The Houston Dash Premier Cup is the number one girls premier pre-season event in Houston. Like many other top NTX teams, the DFeeters Kicks SC (DKSC) hit the road to participate in this tournament with the full intention of competing. What ends up taking place, could be described as MATCH FIXING. This one begins (as usual) with a source:
So let's dive in...
Of-course, after receiving this tip we began to work on investigating and vetting the source's story. We confirmed that DKSC has both 2012 and 2011 teams competing in the Girls U10 Future Cup B division. These teams were indeed scheduled to play each other, and a mysterious 0-0 draw was entered as the result (Another 0-0 draw).
So we began to use a bit of deductive reasoning. If one team wants to play, and the other doesn't, the standard is to award a forfeit win of 3-0. So this is why we didn't feel the source's perspective of what happened tells the complete story. Also, tournaments typically release the schedule for group stage several days prior. So this scheduled matchup shouldn't have been a shock to anyone the morning of the match..
So digging a bit further, we spoke with a few sources and here is what we've pieced together. We've confirmed that the 12s DKSC were prepared to compete and play this match, however the 11s DKSC team and coach didn't bother to show up to the game field. This information appears to be consistent with our initial theory that the 11s were simply "scared" to play their sister team.. While it does suck that two teams from the same club traveled 200+ miles, only to be scheduled to play each other... that's no credible reason to refuse to play the game. The time to protest the schedule was perhaps when the initial schedule of games was released well prior to the morning of the game itself. Why not simply let the girls settle it on the pitch?
Even with these revelations, we are still left with the mystery or why/how the scores were entered as a 0-0 draw. Assuming the 12s team was present for the matchup and the 11s team doesn't show, we'd expect for a 3-0 forfeit win to be awarded to the 12s team. So our digging continued. After speaking with a source directly within the 12s group, we are told that the tournament organizers are the real culprits. Allegedly, Andrew Squire ( assistant tournament director) asked the 12s coach to forfeit since they were their group was the younger team.
Why does the assistant tournament director care who forfeits?
This is where things got very interesting. Andrew Squire is more than the assistant tournament director. He happens to also be a Dynamo Dash Youth, Development Academy Head Coach. This got us to wondering, could it truly be that the tournament directors were fixing the match? Why would they care so much, and why punish the DKSC 12s when the DKSC 11s were the team which forfeited? We found our answer in plain view when we looked again at the bracketing. Girls U10 Futures Cup B (9v9) BRACKET B, shows a team named HDDYSC DASH CITY 11 SELECT II in the same bracket as the DKSC 12s group. This is indeed a Houston Dash team from the host club, and one who would directly benefit Squires and the tournament leadership NOT awarding the 3-0 forfeit win to 12s DKSC. At the time of the match in question (8am), the Dash team had not yet played their scheduled match against the DKSC 11s team. This means, the TD or Squires could have been hedging the goal differential in their club team's favor. Considering the format of the tournament and the fact that only 1 of 3 teams advance, the logic bears out. Giving DKSC 12s the points and GD from the 3-0 forfeit, hurts their Dash team's odds.
This one is still evolving and we will continue digging. We'll update as we learn more...
