“Match-fix or perish”. Match-fixing as a commercial solution

Professional and semi-professional football clubs, both within and beyond Europe, operate as commercial organisations that aim to maximise profit and limit any losses they might be faced with. In order to do so, football clubs concentrate their efforts on increasing their income by focusing on their commercial revenue sources, namely, broadcasting rights, commercial/sponsorship deals, ticketing/match day and merchandise. This chapter explores these sources in order to illustrate that based on the decreasing trend identified in all commercial income and paired with the wider economic austerity occurring worldwide, alternative commercial solutions are being sought by football clubs. By focusing on the case of the Greek Super League, we argue that match-fixing can emerge not as a threat to the clubs but, in fact, often as a commercial solution that can assist them in their survival and even commercial and financial success. As such, we offer an alternative and unorthodox understanding of match-fixing, as a welcome solution to football clubs, brought over by the external pressures of the commercial and financial environment.