00:27] Declan Hill: Now, these are the words of our guest today, a former official from one of the world's biggest sports leagues. And he's telling us a story of organized crime. The mob, the mafia, the NCAA, the European champions league, and the world cup of soccer itself. Welcome to Crime Wave.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:13] Declan Hill: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. My name is Declan Hill and each episode of Crime Waves, myself and the producers, and this week it's the hard working and amazing Eric Krebs and Bruce Barber. We bring you stories and interviews with top criminal investigators. This first mini season is called Blood Sports, and we're examining my professional passion of organized crime in sport.

[00:01:39] Declan Hill: And today we're bringing you an exclusive interview with a man who used to run anti match fixing operations for the European Soccer Association, or UEFA as it's called. This is one of the world's biggest sports leagues. It runs the Champions League, which is followed by billions of people around the world.

[00:01:58] Declan Hill: Nick Raudenski was [00:02:00] an agent for Homeland Security and the US government in counter narcotics. He fought money laundering in the Caribbean, Greece, and a number of other places around the world. And then he joined FIFA. That's the world's largest sports association. It's followed like a religion around the globe.

[00:02:17] Declan Hill: And he began to fight match fixing in international soccer. A few years later, he moved to UEFA. That's the European Soccer Association. And saw what I'll call frontline action. against the match fixers who have affected that sport like a cancer. Now, a note before we begin. This CrimeWays podcast is an exclusive interview.

[00:02:39] Declan Hill: Nick Raudenski has never spoken at such length over these topics for any other media. However, He has signed a nondisclosure agreement with his former employers, and he doesn't jeopardize that accord in any way in the following interview. But he does tell a fascinating story. Good morning, Nick, or good afternoon, as I [00:03:00] should say.

[00:03:00] Declan Hill: Thank you so much for joining us on CrimeWise. 

[00:03:03] Nick Raudenski: Oh, thanks, Declan. Thanks so much for the invitation. Really happy to be here. Looking forward to this. 

[00:03:07] Declan Hill: Listen we're just going to kick off because LinkedIn announcement two weeks ago. You were linking to An attempted fix involving some serious organized crime family here in New York with an attempt match fixing in an NCAA basketball game.

[00:03:26] Declan Hill: And you said, and so it begins. What did you mean by that? 

[00:03:32] Nick Raudenski: Yeah. You know, I mean, what I mean by that is, is growing up in America everybody always heard of this, these things, you know, all the fixes in. Ah, the ref must be on the take. But the world that you and I live in, and especially in European soccer, is fixing is rampant, and fixing is regular.

[00:03:51] Nick Raudenski: It's just something that always happens. And so now we have this story about the mob. Infiltrating an NCAA basketball [00:04:00] game, and it's like, the thing that we always knew would always happen, it always had existed, is now coming to the fore, and you know, the perfect line is just, and so it begins, you know, here starts the, the line of these stories when we're going to hear about players, games, games.

[00:04:19] Nick Raudenski: You know being fixed for, for financial benefits. 

[00:04:23] Declan Hill: I, I want to unpack this whole attempted match fixing in the NCAA. And let's, let's be very clear and straight up with our listeners that the fix was serious and it was, you know, incredible attempt, but it didn't actually succeed. But before we get into that, Some of our listeners heads are just going to be whirling because you and I are walking a world of organized crime where it's not unusual for our friends and colleagues to be threatened.

[00:04:48] Declan Hill: We both had weird incidents in the past. You've really been on the front line of this battle for the last 10 years in a really active way. So let's unpack that. What do you mean when you [00:05:00] say, There's a lot of match fixing. There's players. There's all this kind of stuff. What, what are you talking about?

[00:05:08] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, so in the international environment of, of soccer and keeping in mind that, you know, it's the world's biggest sport. It's the most amount, it's followed by the most amount of people. It has the most most revenue generating tournaments. It's the biggest purse. It's the biggest prize when, you know, when you win some of the biggest tournaments.

[00:05:26] Nick Raudenski: It literally stops the world when some of these matches are on some of these games are on and so, you know what i'm talking about the the international environment of this the international context is It's you know soccer is more than life I mean, 

[00:05:47] Declan Hill: we've all seen the football hooligans, you know, I've been in these African cities where you know, Manchester United and Arsenal play and the entire city shuts down millions of people watching game thousands of miles away in another country.

[00:05:59] Declan Hill: [00:06:00] But are you saying that some of these games are fixed? 

[00:06:03] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what I'm saying is that. The, the profitability of the international gambling market, the profitability of making money off of these, these games has become so great that if I can offer a bribe, if I can offer you know, an incentive to a player, to a referee to a goalkeeper, to let in a goal.

[00:06:24] Nick Raudenski: That there's a lot of people that are going to make a lot of money about it. And it's, you know, it's a common thing that we've always heard about. If I have a sure bet, a sure horse, that's going to win a shore team. That's gonna, that's going to win a game or score a goal that I'm going to make a lot of money off of it.

[00:06:40] Nick Raudenski: And so this is what, what, what we're, what we're talking about. 

[00:06:44] Declan Hill: And I want to emphasize something because there's a whole bunch of stuff we're not going to talk about, but I want to be clear that you are a senior official, you were a senior official in two of the world's biggest sporting organizations, organizations that make the NFL, [00:07:00] and that's big, but in international terms, small potatoes, and you're saying this, so this isn't some Beard drunken idiot at the back of a bar late at night saying, Hey, everything's fixed.

[00:07:10] Declan Hill: This is credible, official line. When you and I were talking about you doing your first exclusive interview after leaving these organizations, you said, Hey, there's a whole bunch of stuff I can't talk about. I've signed nondisclosure agreements. I'm not going to talk about what I used to do. I'm going to talk in general terms about this and I want to make sure that's very clear to everybody, but tell our American and international listeners.

[00:07:36] Declan Hill: Some of the big cases of fixing that you know about, like we're, you know, I mean, has champions league games been fixed? 

[00:07:46] Nick Raudenski: If you look back through history especially in, in international soccer, there's there's always been Implications that that World Cup matches have been fixed. There's always been implications that friendly matches have been fixed and this is what I mean [00:08:00] by you know Matches that are that are a little bit smaller.

[00:08:03] Nick Raudenski: Maybe maybe don't matter as much but what we're talking about here is documented matches that are occurring in leagues, in clubs that matter, that that are being manipulated either in, in part or in whole. So either part of the matches are being fixed you know, for, for example, the first half score or the entire match, who's going to win, who's going to lose by players, by referees, somebody on the pitch, on the field of play You know, basically, in other words, taking a dive so that a goal can go in, so that one team wins, one team loses.

[00:08:41] Nick Raudenski: Now, this is done for betting purposes, this is done for making a lot of money on the international betting market, or this is done simply for a sporting purpose. Two club owners agree and hey, let me win this game and then i'll let you win the next game You know for points or or [00:09:00] advancement in a in a cup competition and so what we're talking about is is organized highly you know, highly visible acts of corruption on field sports corruption that's regularly happening across not only Europe, but also across the world.

[00:09:22] Declan Hill: Is it, has it got to America yet? I mean, that's what many of our American listeners will want to know here. Is it coming to America? 

[00:09:31] Nick Raudenski: That's kind of what I started off by saying, you know, so it begins the incidents of that have been. publicized. The incidents that have been put into the newspapers aren't that many in the U.
[00:09:43] Nick Raudenski: S. But we know by approaches that are happening in the U. S., for example, if anybody's followed the CONCACAF Gold Cup, there's been allegations of, of match fixing. There's been approaches by by organized crime [00:10:00] members. To the teams in their hotels, before the next game, saying look, you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna You don't make a lot you come from a small central south central american or caribbean country Why don't you try to make some money off this next game?

[00:10:15] Nick Raudenski: Let's say they they play against the united states national team. There's no chance in Pardon the, the, the language. No chance in hell that they're going to be able to compete with that amount of resources. Look, this is soccer. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes those teams do pull off the upsets. But when you're talking about Mexico, Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Costa Rica, you're talking about the top teams in the north america central central america region, so they go to small caribbean countries and say look You're not going to win against the united states Why don't you you know, let in a few goals and make more money in one game than you could have made in an entire year, so You know 

[00:10:58] Declan Hill: We're seeing that we're [00:11:00] also seeing by the way I just finished doing a major investigation into tennis.

[00:11:05] Declan Hill: Mm-hmm . And, you know, talking with prosecutors and police guys looking at tennis games at India. Well yeah, India and Wells and in small tournaments, a TP tournaments across America, you know, in Cleveland, in this place, in that place. How did the, how does this work? Just let's, let's break down. This, this stuff, you know, I've written books on this, but, but tell us how this works.

[00:11:29] Declan Hill: What's the difference between these new, new modern day fixes and old fixing, 

[00:11:33] Nick Raudenski: right? So the, the new modern day fixes is largely, largely based on the fact that people can make money off of it now with the internationalization, the globalization of the sports betting market. I mean, How big 

[00:11:49] Declan Hill: is, how big is that, this new globalized sports gambling market?

[00:11:53] Nick Raudenski: I mean, some, some estimates are talking about turnover in the 1. 6 trillion [00:12:00] trillion, trillion T yeah, with a, with a T you know, per, per year. And so we're, you know, we're dealing in a situation where in the U S. Betting has largely been largely been illegal for a long period of time. That doesn't mean that betting doesn't happen.

[00:12:17] Nick Raudenski: China Betting is illegal, but the underground, unregulated markets are absolutely massive. And so, you know, with the globalization of sport, the globalization of, of football, of soccer, of, of all these different sports, of the NBA, I mean, all eyes across the world are on sports for, you know, in terms of betting.

[00:12:39] Nick Raudenski: And so, so it's really metastasized in terms of, in terms of becoming more more, you know, much more risky because of the size of the betting market. 

[00:12:49] Declan Hill: So Nick, there's a clear present danger to American sport. It comes from this 1. 63 trillion sports gambling market. You're getting nibbly 

[00:13:00] fixes happening in small tennis tournaments.

[00:13:03] Declan Hill: You're getting them in these small soccer tournaments, by the way one of my doctoral students here at the University of New Haven has just done a fantastic paper, red flagging a number of these small soccer leagues in America where they're seeing, we're seeing match fixing indicators of match fixing going on.

[00:13:22] Declan Hill: So we've got it kind of nibbling away. We're not quite in the shark tank yet. We're in the piranha pool. What does a sports fan need to know, like how do these fixes happen, like break that down for us. 

[00:13:37] Nick Raudenski: Right. And so, so look, I mean, any sort of, let's boil this down to the fact that it's a crime and it's involving conspiracy.

[00:13:45] Nick Raudenski: Right? And so it's any sort of conspiratorial crime. There has to be an agreement. There has to be a purpose. There has to be a quid pro quo. Somebody has to get something out of it. And they just look at it in terms of how can I [00:14:00] get somebody to do something that I want. Right. What do I have to offer them in terms of a motivation?

[00:14:07] Nick Raudenski: Is it financial? Is it status? Is it gifts? Is it a new contract? You know, the, the, the fixing that I've seen in the, the organized crime that I've seen looks at this like any. Fortune 500 company they look at it in terms of investment, right? What do I have to do to get you the player or the referee to agree with the fix?

[00:14:33] Nick Raudenski: Right. What do I have to get you to do to throw away? Everything that you've been building your entire career for for one game for one particular episode and they handle this in in terms of a way that they're Sort of looking at it in terms of grooming the players or grooming the referees, right?

[00:14:57] Nick Raudenski: Oh, you know what, but I but I know these [00:15:00] guys and and they're going to give you another opportunity if you do this Maybe we can get you up to a bigger tournament. Maybe we can get you, you know to get additional opportunities for your Refereeing career. I can get you a new contract to go to Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Manchester United.

[00:15:20] Nick Raudenski: Right? And so they do this based on promises. They, okay, well, you know, you do this for me and it'll just be this one time. You won't have to do it again. So if you don't like it, no problem. Don't worry about it. And we've heard, you know, telltale cases where Once, once the player, once the referee step into that, that's it, you're in our pocket and, and now you can't get out of it.

[00:15:43] Nick Raudenski: And so, you know they're, they're looking at, at how to you know, maximize their profit with minimizing how much they're going to give in terms of the bribe. They're trying to keep players. Getting maybe five ten thousand per game [00:16:00] referee, you know, fifty thousand per game in order to you know, give a penalty or make sure one team wins or loses Then these organized criminals are basically rolling back and betting You know, millions on the international betting markets either legally or illegally trying to avoid their, you know, trying to avoid detection on their bets using money laundering techniques trying to make small bets in multiple you know, across multiple bookmakers to try to avoid detection because they know that that's what we're looking for.

[00:16:31] Nick Raudenski: And so you know, going through a little bit. 

[00:16:35] Declan Hill: Sorry, Nick, let me share you a story because as you know, I infiltrated a number of these international match fixing gangs. And I remember a very dramatic conversation. It was dramatic because I was wearing hidden cameras at the time and, and was interviewing this guy.

[00:16:48] Declan Hill: And he was the, he was what I would call the project manager of a corrupt team in Africa. And these guys had sold a number of their national team games. And these are big matches as you and I know, in [00:17:00] terms of, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people watching this game. And, and I had gotten involved with a gang of Singaporean match fixers.

[00:17:09] Declan Hill: And I was there in Africa, wearing hidden cameras, taping this guy. And the basis of our conversation was he had no idea how much money. his Asian match fixing buddies were making. So he's like, they're paying me 10, 000 and they're betting millions of dollars. You're going to be my agent. And so we had a series of meetings where he wanted me to be his agent when, you know, to represent this particular team when dealing with the Asian match fixers.

[00:17:38] Declan Hill: So that, that sense of, by the time you get to the players are getting peanuts and the organized criminals are getting. Yeah. 

[00:17:50] Nick Raudenski: Absolutely. I mean, that's the case. There's, there's always the famous the famous line that's attributed to one of the African referees that said, you know, let me [00:18:00] distribute how much I have to bribe the assistant referees.

[00:18:04] Nick Raudenski: Cause I like to cut the cake, right? He wanted to be in control of how much all the other people are Got as part of their cut, right? He wanted to be the 

[00:18:12] Declan Hill: grand man of the libraries. 

[00:18:14] Nick Raudenski: That's right. That's right. And so once they realize how everybody's using them, how they're just basically the pawns, the, the used Kleenex, if you will after they get caught, they just move on to the next guy.

[00:18:28] Nick Raudenski: They move on to the next plot, the next team, the next referee, the next set of of players. So, and what 

[00:18:34] Declan Hill: your fear is that the next continent. is going to be America. They're going to be hitting America in a, in a major, major way. 

[00:18:43] Nick Raudenski: My fear is that they've already been hitting it and we just haven't been detecting it.

[00:18:50] Nick Raudenski: So my fear is that it's been there. It's been things that we've grown up with that We've been living through that we've seen but we didn't we never really [00:19:00] connected what it was You know, I remember being at at soccer games. I remember watching games on tv Where the call didn't go the right way Or something happened in the game that you realize as a sports fan just doesn't make sense Yeah, but why did they do that?

[00:19:19] Nick Raudenski: Well, why did this guy, you know, why did they do that? And then and this is before I learned about what what match fixing was I remember seeing Referee calls. I remember seeing goalkeeper reactions, you know, during penalty kicks and just being like, he didn't even try. Yeah, it's guiding. Yeah, it just doesn't make sense.

[00:19:40] Nick Raudenski: And then I learned about match fixing after that. Let's talk about the 

[00:19:45] Declan Hill: Let's talk about you know, one of the cases you were involved, but before we do that, let, let me just share with the, with our listeners, the story of the Canadian soccer league, you know, Canada, America, you know, it's pretty much same socioeconomic cultural background.

[00:19:57] Declan Hill: And the Canadian soccer league was. [00:20:00] infested with match fixing and corruption. It's a small league based out of Toronto, Southern Ontario, and it was an international joke. I mean, it was so bad. The fixing was going on. It was so rampant that a number of international bookmaking bookmakers just took it off, just said, you know what, there's so much fixing and match fixing going on in Canada that we're not going to bet on this.

[00:20:20] Declan Hill: This is so corrupt. 
[00:20:22] Nick Raudenski: Do you remember, just to interrupt you, do you remember where a lot of those clubs were coming from? Do you remember where their, their, their history was from? You know, so the, the Canadian Croatians or the, you know 
[00:20:35] Declan Hill: a lot of this was Balkan players brought over to various teams and it got so bad.
[00:20:40] Declan Hill: There was one game and, and I want to stress again to our listeners, these games are really small and obscure. They're they're watched by maybe two dozen people. And three of those people are walking their dogs. And there was one game down on the Niagara peninsula and It was so obvious what was going on.
[00:20:56] Declan Hill: The other team said, you know what, saw this, we're going to score on our own [00:21:00] net. So they grabbed the ball, this bunch of regular Canadian guys. It weren't nearly as good as the Balkan boys were and started running towards their own net to score, to screw up the fix. And the Balkan players ran down and started defending the net.
[00:21:14] Declan Hill: Of the Canadian team, so they couldn't get it. Like, it was just, it was so bizarre what was happening. 
[00:21:21] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, absolutely incredible. I mean, the only thing that I wanted to just say about that is, is, you know, but even in those games where there's a dozen people in the stands, and you have one bloke who's in the, you know, in the stadium with a camcorder going back and forth recording it.
[00:21:37] Nick Raudenski: There are people betting on that in asia in china across the world. They're offering these games for betting So tell me, you know We're inviting the risk. We're inviting the threats because the more that we you know, allow the the possibility for betting them the more that this is going to be this is going to explode.
[00:21:58] Nick Raudenski: So sorry to interrupt. No, [00:22:00] no, no, 
[00:22:00] Declan Hill: no Let's And I really want to look at the Lampety case in, in one second, cause you did a lot of work on that one, but, but let's just break down American sports, NFL, NBA, NCAA, NHL, or MLB, which is the league that's going to face the biggest challenge right away from this. 
[00:22:19] Nick Raudenski: I think in terms of international.
[00:22:22] Nick Raudenski: International prevalence on the gambling markets. I did some work on this in Asia, and there's not a lot of betting happening on NFL in Asia. 
[00:22:34] Declan Hill: Okay. That 
[00:22:34] Nick Raudenski: is on the NBA though. NHL, the Asians aren't really betting a lot on, on hockey, baseball, similar thing. Not a lot of people outside of America or the, the, the, the Latin American countries know much about it.
[00:22:49] Nick Raudenski: Glorified cricket for the, for the, the, the British NBA 
[00:22:54] Declan Hill: that's attracting major liquidity in this market. 
[00:22:57] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, I mean and and that's because of the [00:23:00] globalization of basketball the globalization of the expansion and right and so so i'm not speaking in terms of of intelligence that I have or information that I know that it's you know, It's being targeted or it's being you know Looked at but you know, we're talking about high scoring games Right.
[00:23:18] Nick Raudenski: And that's, that's 
[00:23:19] Declan Hill: where the, that's where the danger would be in terms of the betting market. And that's, let's talk about this. 
[00:23:24] Nick Raudenski: What's a, what's five points five, five points swing one way or the other. Right. But that's covering a spread. 
[00:23:30] Declan Hill: I, I would, I'd argue that the issue would be the NCAA because the players don't get paid.
[00:23:37] Declan Hill: And we've got this case. We started the conversation about an NCAA. Attempted fix. When you read that article, when you read the transcripts of that organized crime guy having the conversation with the purported fixer of the NCAA game, excuse me, the attempted match fixer of the NCAA game, what, what [00:24:00] struck you as familiar about the conversation and the lingo that was going on?
[00:24:05] Nick Raudenski: Right. For me, I mean, this is, this is textbook modus operandi of. of match fixing across, you know, international markets, right? They, they were almost setting up this move for weeks, if not months. You know, you remember the player, he said, I've been thinking about this for a long time and my boys have too, right?
[00:24:28] Nick Raudenski: They just needed the opportunity because they played with such a small, a small school that not any of their, none of their matches were, none of their games were. Offered on the, on the betting markets, but they knew when they played the big time schools that this was going to be offered and they were, you know, a 17 point underdog and their, their games are being you know, offered for, for, for betting.
[00:24:52] Nick Raudenski: So they, so in other words, 
[00:24:54] Declan Hill: if you're a 17 point underdog, you're expected to lose. Everybody's going to expect you to lose anyway. [00:25:00] So because you're 
[00:25:00] Nick Raudenski: playing against a team that has more resources that has better players. So you're going to lose anyway. So why not? Try to make some money out of it, right?
[00:25:08] Nick Raudenski: And so that's the mentality of the modus operandi that i'm talking about that. They're looking at the the the the various Characteristics that exist you're playing away Right, so your home fans aren't really there. You're not gonna you're not gonna to you know lay down in front of your home fans, but You know you're expected to lose You're against a team that's gonna, you know, that's a better resource that has better players than you and You know, all of the characteristics are there for you to lose anyway So what does it matter if you and that's what I saw in the transcripts when they say, you know When he's trying to convince other people in the conspiracy, it doesn't matter if you lose by one point or by 10 You know, you're still going to lose.
[00:25:51] Nick Raudenski: So why not? Why not? Why don't we make some money out of it? 
[00:25:54] Declan Hill: Yeah, there was a great line I remember there was a champions league fine Excuse me [00:26:00] at the end of the french season a number of years ago was being fixed by this Massively powerful influential guys. It was actually a cabinet minister and head of adidas In france for a little bit at that time and he calls in these players from this other team He's he's the owner of one of the big soccer teams in france Olympique de Marseille, and he says, you guys are going to lose anyway, why don't you lose with 30, 000 francs in your pocket?
[00:26:24] Declan Hill: And I've heard variations of that lines from fixers to players again and again and again. When this guy, why was this guy trying to go to the organized crime? New York family. Like, well, what was, what was the connection there? 
[00:26:40] Nick Raudenski: Right. And without, without having worked the case and without, without having been, you know, on the inside and known a lot about it, but, you know, people don't have a, a normal people don't have a betting line where they can get multiple thousand a dollar bets onto on games.
[00:26:57] Nick Raudenski: And if they do, It's going to raise some [00:27:00] flags, right? I mean, if I'm a player, if I'm an NCAA player and I walk into any sports book in Atlantic city or I try to get a bet on in, you know, in, in Las Vegas and all of my boys are there wearing collegiate shirts and they're trying to get, you know. Thousands of bets on that's going to raise a flag with the with the gamblers with the bookmakers.
[00:27:21] Nick Raudenski: They're going to know something's up Right. Why is everybody trying to really bet the fact that these you know The underdogs are going to lose by a lot of money, right? And so so my my Generalization is that people don't have access to the betting markets the normal, you know, the normal common person I wouldn't I would you know, and i've been around this market for a long time Yes, i'd lie i'd have to log in i'd have to provide my you know, my bank details i'd have to provide a An id card if I wanted to make the bet, you know, it's regulated and there's there's Safeguards into that right?
[00:27:57] Nick Raudenski: You're trying to avoid detection. You're trying [00:28:00] to stay off the grid and so If they go to the organized crime syndicate members, these guys probably are doing all their betting, they're, they're operating, they're betting you know offshore anyway, or in a, in a black market anyway. If you look at the, the indictments, It accused the Colombo organized crime family of operating illegal gambling businesses, meaning that they're trying to stay off the radar anyway, not pay taxes away from, you know, the watchful eye of Uncle Sam, away from the watchful eye of the FBI or law enforcement.
[00:28:33] Nick Raudenski: So, You know, so, so the players go to these guys because they know them. They've grown up with them. You've grown up in, in, in areas with, with these guys, some people go on to be successful businessmen, some people go into organized crime. And so they might've known them and say, Hey, can you, you know, get a bet on for me in this upcoming game to try to avoid detection.
[00:28:53] Declan Hill: So effectively, there's two parts of the fix. One is the players are going to lose, you know, below [00:29:00] the gambling spread. And the other problem in the fix is getting the money onto the gambling market. So nobody notices just getting it into the thing. Let, let, let's switch to a case that you had direct.
[00:29:16] Declan Hill: And that's the refereeing case out of Africa, Lampety, tell us a little bit about that. And, and please just break it down. I'm a big soccer guys, but many of our listeners are not. So just break this down, please, for us. What, what was going on in that case? 
[00:29:29] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, absolutely. And again, what I want to clarify here is the caveat that anything that i'm going to talk about this case is is publicly available, right?
[00:29:37] Nick Raudenski: I'm not giving any insights. I'm not giving any information that was you know, that was in wasn't publicly available to everybody which which you know allows me to be able to just tell you about about what happened with this case and so so the way that qualification for the world cup Goes you don't just rock up and you have your 24 teams that show up in you know June or july every [00:30:00] four years and and start playing a tournament, right?
[00:30:02] Nick Raudenski: There's a long Drawn out qualification process That goes into this and in some countries or some continents africa, for example, this starts Two three four years in advance of the the final competition, right? So even now we're two years away from the next World Cup. They're playing qualification matches They're playing matches to figure out who's good enough to get to that final tournament And so what happened here was anytime you have these international matches of this criteria, it draws a lot more activity, a lot more interest in the international betting markets.
[00:30:42] Nick Raudenski: What that means is that there's a much higher volume in the amount of bets that are happening. I'll put it to you this way. Say, say if you have two bodies of water, say you're, you're, you have you know, what's a real big lake Lake Michigan. Right in, in, in the [00:31:00] US in, in Canada, right? But then you have your bathtub at home, okay?
[00:31:04] Nick Raudenski: And you take a bowling ball and you drop the bowling ball into your bathtub. You're gonna see that splash, right? If you drop that bowling ball into Lake Michigan or the Hudson sound, you're not gonna really see any splash. You're gonna see a little bit of a ripple, and then that's it. When you get into the international environments with, with soccer, gambling.
[00:31:26] Nick Raudenski: We're talking about the, the large bodies of water when there's so much gambling. You had 
[00:31:33] Declan Hill: me in the listeners scratching our heads there with your, your, your bodies of water. In other words, you've got cash going into the Canadian soccer league, which was fixed, but it was so small that league that people would notice the fixing was going on when you've got these big world cup qualifying matches and it being followed by tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people.
[00:31:55] Declan Hill: That the amount of money you can fix those games and no one's [00:32:00] going to notice. So the only problem now you have is getting the players to go along with you. It's not, it's, you don't have the problems in the betting market. It's just whether you can get the players or the referees. 
[00:32:09] Nick Raudenski: Right. So the, put it this way, the bigger the league, the bigger the game, the larger the market.
[00:32:14] Nick Raudenski: the larger the body of water, right? So if you're talking about, you know a local game a team again from Connecticut against a team from Rhode Island, that's not really big stuff. But if you go U. S. against Canada, that has international implications, right? And so, which, which is why 
[00:32:30] Declan Hill: you were saying.
[00:32:31] Declan Hill: Hey, the NBA is going to, is going to have problems here because there's so much gambling in Asia on NBA. And I'm saying, Hey, NCAA, because the players aren't getting paid, but you're saying, well, yeah, but there's a less of a less betting going on in those NCAA games than there is an NBA. 
[00:32:50] Nick Raudenski: Right, because there's only going to be the bigger, like if you go back to this the, the St.
[00:32:54] Nick Raudenski: John's Wagner game, he was looking for his opportunity because none of his other games [00:33:00] were offered on the betting market, right? He had to wait until they played one of the big teams so they could get their bets. Now, if you play St. John's, UConn Georgetown, Syracuse, a lot, you know, Duke, all of these games are offered, you know, for betting on the betting markets, but I want to spin back to the concept of Africa, the Africa, the World Cup qualifier case, right?
[00:33:21] Nick Raudenski: This was Senegal against South Africa. 
[00:33:25] Declan Hill: Okay. 
[00:33:25] Nick Raudenski: And These are two quasi powerhouses in African in African soccer per almost perennial qualifiers, Senegal for the, for the world cup, then Nigeria, Cameroon Egypt, you know, these are, these are some of the big African teams, right? If you look at the the players that senegal had on their team, they're representing Napoli liverpool all the big big clubs, right?
[00:33:51] Nick Raudenski: So this game is is being a you know, Offering a lot on the betting markets attracting a lot of international attention and [00:34:00] here we have a referee That has really been a journeyman He's been at the almost end of his career. He's had, you know, dozens, if not hundreds of games that he's officiated, right?
[00:34:13] Nick Raudenski: But now you have an opportunity when the match is now for big stakes and they're, they're banking that. They were hoping that their bets weren't going to be detected, but in this particular case, five independent separate companies detected suspicious betting that this game was going to have more than 2.
[00:34:35] Nick Raudenski: 5 goals in the game. Now, what does that mean for our our, our listeners scratching their head? You can't score a half a goal in soccer, right? It's a, it's a betting nomenclature where it's either going to be two goals or three goals or more than three goals, right? So it's a, it's a. A betting price break.
[00:34:54] Nick Raudenski: And so they wanted to make sure that there's going to be more than 2. 5 goals in a [00:35:00] particular game. And so the fixers see that 
[00:35:03] Declan Hill: the fixers have paid somebody in that game. And these guys are watching these guys being the bookmakers. They're watching the odds on this game the same way that you know, stock brokers watch the movements of a share going up and down on NASDAQ or a New York Stock Exchange.
[00:35:18] Declan Hill: 100 percent 
[00:35:19] Nick Raudenski: right. That's exactly right. 
[00:35:20] Declan Hill: So, so who have the fixers reached in this game? I mean, if they've got Senegal and South Africa, these Premier League, some, some of the guys are Premier League. Some of them are like the top Italian teams, Spanish teams, 
[00:35:31] Nick Raudenski: who did they get? Right. And so if you wanted to make sure that you're going to get a guaranteed number of goals, You're going to go to the one person that can directly influence that.
[00:35:42] Nick Raudenski: And that's the referee. And in this particular case, the guy who can do something like calling a penalty to, to increase the, the opportunities of scoring in that particular game. And so. That's what the allegations in this, in this case were, were about that, that [00:36:00] he was fixed to to give a penalty that when you see the replay was suspect at best, 
[00:36:08] Declan Hill: not a 
[00:36:09] Nick Raudenski: penalty, but he didn't hesitate to, to, to give the, you know, blow the whistle and to give the give the penalty kick.
[00:36:16] Declan Hill: And these games, by the way, Senegal, South Africa. This is a great case that you brought to us because they're on YouTube and there's anybody who wants to see it. This ain't the Canadian soccer league. This ain't two dozen people. Somebody watching a dog. This stadium is full. I mean, this is 60, 000 people watching.
[00:36:32] Declan Hill: This has been televised live. People are getting into this and they fix the referee to do this. 
[00:36:39] Nick Raudenski: And what's amazing about this is that this is. in South Africa's home stadium and the penalty went against South Africa. So after halftime and after the game, they, they had to swarm the referees with security because they were so fearful because of this dubious call.
[00:36:58] Nick Raudenski: That he was going to be under [00:37:00] physical threat that people were going to either jump over onto the pitch storm the locker room, wait for him, wait for the referees to come out. And so look, the referees across the board and in general serve an inherent risk when they do this. And, you know, we hear stories about, you know.
[00:37:18] Nick Raudenski: People vigilante justice, where they go right onto the pitch and, you know, break the referee's arm or leg for you know, for fixing. In this case, Nick, 
[00:37:28] Declan Hill: you know, I, I'm, I'm not endorsing football hogans by any way, but it's, you know, in this case, the guy would mean bought off to give this penalty, to make this, this match fix happen.
[00:37:39] Declan Hill: What happened? Like, you know, talk to listeners through what happened to the rest of this thing in terms of this particular case. 
[00:37:46] Nick Raudenski: Right. So what happened in the, this particular case is the, the referee gives this sort of dodgy penalty the, the, the penalties converted. He also gave a few other calls in the game that allowed Senegal to score.
[00:37:59] Nick Raudenski: The, [00:38:00] the, the goal, the, the, the match finishes above the, the number of goals that they needed for you know, for betting purposes. Job done, they call the game. Games are off. Everybody goes home. They whisk the referee team securely back to their, their country, flying out, but then the international environment starts to kick up, right?
[00:38:23] Nick Raudenski: This globalization that I was talking about. Twitter goes alight with people saying, have you seen this? Oh my God, you've got to take a look. Oh, the fix must've been in. FIFA needs to investigate this case. So there's, they're starting to grow this, this international you know, this international aura that something was wrong in this game, which really, you know, for, so you have that, you have the, you know, the public perception.
[00:38:49] Nick Raudenski: You have the betting flags that, you know, that, that start to come up after the match. All the betting companies start to look at the game and say, there's something not right. People on the [00:39:00] international gambling markets had anticipated that this game was going to have more than a certain amount of goals.
[00:39:06] Nick Raudenski: And so. People in china people in asia are betting knowing that that penalty was going to happen or that goals were going to be given in that That game with such confidence That it raised the flags in terms of the betting the the betting market. So you know after that point senegal filed a protest official protest which which contributed to launching an official official investigation from people?
[00:39:32] Nick Raudenski: I'm, 
[00:39:32] Declan Hill: sorry, it was south africa that launched the protest was it not? 
[00:39:35] Nick Raudenski: No sorry. Yes, South Africa was launched the protest. Sorry. Sorry for that, that, that that missed it launched, launched the international protest that they were, you know that they were, they were unjustly refereed against they started to do the analysis of the referee performance analysis of the, the, the video performance.
[00:39:56] Nick Raudenski: And then as you do with any investigation, you just start investigating. You know putting [00:40:00] the putting the dots together putting the betting together with the playing performance together with a suspicious history of this particular referee having seven other matches that he's done similar things, given penalties in which, you know, then then warranted the official investigation and the official proceedings against against Mr.
[00:40:21] Nick Raudenski: Limpety. 
[00:40:22] Declan Hill: And, and that game eventually has to be replayed saying, Hey, you know what, it's kind of like what happened with the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where you had two gold medals given out because the fixing had become so obvious. 
[00:40:38] Nick Raudenski: And so what happens is for the most part, you know, matches are fixed and matches are, are you know, suspected and eventually, you know, two years down the line, the evidence comes out, but the mat, you know, the, the tournament's already gone.
[00:40:53] Nick Raudenski: The matches were already played and there's nothing you can do about the sporting merits of this case. This [00:41:00] happened. And this is a big swing in this particular qualifying group, right? This, this had implications of who was potentially gonna reach the finals of the World Cup. And so it had sporting implications.
[00:41:13] Nick Raudenski: After the disciplinary bodies reached their, you know, conclusions, they ordered, for the first time ever, a World Cup qualifying match to be replayed because, on sporting merits that the, the match was, was manipulated. And so, you know. It was, it was really a monumental case. It was the first time that that a match was ordered to be replayed.
[00:41:36] Nick Raudenski: So, you know, it was a pretty significant situation and, and it also gave a lot of other people the. Belief in, you know, investigations and and bedding monitoring into intelligence related to, you know, the, the, the, you know, the information related to the, the potential persons involved.
[00:41:57] Declan Hill: Nick, let, let me take a big step back. 
[00:41:59] Nick Raudenski: You. [00:42:00] 
[00:42:00] Declan Hill: Are one of those investigators and, and we're, you and I are kind of doing this dance. We're treading through a minefield. I can't ask you those questions of, about investigations you have direct knowledge of because you were at FIFA, the world organization that runs soccer.
[00:42:16] Declan Hill: You then transferred over to run up the anti match fixing division at UEFA, the European things. And again, for American listeners, these are massive. Huge sporting organizations, much bigger than the National Football League, which is the biggest one here in America, both in terms of symbolism and finance and all that stuff.
[00:42:35] Declan Hill: But the question I think that, that many people have, the very obvious one is how did an American get to be at the center of international European dominated soccer? What's that story? 
[00:42:51] Nick Raudenski: Right. And so, look, I mean, I often say that the short answer is I was born on the wrong continent. Right. I was one of those guys that grew up with [00:43:00] soccer.
[00:43:00] Nick Raudenski: It was in my blood. It was in my family. We were born, you know, second generation immigrants to, to the, to the U S growing up in Pennsylvania, everybody was something slash American, Italian, American, Irish, American, German, American, Czech, American. African american and then we're you know, this this american view of this melting pot and everybody came with that background Soccer was your game, right?
[00:43:28] Nick Raudenski: So we grew up. We we grew up with all you know, the big four sports We grew up with you know with with just in a sports family, but soccer For the, the, from the love of my older brother was always our main thing that we inherited, right? And so, you know, in me saying, like, I think I was born on the wrong continent, I sort of say tongue in cheek, you know, I, I, I continue to love you're a 
[00:43:51] Declan Hill: very patriotic American.
[00:43:52] Declan Hill: I mean, I, 
[00:43:54] Nick Raudenski: you know, travel around the world, but even before the you know, before the jobs at FIFA and UEFA, [00:44:00] I traveled to Germany to watch the U. S. national team in the, you know, 2006 World Cup in Germany. We travel around the world. These are the things that we did on nights and weekends, when you had your normal day job, Monday through Friday, but nights and weekends were for soccer.
[00:44:19] Nick Raudenski: But brother, you, you became 
[00:44:21] Declan Hill: I, you know, that was your night job. Now, well, until two weeks ago, your day job was at these European centered institutions, being an American and using, just, just tell us how, how a Yankee got to not King Arthur's court, but the court of FIFA and UEFA. 
[00:44:40] Nick Raudenski: Yeah, so let me let me take a big even a bigger step back I've always been fascinated by investigations whether it's investigative journalism whether it's gumshoe work whether it's you know, old school policing even in the comedy movies I mean, I grew up on a mixture between james bond and inspector cluso, [00:45:00] right?
[00:45:00] Nick Raudenski: I mean, I loved investigation aspects of it and and we always have something that got us into our Our you know, our chosen profession and for me, it was the JFK assassination. That's when I realized, look, that, you know, the assassination of a president should never happen. I wanted to be a secret service agent.
[00:45:19] Nick Raudenski: I wanted to really, you know, get involved in federal law enforcement. And then I started learning about investigations, about fraud investigations, about crime investigations. And I continued to spiral from there when, you know, I was a middle schooler for those that grew up in the U. S. You know, and I knew I wanted to be an investigator no matter how that happened.
[00:45:38] Nick Raudenski: And so I studied it in undergrad. I almost went to the University of New Haven to play soccer. I ended up going to another school in New Jersey to just study criminology, right? Try to make myself as, as as, you know, well rounded as possible to be an investigator. And I remember applying for Every job I could for [00:46:00] IRS for Secret Service for State Department for FBI and I got I got hired on to Be a customs investigator and this is pre 9 11, right?
[00:46:10] Nick Raudenski: So so we were investigating cross border crime smuggling trafficking money and then 9 11 happens, right? The whole shift goes towards terrorism, terrorist financing terrorist investigations, right? So I go throughout my career and I continue to progress 10, 13, 10, 12, 13 years for the United States government.
[00:46:32] Nick Raudenski: I became a homeland security investigator really. Trying to, you know hone the craft of investigations, being involved in international programs, international training operations abroad, working with our counterparts, trying to build collaboration, right? And then one day I remember being at an office and an old soccer teammate of mine sent me the application, sent me a job description.
[00:46:56] Nick Raudenski: He's like, hey, mate. This really sounds like you [00:47:00] and it was a job app job description to be in FIFA security and for me, this was something that I Had always dreamed of doing always dreamed of being able to to put the two and two together right my day job being able to put together investigations And security work within the world of football And so for me, it was, it was, you know, despite what you want to say about FIFA reputation at the time, I believe so much in the, the integrity of sport, the values of sport that I wanted to, that I wanted to you know, to, to try to.
[00:47:38] Nick Raudenski: Apply my craft, my investigative skill set knowing what I knew about investigations, about programs in the, the football environment. And, and, you know, we had a very small team and so you know, I applied for the position and I really sort of did it as a, You know as a maybe it's a drop in a bucket [00:48:00] and they ended up calling calling me, offer me an opportunity to you know to to apply my my craft in You know in international sports and so, you know sort of at times pinch myself in the early years.

[00:48:15] Nick Raudenski: I remember, you know My first year you know, meeting absolute idols, you know, the people that you grew up with having on your wall, you know, Pelé, the international superstar from Brazil. I mean, he was, he was the guy who was on my wall as a kid that inspired me to be you know, a soccer player. And now I'm seeing him in person, you know, and so there's that allure of doing what you love, you know, on nights and weekends and what you travel for and what you, you know, your real passion with, you know, your sort of your day career, your day job of investigations and putting these two together, trying to tackle organized crime, try to, you know, make a real dent in [00:49:00] protecting the integrity of our of the sport that we love.

[00:49:03] Nick Raudenski: I mean, for me, it was a. You know, it's a, it's an absolute, it was an absolute dream job. 

[00:49:08] Declan Hill: Let me jump to two weeks ago, where you, you decide to resign from UEFA. Again, we're not going to talk about that, but almost the same day, European police, the umbrella organization of that organizes all 54 European countries in this organization comes out and says, there is a sustained, systematic Clear linkage between organized crime and European soccer.

[00:49:40] Declan Hill: And what's your sense of that now? You're still an American, you're still in the middle of Europe. You're still in the middle of this fight. How are you guys going to be able to take on this sustained systemic organized crime presence in sport? 

[00:49:54] Nick Raudenski: So the best way that I can put this is putting it into the context [00:50:00] of, of history, right?

[00:50:01] Nick Raudenski: If you look at the fight, the war on drugs, if you look at things like Miami Vice, Scarface, Wall Street, you know, the mid eighties where, you know, cocaine and, and money is rampant. We are 20 years. Behind the curve from that, right? We're in the wild west of organized crime and sports corruption and international betting, right?

[00:50:28] Nick Raudenski: And so so what we have to do is really Get smart quick Right, what we have to do is sort of change the narrative a little bit on what we've been doing for the past couple years. I remember I always told, you know, one famous story that, you know, I got in when I got into this job and I started to look at things like, you know, your book or posts that you've made.

[00:50:52] Nick Raudenski: And I look now eight years later and those same exact talking points, those same exact programs are, [00:51:00] are being espouted in Conferences in, you know, in podcasts and whatever, the, the, the narrative isn't changing, right? We have to, we have to really change the way that we're looking at this. We have to tackle this like as if, you know, if you're watching Netflix and, and there's this, you know, the, the series of Ozark or Fear City or, you know you know, any of the current topics of how we're tackling the mafia, how we're tackling terrorism, you know, this is a war For the soul of a sport of sport across, across the world, whether it's basketball, whether it's NCAA, whether it's soccer, whether it's, you know, any, whether it's baseball internationally, I mean, this is the heart of what we, what drives us as a community and right, and this is a threat to that.

[00:51:50] Nick Raudenski: Nick, 

[00:51:50] Declan Hill: can I just jump back a little bit when I'm teaching the students here at the University of New Haven about fighting sports corruption? I start with four [00:52:00] major organized crime task force investigations into horse racing. And the reason why I make the link between horse racing and regular sports, as I say, this is where sports is going to end up.

[00:52:13] Declan Hill: Yeah. Because very few horse racing fans go to that sport because they love horses. They kind of like sport horses, but they love their gambling and they love their betting and no one. There's massive amounts of doping and nobody is surprised that there's massive amounts of fixing in horse racing and nobody is surprised that the horses are treated really badly.

[00:52:36] Declan Hill: And my fear is that sports are going to end up the same way as horse racing. They're going to become simply vehicles for betting rather than, 

[00:52:48] Nick Raudenski: no, I mean, you're, you're exactly right. And look, it's like anything, right? If we neglect it, the decay is going to continue to happen. You know, the, the broken windows theory that, you know, if we don't, if we don't attack this.[00:53:00] 

[00:53:00] Nick Raudenski: Right at the beginning right at the start. Well, and you know, it's not the start It's been going on for ten years for four years, you know, I mean from from the start when did you do your PhD? 

[00:53:12] Declan Hill: I was the first guy to talk about this because I got into the gangs back and there's 2005 I made the first announcement in Copenhagen saying we're gonna face a tsunami of match fixing and as a Canadian coming in coming into Europe It was a difficult Difficult.

[00:53:27] Nick Raudenski: And can you say, Declan, now let me reverse this, you know, can you say after 15 years, are we any closer to, to winning this war? 

[00:53:37] Declan Hill: No, in, in, in many ways, I think we've gone back. I think we're normalizing corruption. You know, many of our institutions are bending over to, instead of fighting corruption, to, to embed corruption in the normal practices.

[00:53:51] Declan Hill: So it becomes 

[00:53:52] Nick Raudenski: I think you're exactly right because I think what what sport get a bad rap on and I'm talking in the international environment is 

[00:54:00] it suffers the brunt of things that happen in society, right, they'll say like, there's a racism incidents right in the, in the, in the stadium, and they're like, ah, your wife is not doing enough to fight against racism, the FIFA is not doing enough to stand up against, you know, against the thing.

[00:54:20] Nick Raudenski: These things exist in society. What is the government, what is the country doing to tackle its problem with racism? What is the country doing to tackle its problem with corruption? I mean, the corruption conventions have existed for, for dozens of years. And are we ever any further along in, in tackling corruption?

 I 

[00:54:42] Declan Hill: I disagree with you, Nick, and let's end on, on this agreement. To disagree and then let's agree to have you back on the program because I'd really like to break down the mechanism 

[00:54:51] Nick Raudenski: Let me clarify one thing on that what I what I what i'm not saying is that governments aren't doing enough What i'm saying is that you can't expect [00:55:00] a non law enforcement body to Clean up the the situation, right?

[00:55:08] Nick Raudenski: If you look at a lot of the cases that have really changed the The international environment related to tackling corruption. It has been big government police takedowns. It's been investigative journalism that has uncovered corruption. It's been whistleblowers that have blown the whistle on things. It hasn't been So much so sports organizations taking the responsibility and blowing itself up.

[00:55:39] Declan Hill: I don't want to get into you know, obviously they're, they're delicate areas with UEFA and FIFA, you know, these big sporting organizations that you've just left, but, but what's your take on these guys in terms of whether they're actually going to deal with these issues? 

[00:55:55] Nick Raudenski: Well that I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna speak about because I think we all need to realize [00:56:00] that either you're part of the problem or you're the part of the solution and what I want to really focus on is how are we going to change the narrative of what's happening with, with sports integrity.

[00:56:09] Nick Raudenski: How are we going to change the fact that we've been doing the same thing for the past eight to 10 years that it's the same PowerPoints that are being rolled out the same talking points, but what I did want to mention is that, you know, sometimes I think that. You know people blame sports for not acting enough but what I want to to mention about that is These problems exist in society and sport is a reflection Of its culture of its society.

[00:56:41] Nick Raudenski: So if racism exists in a in a society It's going to exist in sport if corruption and specifically talking about match fixing if corruption is in the society that's a way that people start to you know, Desensitize from it's like yeah, but you know, of course everybody [00:57:00] kind of takes some money. It's a way that they desensitize to Stepping up and saying no, that's that's not right.

[00:57:07] Nick Raudenski: You can't take you know an extra cut just to make sure that there's more so so if corruption exists in society of course It's going to exist in the sports that you know that that that we all know and love but You know that we all have to be part of the solution that we all have to to continue to get enough cooperation that we have to get enough.

[00:57:28] Nick Raudenski: You know Actual operations, actual, you know actual cases we can, you know, rely on, on to, to, to change the narrative. I mean, if you look through the history of sports corruption, what were the big cases that have really Move the needle when it comes to the international sports environment. It's not the the federations It's not the the international bodies that are stepping up and saying enough's enough.

[00:57:54] Nick Raudenski: It's a whistleblower that comes forward it's an investigative journalist Declan may be like [00:58:00] yourself or a And new york times or an associated press or any, you know a sunday times, article that's exposing things It's the police organizations that you know that that bust open the bulkum case that you know leads to some of the biggest The you know, the biggest arrests and exposure match fixing in europe.

[00:58:20] Nick Raudenski: So so, you know, we can't say Governments aren't doing enough, because sometimes they're the only ones that are doing something, and it's something that, that you said in one of your, your articles. And so, you know, that's what I really want to end on, is that, you were saying that governments aren't doing enough.
[00:58:34] Nick Raudenski: Sure, there's always more that can be done, but everybody has to do more, otherwise we're going to continue to lose this [00:59:00] war.