I watched it, found it interesting and not a waste of time. To each their own.

I can help it. I'm not in the least bit interested.

Including soccer officials?? Easy there, Mark..... We all know who has to run the longest and the most out there.... :D Yup, the soccer officials..

I did not find it a waste of time. It was interesting. It confirmed what I already knew about the man. And I loved how they tried to make a correlation to how many times he picked the right team. Hell, anyone can do that when you are intimately involved in an organization and you know a lot of inside information. Hell I can pick most winners of the high school teams I have and it does not matter who officiates to come to that conclusion. I have yet to have a team lose that I thought was going to win. This is why we call games where teams are not supposed to win, "Upsets."

Peace

Yea, but for me, they lost their credibility a long time ago. Too much like Geraldo and a sort of Rolex version of Jerry Springer. Gag.

I thought the interview was interesting. I certainly don't trust everything he says to be truth, but you do have to wonder how he was able to get an 80% win rate if everything he says wasn't true. Just sayin'...

Rut - I don't think he meant he just picked winners that much, he meant he picked the teams that beat the spread that much. That's certainly not easy to do. In gambling terms, that's what "winner" means.

What I find most interesting about this thread is that Jeremy feels its ok to dump on his fellow officials without any facts and just speak in platitudes. Klassy. :rolleyes:

As Rut points out, intimate knowledge of the teams will give you that edge. I'll bet the players could do the same thing if picking between two other teams. I'd also bet Donaghy could have done just as well betting on teams he wasn't officiating.

If you had watched the interview, you'd know that he did bet on many games he wasn't officiating. It was the knowledge about how certain officlals felt about certain players/coaches/owners that were major indicators on how the games would turn out. I don't think betting the spread and winning 80% of the time is easy in any professional sport. He had inside info from other refs. That's compelling.

Sorry, but I find nothing he says to be compelling. Knowing how other officials call games (tight, loose, etc) and how much crap they take from players could give him this information. This is the intimate knowledge that Rut is alluding to.

I officiated H.S. soccer for 13 years. I am allowed my snide comments about them from time to time. Please do not take it personally.

MTD, Sr.

I agree with you, but he has information that the average person does not have. He knows the players, coaches and officials intimately. I am sure if I had that information I could get most picks right. It is not like he got 100% right, he got 75%-80% right. And he would also talk to the officials before the game and know who was playing and who was not playing that night. Now he obviously is an intelligent guy as well and probably knew how to bet very well also. But he did not say anything that convinced me that there was a set up to make those outcomes happen. And according the FBI that was shown to also be the case as well.

I guess I do not get the "He was not sincere" aspect. He did not need to be for me to draw a conclusion. Maybe I am just naive, but I do not think we have as much control over games outcomes as many people think we do. And there was an example where Tim D, bet on the Spurs to win a game and he threw out the head coach and they lost and he lost his bet.

Peace

I'll add one more thing. Chances are he only bet on games where he thought he had information that would help him; further increasing the odds of success.

I know that when we, as officials, get into "game mode", many of the calls just come virtually automatically without us having to stop and think about them - and that's how it's supposed to be. I wonder if that's what happened in this case.