corruption in sports essay gcse

Why does taint of corruption stick to sport and what can we do about it?

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In recent days, newly re-elected FIFA president Sepp Blatter has attempted to counter persistent corruption allegations by attempting to assemble a “council of wisdom” to clean up the international sporting body.

Blatter has apparently targeted former US Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger and more bizarrely, opera singer Placido Domingo to take part, prompting the inevitable “soap opera” headlines.

The FIFA scandal is the latest in a long list, from corruption claims at the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games to match-fixing in the Indian Premier League .

How did we get to this position? Well, it turns out that we have always been in this position: corruption in sport has been around as long as there has been organised sport. Indeed, there is evidence of an athlete bribing his opponents at the Olympics of 388 BC, 2400 years ago.

Today, most of the reaction to news of a corrupt behaviour when it happens (frequently as it seems) is to condemn the perceived offenders and to propose remedies so that it won’t happen again.

Clearly this approach is not effective in reducing its recurrence, but why?

I won’t try to solve the problem of corruption but I do want to explore what makes corruption possible. What makes groups like the IOC, FIFA, Commonwealth Games Committees and the IPL, vulnerable to corrupt practices?

To unpack corruption in sport I need to spell out the important considerations that go into it. The major factors that feature in corruption are; 1) people, 2) similarity to other fields where corruption occurs, 3) opportunities to gain money, fame, and power, 4) environments where expectations for outcomes are high (ie winning is all), 5) jobs where the prime motive is profit, and 6) situations where secrecy is standard operating practice.

How does sport stack up against these? Firstly, notice that all the main groups of people in sport have been involved in one fiasco or another: competitors, coaches, administrators, player managers, officials, referees - the lot.

Second, the kinds of corrupt practices that occur in sports are the main kinds of corrupt practices that occur in other contexts (business, politics, and the like) albeit with particular twists: fraud, bribery, fixing outcomes (match fixing through, for example, points shaving), and so on. Nothing new here, really.

Third, notice that the instances of corruption that come to the public’s notice happen in sports where there is a large amount of money (and gambling), status, or power at stake.

Fourth, the sports involved have a large supporter base; where the (usually paying) spectators outnumber the contestants.

Fifth, the sports involved have largely become seen as an entertainment or business rather than remaining the idealist picture of pure, (usually amateur) athletic endeavours.

Finally we have (as in many other contexts) claims of the need for confidentiality, secrecy, loyalty (read patriotism), business cases, and so on.

So, I have identified six categories of influencing factors to consider. How does this help in understanding how corruption could happen? Simple really, measure any situation against the criteria.

Take the current FIFA example. The allegation is that some of the voting countries were bribed by one of the candidates for their support.

From the first category there are administrators, from the second bribery, from the third money (by the bucketload), status, and power.

From the fourth there are millions of followers, from the fifth some (well, many really) commentators consider football to be either entertainment or a business, perhaps both.

Lastly international football administration operates on the quiet, relies on a network of winks and nods. Football, at the international level, has it all.

Football has it all. All the elements necessary for corrupt practices. Football is not different to the ordinary areas vulnerable to corruption. We should not expect that it will behave differently.

We should be asking not ‘Why does corruption occur in football?’ but rather ‘How is it that there are occasions when honest, ethical behaviour does occur?’

This seems an unnecessarily pessimistic note to end on. Perhaps there is something that can be done to make it right.

In short, education: to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Ethical education so that people in situations where they are likely to be exposed to corrupt temptations can recognise the difficulties and be better able to resist them.

Expertise education so that these people can feel confident and proud to show off the work they do, so that they want to make their work transparent to all. People who are good at their job and want to do the right thing are less likely to do the wrong thing.

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Expert Commentary

Corruption, sports and FIFA: Research roundup

2015 roundup of research and analyses on corruption in sports, with a focus on soccer and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA).

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Martin Maximino, The Journalist's Resource June 15, 2015

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/corruption-sports-fifa-research-roundup/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

Joseph “Sepp” Blatter first became president of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) in 1998. In 2015, seventeen years later, he was elected for a fifth term, only to suddenly resign just four days later. While FIFA and its partners were no strangers to accusations of corruption — indeed, Blatter’s first election involved charges of bribery — his sudden decision came on the heels of a far-reaching criminal indictment, filed May 20 in the Eastern District of New York. While Blatter himself wasn’t named, 14 federation officials and associates were. On May 27, many were arrested in a dawn raid while staying at five-star Swiss hotel.

The complex investigation was coordinated among the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the FBI and the IRS. In a press conference , Lynch described FIFA’s corruption as “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted.” The charges in the indictment included “solicitation, offer, acceptance, payment, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, bribes, and kickbacks” as well as “the active concealment of foreign bank accounts; the structuring of financial transactions to avoid currency reporting requirements; bulk cash smuggling; the purchase of real property and other physical assets; the use of safe deposit boxes; income tax evasion; and obstruction of justice.” Blatter attempted to distance himself from the accusations, to no avail.

In particular, the suspects are accused of benefitting certain countries and regions to host soccer events. The process that led to FIFA’s simultaneously awarding the 2018 cup to Russia and the 2022 contest to Qatar was steeped in controversy, and FIFA officials have said that the countries may lose their host status if proof of bribery emerges.

Mass sporting events are popular in every sense of the word, from the public at large to elected officials and business interests, and immense amounts of money, power and influence can be at stake. Previous research has studied the economic impact of the Olympics and found mixed results at best. Huge infrastructure projects can be immensely profitable, however, and the Associated Press revealed evidence of widespread corruption in Brazil in the buildup to the 2014 World Cup. A 2014 study in Public Administration Review found that, similarly, the most-corrupt U.S. states tend to spend more on construction projects because they present a wealth of opportunities for bribery, kickbacks and more. Host countries often hope to boost their international stature through such high-profile events, but many — including Russia and Azerbaijan — are not known for their commitment to transparency.

Below is a selection of recent research and analyses relating to corruption in sports, with a focus on soccer, that can help inform reporting on the system and its challenges.

—————

“Corruption in Sport: From the Playing Field to the Field of Policy” Masters, Adam. Policy and Society , 2015, Vol. 34, Issue 2. doi: 10.1016/j.polsoc.2015.04.002.

Abstract : “How is corruption in sport evolving into a global public policy issue? In the past century, four trends have affected sport according to Paoli and Donati (2013): de-amateurization at the turn of the 20th century, medicalization since the 1960s, politicization and commercialization to the point where sport is now a business worth more than US$141 billion annually. Each of these trends had a corrupting effect on what is generally perceived as a past ‘golden age’ of sport. In the 21st century more public funding is being directed into sport in the developed and developing world. As a result this paper will argue organized sport has entered a fifth evolutionary trend – criminalization. In this latest phase, public policy needs to grapple with what constitutes corruption in what has historically been a private market.”

“Investigating Corruption in Corporate Sport: The IOC and FIFA” Jennings, Andrew. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, December 2011, Vol. 46, No. 4 387-398

Abstract : “Global sport governing bodies proclaim lofty ideals and espouse generic principles that set high moral standards for themselves and others. None more so than two of the world’s largest, most influential, and most high profile sporting organizations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Behind the façades of principled rhetoric is often something quite different. Focusing on some of the most powerful figures who have walked the corridors of power in the IOC and FIFA, using the methods of investigative journalism, this article investigates the gap between principle and practice in corporate sport. It concludes by arguing that a lack of transparency and accountability in these global sport governing bodies goes hand in glove with a propensity for corruption. It further urges sports academics to take a much more critical approach to the task of researching and investigating power relations in world sport.”

“Deceptive Development and Democratization: Stadium Construction and Securitization in the FIFA World Cup Host Countries of South Africa and Brazil” Peet-Martel, Jasper. Journal of Politics and Society , Columbia University’s Academic Commons, 2014. doi: 10.7916/D8QF8RJB.

Abstract : “The past few decades has seen increasing attention given toward mega sporting events in the context of development. As countries, especially in developing regions of the world, strive to enhance their political, economic, and social standing, hosting mega events is viewed as an opportune path to growth. However, this view often does not take into consideration how fall-out, particularly for local communities, affects a country’s overall experience with the event it hosts. The question I pose to test these two competing views of mega event hosting is the following: are mega-sporting events, specifically the FIFA World Cup, a viable avenue for furthering development and democratization? I examine the dual processes of stadium development and securitization for the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups to answer this question, and argue that the neoliberal governance that drives FIFA World Cup securitization and stadium construction results in significant consequences for local development and compromises democratization for developing host countries.”

“From the 2014 World Cup to the 2016 Summer Olympics: Brazil’s Role in the Global Anti-Corruption Movement” Spalding, Andrew Brady; Barr, Patrick; Flores, Albert; Freiman, Shaun; Gavin, Kat; Klink, Tyler; Nichols, Carter; Reid, Ann; Van Orden, Rina. International Law, 2015

Abstract: “Brazil has the rare fortune of hosting the world’s two highest-profile sporting events back-to-back: the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. So too does it find itself in the midst of an historic anti-corruption movement. As recent Olympics have reminded us, mega sporting events can gauge the host-country’s effectiveness in combating corruption. This paper, co-authored by a professor and eight students, uses the window between the World Cup and Olympics to reflect on Brazil’s successes to date and its remaining challenges. It briefly surveys recent allegations of corruption in international sports generally and the Olympics specifically, and discusses Brazil’s recent anti-corruption reforms. It concludes with a series of research questions that the authors will continue exploring in the months prior to the 2016 Games.”

“Does FIFA’s Corruption Hurt the Beautiful Game?” Davis, Noah; Cappello, Juan C. Americas Quarterly , Summer 2013, 7.3, 22-25.

Excerpt : “[C]orruption at the highest levels of FIFA reduces the incentive to deal with problems on the field that affect fan experience, namely racism on the pitch and match-fixing. The organization does an excellent job in the eyes of fans, players and advertisers, with its range of tournaments and competitions, international friendlies, and massive events like the 2013 Confederation Cup and 2014 World Cup in Brazil…. FIFA’s immense geographical reach has given it the financial resources and clout to withstand any outside efforts to impose reforms — and to argue it is capable of policing itself.”

“World Cup 2026 Now Accepting Bribes: A Fundamental Transformation of FIFA’s World Cup Bid Process” Becker, Ryan. International Sports Law Journal , April 2013, Vol. 13, Issue 1-2, 132-147.

Abstract : “The perception that football is corrupt became a reality after the allegations of bribery and vote trading that surrounded the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process. This article argues that to restore the public confidence in FIFA, specifically in the World Cup bid process, FIFA must aggressively punish individuals, nations and confederations guilty of accepting or offering kickbacks, bribes or vote trading, as well as protecting those guilty, or reasonably believed to be guilty, of such crimes. To assure that such a fundamental shift will occur, FIFA must work with other sports governing bodies to establish a World Anti-Corruption Agency. Additionally, FIFA must internally change its World Cup vote procedures to ensure fairness and transparency…. This article outlines the current rules and regulations that govern the selection of the host nation for World Cup, addresses the controversy centered on the selection process for 2018 and 2022 World Cup, and recommends a three-part solution detailing the necessary steps both FIFA and FIFA members must take to ensure the integrity of the FIFA World Cup bid process.”

“Corruption Does Not Pay: An Analysis of Consumer Response to Italy’s Calciopoli Scandal” Babatunde Buraimo, Giuseppe Migali, Rob Simmons. Conference proceedings, “The Informal Economy, Tax Evasion and Corruption,” September 2012.

Abstract : “The literature on economics of corruption is lacking in evidence on consumer responses to identifiable scandals. The Calciopoli episode affecting Italian football in the 2005/06 season serves as an opportunity for an empirical investigation into consumer (fan) behavior following punishments imposed by the Italian league on clubs whose officials were found guilty of corrupt practices. Using a difference-in-difference estimation method, where the convicted teams are the treatment group, we find that home attendances for treatment teams fell relative to control group teams defined as those clubs not subject to league-imposed punishment. We show further that the fall in attendances identified with Calciopoli punishment resulted in non-trivial gate revenue reductions. Our results suggest that a sizable number of fans of the punished clubs were subsequently deterred from supporting their teams inside the stadium.”

“Using Forecasting to Detect Corruption in International Football” Reade, J. James; Akie, Sachiko. Research Program on Forecasting, George Washington University.

Abstract : “This paper further develops methods to detect corrupt activity using data from 63 bookmakers covering over 9,000 international football matches since 2004, in particular assessing a claim made in early 2013 by Europol that the outcomes of almost 300 international matches since 2009 were fixed. We explore the divergence between two kinds of forecasts of match outcomes: those by bookmakers, and those constructed by econometric models. We argue that in the absence of corrupt activity to fix outcomes, these two forecasts should be indistinguishable as they are based on the same information sets, and hence any divergence between the two may be indicative of corrupt activity to fix matches. In the absence of corroborating evidence we cannot declare any evidence procured in our manner as conclusive regarding the existence or otherwise of corruption, but nonetheless we argue that is it indicative. We conclude that there is mild evidence regarding potentially corrupt outcomes, and we also point towards yet more advanced strategies for its detection.”

Keywords: sports, corruption, infrastructure, Olympics, world cup, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, Qatar, Sochi, Baku.

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August 12, 2021

Study suggests reforms to prevent bribery and corruption at major sporting events

by University of Portsmouth

Bribery and corruption at huge sporting events—such as the Olympics, World Cups and UEFA club competition finals—can and must be prevented, a new paper from the University of Portsmouth argues.

Sporting events are often accompanied by allegations of bribery and corruption , including abuse of power, embezzlement, fraud and vote-rigging, but with the help and advice of key people involved, the risks can be mitigated.

The paper was published in Sport in Society journal.

Christina Philippou, of the Portsmouth Business School, explored the perspectives of anti-corruption specialists, sport governance officials, athletes, coaches, club officials and journalists—all stakeholders in 'sport mega-events'.

She said: "It is not surprising that big sporting events are linked to scandals, nor that concerns around corruption are expected to continue.

"It is vital for the integrity of sport to ensure that the events of the next decade are less tarred by the brush of corruption than some of their predecessors.

"There is a wealth of research on previous corruption scandals, but limited studies on the prevention of bribery and corruption. This paper is a starting point to achieve the necessary reforms required at most levels of sport organisation hierarchy to ensure that corruption isn't repeated time and again."

Mrs Philippou conducted interviews with 39 participants from six continents between 2018 and 2020.

Some common concerns and recommendations emerged, including the need for transparency, accountability and compliance.

The anti-bribery experts suggested sport governance officials should have similar internal controls as those used for politicians. Others discussed due diligence and a focus on transparency from the start, in line with common industry anti-bribery controls.

Enforcement was also seen as an important control tool, where 'there need to be very steep consequences when anything untoward is found out'.

Interviewees also shared concerns around construction and other contracts. One participant said 'of course there's enormous amounts of construction happening around these events, and that's an area that's notorious for more corruption as well. And graft'.

Another important theme that emerged was the need for legacy and sustainability. One participant stated 'It's not that the legacy should be the stadium, the legacy should be fundamental building blocks for your society there. Big nice stadium, lovely thing to look at, but absolutely useless if your kids can't go to school'.

One participant shared concerns about the Rio Olympics because of the amount of money being spent on a three-week event when there are people living in poverty-stricken favelas (slums). 'I felt morally conflicted, because you're looking at what has been built… and you have all these VIPs coming in being chauffeured around the city and staying in amazing hotels, and you have people who are destitute'.

Proposed solutions included:

• Registers of interests/gifts/expenses
• Independent third party oversight
• Transparent bidding
• Conflicts of interest registers
• Independent NEDs
• External regulator
• Transparency in procurement
• Demonstrable compliance

Mrs Philippou said: "Research on anti-corruption is important for understanding how improvements can be made and I hope my work will contribute to governance reforms, which will prevent large national and international sport governing bodies being engulfed in future corruption scandals."

Provided by University of Portsmouth

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Corrupt behaviour has become endemic in football's culture

Instead of defusing this ticking time bomb football now finds itself dealing with the aftermath and serious collateral damage surrounding agents

A fter a few days in football that have shocked many I have to say that, like many others in the industry, I’m not actually that shocked at the allegations of corruption. In my opinion football has required a stark wake-up call for some time now.

Having formerly been an FA licensed agent for nearly six years and then reclassified as an FA-registered intermediary since April 2015, I can say that the sad truth is allegations and stories of corruption in football are common. These can, of course, be merely rumour or bravado but my own experiences confirm there is widespread wrong practice.

My discontent and views have caused me to be labelled a “boy scout” by some peers. There are, of course, many other intermediaries who operate within the rules and act in the best interests of clients. But it would be naive to say my industry is clean. There is a large proportion that look to circumvent the rules for personal gain and not uphold their fiduciary duty to clients.

For intermediaries intent on acting properly it is not easy remaining within rules and regulations and behaving in an ethical manner: ultimately we receive no encouragement or incentive from authorities to do so.

Some may be tempted to break rules when perceiving regulations being enforced piecemeal and/or when any sanctions imposed are somewhat minimal.

Although many are appalled by what can occur, corrupt behaviour has gone relatively unchecked for long enough to become accepted and be an endemic part of football’s culture.

Some do want to see change, evolution and improvement. But many key stakeholders who can facilitate change have chosen to stand by. This may be due to self-preservation, a fixation with finance or simply not caring and being happy with a substandard status quo.

Rather than attempting to defuse this ticking football bomb, we now find ourselves dealing with the aftermath and serious collateral damage, much of which could have been averted. How have we reached this point? Many will blame Fifa for “abandoning” (the governing body’s own word) in 2015 existing agent regulations and introducing intermediary regulations.

This devolved some power from Fifa to individual FAs. Agents throughout the world (apart from France) became no more and instead had to re-register as intermediaries with their national associations. The framework gave Fifa ultimate control but less responsibility.

Fifa’s perceived logic was that they could not regulate it and the individual FAs could better regulate and so power and responsibility were devolved. National associations were to implement their own regulations governing intermediaries, as long as they upheld the basic framework in place from Fifa.

Hence we now have a fractured system internationally regarding intermediary activity, with different regulations governing activity in each country. Our English FA may have been left holding a hot potato they did not really want.

There are several practices that fall into a grey area and need debating. Third-party ownership is one; another is “duality”, in which an intermediary acts for a player and the selling/buying club with the agreement of the relevant parties and is then paid for both activities. Another is “switching”, where an intermediary representing a player changes to represent a club in respect of that player either at the time of a transaction or for a period of time thereafter. There can be conflicts of interest in all these practices with regard to fiduciary duty.

For several years now I – and many others who have had similar experience – have been highlighting what needs to be done and making suggestions as to how this may be implemented. The wall of silence these have been met with is deafening.

One of my priorities would be to introduce accreditation for agents to act as an industry benchmark for best practitioners. I submitted a working document to several key stakeholders within football to look at accreditation along with a proposal to educate widely within the industry regarding intermediary activity. Some did respond positively but many did not even reply – and can be accused of passing the buck to the FA.

Intermediary activity affects players, managers, clubs, associations, and ultimately fans so why aren’t their representative bodies jointly and cooperatively tackling the problem? Instead there has been a chronic denial which has inevitably led to this week’s events.

It is a sad state of affairs that over the last few years I have seen a number of “good” agents leave the industry and I have considered it. Or, even worse, some have succumbed to tactics that go against not just regulations but their ethics and principles. This is not to thrive but to survive and, as with any industry, the loss of good people leaves a vacuum for the unscrupulous element to take over, which ultimately leads to damage affecting all participants.

The fact is the issue of intermediaries is something nobody seems to want to take responsibility for. The buck always seems to be passed back to the FA. I have no doubt this is a joint responsibility for the game’s key stakeholders: the FA, Premier League, Football League, Professional Footballers’ Association, League Managers Association and, of course, agents themselves.

Jonathan Booker is a registered FA intermediary and former general secretary of the Association of Football Agents

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Corruption in sport is on the rise and Europe can do more when it comes to tackling it, report states 15 March 2019

A Loughborough University academic has concluded that there is “ample room for improvement” when it comes to European countries tackling cases of corruption in sport.

Dr Argyro Elisavet Manoli , of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences , has examined the state of play in 28 countries and identified potential actions to take forward as part of a report issued by the European Commission.  

The complex and multidimensional nature of corruption in sport has created significant challenges for sport management and policymakers in identifying where problems lie and developing actions to safeguard the integrity of sport globally.

Dr Manoli has reviewed the types of corruption that exist in the different EU member states, if or how they are dealt with at national and/or international level and what kind of legal instruments exist to deal with them and minimise potential risks.

The study, ‘ Mapping of corruption in sport in the EU ’, examines an array of pre-existing data and looks at cases of corruption in sports ranging from chess to football. 

It also reveals the findings of new research conducted by Dr Manoli that looked at the number of reported cases of corruption in 11 sample countries from 2010 to 2018.

Dr Manoli identified 92 cases of corruption over this time period and found most cases were in France (16) and the UK (15), followed by Bulgaria (14) and Italy (10) with the least cases reported in Germany (3) and Finland (3).

More than 19 different sports were covered in the 92 cases with football identified as the worst culprit with 47 cases across the 11 countries.

Most of the football cases were reported in France (7), then Italy (7), Malta (5), Bulgaria (5) and the UK (5).

Athletics, tennis and cycling had the next highest numbers of cases (5, 4, 4, respectively).

Only one case of corruption was found in sports such as hockey, basketball, biathlon, Paralympic, swimming and running. 

Dr Manoli also looked at the type of incidents that took place and identified a total of eight different types of corruption across the 11 countries.

Some cases involved a combination of two types of corruption but in terms of single type cases match-fixing took the top spot with 32 cases and then doping with 24.

There was only one case related to misuse of inside information and that was in the UK. 

Dr Manoli’s report also looked at the four main responses implemented by the EU countries – legal measures implemented by national governments, preventative measures, new organisational structures and collaborative mechanisms – and the impact they had in real life scenarios.

The research highlighted a number of key conclusions with regard to the effectiveness of responses and particular features of promising practices in this area:

• There is evidence that the introduction of stricter legal penalties reduces levels of match-fixing
• There is a need to focus on preventative measures as well as legal penalties
• The role of multi-stakeholder groups for preventing and tackling corruption in sport - (some of the case studies highlighted the potential for involving all relevant actors in addressing specific corruption practices including judicial bodies, government ministries, national sport agencies and federations) 
• There is an increasing emphasis on promoting ‘good governance’ practices in sport federations.

However, the study also found that despite the variety of measures that have been implemented in the 11 countries in recent years, the number of reported cases has increased drastically, from just two cases in two countries in 2010 to 17 cases across eight countries in 2018.

“Room for improvement”

Dr Manoli has concluded – not only from this report, but the research she has conducted on the topic over the past years – that there is "ample room for improvement" in EU member states’ responses to corruption.

She said: “Despite an increase in the fighting measures, the documented cases of corruption across the EU member states is rising, suggesting that there is still more to be done.

“There was a wide disparity of responses identified among the member states, with Bulgaria and France being particularly active in their fight against corruption in sport.

“While it is not fair to point the finger to any country in particular [in terms of which has the biggest issue with corruption in sport], it is worth bearing in mind that a number of the countries tend to respond to crises, scandals or manifestations of corruption after they occur and rarely beforehand.”

"There is still more to be done", says Dr Manoli. 

Dr Manoli also believes one of the main issues is that not enough attention is being paid to less-documented types of corruption.

She said: “A key aspect in this might be that we are indeed focusing on a small number of types of corruption, doping and match-fixing, and thus are ignoring a number of other manifestations that have proven harmful for the future of sport.

“Evidence suggests that there is a shift in the focus of the corruptors that we need to be prepared for.

“These types include, but are not limited to tax evasion, bribery and money laundering, as well as various commercially linked ‘tricks’.

“Understanding these types, the way in which they are organised and how they can be dealt with can assist us in, hopefully, safeguarding the future of sport.”

Recommendations

Dr Manoli recommends the following in her report:

• Information sharing and transparency in the manifestations of corruption
• The introduction and following of a more systematic monitoring system of corruption that is to be shared among different bodies in each nation and internationally
• An evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of the existing responses to corruption in order to access what works and what does not, and therefore improve future actions to fight corruption
• Sharing information on good practices that have proven effective, in order to replicate them among different sports and member states
• Paying closer attention to less documented types of corruption.

Understanding different types of corruption will help "safeguard the future of sport".

Dr Manoli said: “The research findings provide evidence and insights in understanding how the EU could potentially add value to existing initiatives in this area.

“I hope this report will be used by the EU and its member states in informing future policy to fight corruption in sport.”

Mapping of corruption in sport in the EU was presented at the recent Expert Group on Sport Integrity in Cyprus and has been shared with EU member state representatives as well as key organisations such as the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, INTERPOL, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe.

The full report can be found here .

Notes for editors

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Corruption in sport is on the rise and Europe can do more when it comes to tackling it, report states

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Article Contents

1 introduction: a quiet year, 2 defining corruption in sport, 3 analysing corruption in sport, 4 governance and control of sport corruption, 5 doping — the us response, 6 match-fixing, 7 discussion, 8 conclusion.

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Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy

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Adam Masters, Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy, Policy and Society , Volume 34, Issue 2, June 2015, Pages 111–123, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polsoc.2015.04.002

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How is corruption in sport evolving into a global public policy issue? In the past century, four trends have affected sport according to Paoli and Donati (2013) — de-amateurisation at the turn of the twentieth century, medicalisation since the 1960s, politicisation and commercialisation to the point where sport is now a business worth more than US$141 billion annually. Each of these trends had a corrupting effect on what is generally perceived as a past ‘golden age’ of sport. In the twenty-first century more public funding is being directed into sport in the developed and developing world. As a result this paper will argue organised sport has entered a fifth evolutionary trend — criminalisation. In this latest phase, public policy needs to grapple with what constitutes corruption in what has historically been a private market.

2015 is a relatively quiet year for global sport. There will be no Olympic Games — either summer or winter, the World Cup for Football is awaiting its next (already controversial) manifestation in Russia and there is not even a Commonwealth Games scheduled. However, international competition rolls on, nations will compete in football, cricket, both forms of rugby and myriad other sports. Annual events like the Tour de France and the regular national and local leagues will gear up for the season. Yet among all this positive social interaction lurks the ever-present threat of corruption. Nearly every day the media runs stories on one form or another of corruption in sport. Often this is left to sports officials to deal with as sport, in essence, occupies the private sphere. However, throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, sport is emerging as a concern for public officials.

This research intends to bring corruption in sport forward in the public policy literature. Most research on corruption in sport occupies the academic space associated with sports science and management. Despite millions of public dollars flowing into sport in different countries around the world, there is limited examination of sport corruption in the public policy literature. This is not to say there is no utility in the broader literature for the public policy scholar or practitioner — Misra, Anderson, and Saunders (2013) make an important contribution in their criminological analysis of Australian sporting integrity in a volume sponsored by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) ( Haberfeld & Sheehan, 2013 ). A supposition for this gap could be that the largest sporting market in the world is the United States. US sport is mainly private enterprise and it has been left to the market to get its own house in order. However, many other national governments make significant public contributions to sport. Therefore this article represents an early contribution to an important part of future public policy research.

This paper uses the TASP model outlined by Graycar (2015) to provide an overview of the scale and variety of corruption in sport. The research proposes a definition of corruption in sport, followed by a closer look at three types of sport-specific malfeasance — doping, match-fixing and host-rights corruption. Analysis of the controls for these types of corruption within the TASP framework illustrates some issues for public policy.

Research on corruption in sport tends to focus on one aspect or another of the issue without examining the whole range. Paoli and Donati's (2013) seminal work, The Sport Doping Market , investigates a significant issue over a long period, providing the first analysis of what this market looks like. However, doping (defined below) is only one type of corruption in sport. Another type is match-fixing. In recent years, the international government organisation Interpol has worked closely with sporting bodies such as FIFA to tackle the problem of gambling related match-fixing. While this is a public-private partnership with funds invested from both spheres, its focus is on the particular problem of illegal gambling's influence on the integrity of sport. The Interpol/FIFA partnership has already contributed to the academic literature through the publication of the aforementioned volume ( Haberfeld & Sheehan, 2013 ), which reviewed global responses to the problem of match-fixing. The Haberfeld and Sheehan volume provides a selection of policy responses and contributes to the growing academic literature on match-fixing, particularly in football ( Boeri & Severgnini, 2011 ; Forrest, McHale, & McAuley, 2008 ; Forrest & Simmons, 2003 ; Hill, 2009 , 2010 ; Martin de Sanctis, 2014 ). There is also a growing literature on host-rights corruption. However, due to academic reluctance to cite (as yet) unproven cases as examples of such behaviour, much of the literature on host rights abuses is based on journalistic endeavours (see Jennings, 1996 , 2011 ; Jennings & Sambrook, 2000 ). To understand the full scope of the problem it is timely to introduce a working definition of corruption in sport and an overview of the behaviours that constitute this corruption in the sporting sector.

Defining corruption in sport is problematic. This follows from the difficulty in defining corruption in the first place. The common definitions of corruption tend to be limited by the definer's perspective. For example, the now classic view for political scientists defines corruption as “behaviour which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private regarding (personal, close family, private clique) pecuniary or status gains; or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regarding influence” ( Nye, 1967 : 419). This definition comes from the perspective of the political scientist thinking about development. Whereas the commonly accepted standard definition of corruption, established by the World Bank and now used by Transparency International — the abuse of entrusted power for private gain — derives from the economists’ perspective. As Caiden (2001) rightly points out, neither definition leaves space for ‘noble cause’ corruption — where power is abused in the pursuit of a public, rather than personal gain. To illustrate, noble cause corruption occurs whenever police purposely use unlawful techniques to secure evidence of a crime; it follows from a legal perspective that any conviction manifesting from such a process is corrupt (see Prenzler, 2009 , 2011 ; Sherman, 1978 , 1974 ). Similarly, Barcham, Hindess, and Larmour (2012) demonstrate that variation in what is commonly understood to be corruption is rooted in particular societies and particular times.

Modern sport involves political and economic activity at the global level, particularly in the bidding process to host prestigious events including the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup and similar international events. Recent bid processes turned the common understandings of corruption on their head — where public officials bribe private actors without the prospect of personal gain by the public official ( Jennings & Sambrook, 2000 ). These definitional problems combined with a different reality in the sporting sphere (as compared to that of politics, economics or law) make it necessary to develop a working definition of corruption in sport adequate for use today and to anchor its meaning for this and subsequent discussion of the issue.

Gorse and Chadwick (2011: 8) proposed that ‘corruption in sport involves any illegal, immoral or unethical activity that attempts to deliberately distort the result of a sporting contest for the personal material gain of one or more parties involved in that activity.’ However, they acknowledge this definition does not cover the activities of sports governing bodies and the allocation of host rights. Furthermore, when dealing with international competition, one must ask whose morals and whose ethics provide the yardstick for determining what is, or is not, corruption in sport.

I propose a simpler definition: corruption in sport equates to the deviation from public expectations that sport will be played and administered in an honest manner . Within this definition, playing sport encompasses both athlete preparation and actual competition. The term ‘administered’ includes multiple levels of sports administration — individual athletes, teams, clubs, leagues, competitions, national associations, public officials and international organisations — from public and private spheres. It also includes the making and implementation of sport rules and by-laws. Further, administration incorporates all levels of refereeing or adjudication associated with sport — on and off field refereeing, tribunals, panels, courts and the like. Honesty includes the discrete handling of information related to an athlete or team and not taking advantage of that knowledge (i.e. misusing insider information for gambling). Finally ‘public’ equates to fans and non-fans alike — including (and in many cases, especially) those engaged in legal and illegal gambling.

The working definition above purposely avoids certain terms often associated with sport. In particular, there is no reference to, or requirement for sport to be fair. In terms of fairness, sport is often unfair, but well within the public expectations it is being played and administered honestly. To illustrate, the Australian Olympic gold medallist Steven Bradbury won when all the other speed skaters crashed out of their race leaving him, quite literally, the last man standing. For the other athletes it was unfair that Bradbury won (up till the moment of the crash, he had been coming last). However there is no suggestion Bradbury, or any official, acted in a dishonest manner.

Rule setting can also be corrupted. While breaches of rules often overlap the above definition of corruption in sport, one cannot dismiss the ongoing saga with FIFA and the allegations of corruption in awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals ( Emmen, 2014 ). This peak organisation headquartered in Switzerland sets its own rules for operating in the international sphere. The ability to set and manipulate rules has done little to diminish the widespread belief the organisation failed to meet public expectations that football is being administered in an honest fashion. The international nature of FIFA, football and other sports also negates legal definitions of corruption. The international sphere does not easily lend itself to legal process, with law at this level tending to be ‘soft’, whereby the ability to enforce or administer it is uncertain ( Abbott & Snidal, 2000 ). Thus, while FIFA submits itself to Swiss law, their overall actions in relation to the World Cup bidding process have done little to alleviate global public concerns about their honesty.

There are many dishonest activities that fall under the broad rubric of corruption in sport outlined above. In 2014, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) surveyed media reports of corruption in sport between 2010 and 2013 ( Bricknell, 2014 ). Their findings focussed on the typology of sport corruption developed by Gorse and Chadwick (2011) :

Match-fixing — betting related

Match-fixing — non-betting related

Doping — the use of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDS)

Insider information — for betting purposes

The AIC study found betting related match-fixing included reports of players, gamblers, horse-trainers, and racing stewards involved in various instances of corrupt behaviour to alter the outcome of sporting event to influence betting markets. The single non-betting related instance of match-fixing involved an Australian rules football team purposely underperforming to ensure a better selection of draft players the following season. An investigation by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) into the systematic use of PIEDS in two football clubs in separate competitions dominated media reports on doping. Finally, the use of insider information mainly related to the horse racing industry. While the AIC report provided a useful point of reference for policy makers to think about corruption in sport, it is a somewhat limited analytical model focussed on a relatively short time period within the geo-social sphere of Australia.

3.1 TASP and sport

To further untangle the complexity of corruption in sport requires a systematic approach. Graycar (2015) with his colleagues Sidebottom (2012) and Prenzler (2013) developed a useful method whereby the corrupt event is the unit of analysis. Their approach analyses corrupt behaviour in four dispositions for each event — the type of corrupt behaviour, what activity has been corrupted, the sector in which a corrupt event occurs and the place it occurs. Application of the resultant tool — TASP (Type, Activity, Sector, Place) — to corruption in sport enables us to focus on aspects of the problem. Table 1 expands TASP by the addition of sport-related terminology in the bullet points.

Corruption typology: corrupt behaviours in four dispositions.

3.2 Host bribery

Sport is not immune from traditional types of corruption, although the sector has some particular variations. Bribery, commonly understood as a private actor bribing a government official for some type of undeserved benefit, has been turned on its head by the sporting world. The recent report by FIFA into bidding for the hosting rights for the football world cup indicates that government officials have become bribers, paying from the public purse to private organisations to secure the prestigious sporting events ( TI, 2014 ). Similar bribery was uncovered in relation to the Winter Olympics hosted by Salt Lake City in 2002 and on previous occasions ( Jennings, 1996 , 2011 ; Jennings & Sambrook, 2000 ). While bribery in sport can be simply a player being paid to underperform, host bribery hides within a culture of senior administrators who come to expect gifts and favours. A recent example of this culture involved members of various national football associations receiving expensive gifts including luxury watches during the World Cup in Brazil ( Rumsby, 2014 ).

3.3 Nepotism

Nepotism as a form of corruption does not neatly fit into the sporting arena. A child, nephew or niece of a sporting great may also perform well due to familial socialisation, access to additional coaching and attention from their successful relatives and family associates. They may get a closer look from professional scouts and other administrators due to their famous relatives — think of Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, son of former National Football League (NFL) quarterback Archie Manning and brother of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. However, in a professional league they still have to perform — numerous athletes with great antecedents do not develop illustrious careers like their forebears. From a different perspective, nepotism and cronyism is evident in the lavish gifts provided to relatives of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members during host bids ( Jennings, 1996 , 2011 ; Jennings & Sambrook, 2000 ). These examples show how classic forms of corruption need careful consideration when it comes to sport.

3.4 Match-fixing

Aside from the classic forms of corruption, sport corruption has its own language for specific corrupt acts — match-fixing, doping, nobbling and ring-ins. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, match-fixing is ‘(In sport) the action or practice of dishonestly determining the outcome of a match before it is played.’ This definition varies from that provided by Lamberti (2014) : ‘A fixed match has occurred when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game, and often the law.’ While the OED is authoritative, the latter definition importantly adds the ‘partially pre-determined result’, which captures other activities such as spot-fixing and point-shaving. Spot-fixing being when a certain action in a match — an intentionally mis-bowled cricket ball or foul in baseball, a certain type of score by a certain player — is pre-determined, usually to the advantage of gamblers. Another form of match-fixing is point-shaving, which occurs to keep the final result within or outside a pre-determined range, again for the advantage of gamblers with knowledge of the fixed result.

A non-gambling type of match-fixing is tanking. This involves a player or team deliberately underperforming, giving up a match, losing intentionally or simply not competing ( KEA, 2012 : 9). While it is an Australian term, it applies in European and other football leagues where end-of-season relegation is a possibility. By tanking, a team can ensure another team or athlete — not necessarily the immediate opponent — is relegated or avoids relegation. This has serious financial consequences as football leagues provide better funds to premier teams than lower divisions ( Gorse & Chadwick, 2011 : 19).

The World Anti-Doping Agency ( WADA, 2009 ) defines doping as ‘the occurrence of one or more of the anti-doping rule violations’. The violations can be summarised as (1) the presence of a prohibited substance, its metabolites or markers in an athlete's sample; (2) use or attempted use by an athlete of a prohibited substance or prohibited method; (3) refusing, failing or avoiding sample collection; (4) being unavailable for out-of-competition testing; (5) tampering with doping control; (6) possession of prohibited substance or methods; (7) trafficking prohibited substances or methods; or (8) administration to athletes of prohibited substances or methods ( WADA, 2009 : art. 2).

Another form of doping is nobbling, a British term for interfering with the ability of an athlete to compete at their peak performance. This is usually done when an athlete is unaware that their physical capabilities have been diminished, although this is not always the case. Most often nobbling occurs in animal sports, simply because sporting animals cannot articulate what has been done to them. The concept of nobbling is far from new, Doyle (1981 [1892]) described how a race horse could be nobbled in the nineteenth century in his Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze . The most infamous case of nobbling in recent years was the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan arranged by the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding to ensure Kerrigan could not compete in the 1994 US Figure Skating Championships. The Harding/Kerrigan case demonstrated the interrelationship between corruption and criminality.

Ring-ins refers to the practice of substituting an athlete or animal for one of better ability. A disturbing ring-in case was the substitution of nearly the entire Spanish Paralympic men's basketball team with able-bodied athletes in 2000 ( Rothfield & Adams, 2014 : ix–xiii). This case involved athletes and officials from every level of the sport. Its discovery led to the team being stripped of the gold medal and the withdrawal of intellectually disabled competitors from the Paralympics because of the difficulty in ascertaining the true level of an athlete's abilities.

Within the world of sport, activity is best classified as a ‘who’ rather than a ‘what’. This is because within various sports, specific people perform specific roles. As a result, they have different opportunity structures associated with their roles. For example, a groundskeeper cannot affect a match by self-doping, but they can change the height of a pitchers’ mound, over-water a cricket pitch, and dim or kill the lights at a night event. Similarly, a manager cannot miss a penalty shot — although he may recruit a player to. The modified TASP framework identifies what activity is corrupted or corruptible by identifying who has the ability to do so.

The TASP sectors are extended by inclusion of the sport or sports in question. While one could expect corruption to be in a single sport, cases such as the BALCO scandal 1 demonstrated multiple sports were involved in a single doping case. Places can also be extended to delineate not only geographic locations, but sport related localities as well — on-field, off-field, training facilities, homes, club facilities and so on.

3.6 Sporting trends and corruption

In their innovative examination of the Italian sport doping market, Paoli and Donati summarised four trends which contributed to the growth of doping worldwide ( Box 1 ).

Trends in sport to explain doping

The increased demand for illicit drugs by athletes can be explained by some key trends in sports and the broader society sometimes dating back to the nineteenth century:

The “de-amateurisation” of sports, with an increasing emphasis being placed on winning, particularly with greater inter-area sporting competitions.

The medicalisation of sports and the development of sports medicine.

The politicisation of sport — exemplified by the Cold War rivalries of the West and Soviet bloc as played out in the sphere of international sporting competition.

The commercialisation of sport to a global audience targeted by sponsors through radio, TV and Internet.

Adapted from Paoli and Donati (2013: 2) .

These trends also apply to other forms of corruption in sport. Table 2 demonstrates how each of these phases has been accompanied by varying and overlapping forms of corruption in sport.

Trends and examples of corruption in sport.

The four cases presented above illustrate the overlapping nature of corrupt conduct. The Calciopoli scandal crossed into the commercial world, as the stock price of Juventus lost half its value. The case of the Austrian athletes involved politicisation with the IOC lobbying for a relaxation on the law, which was refused by Italian legislators who considered any moratorium a sign of weakness ( Paoli & Donati, 2013 : vii). The NRL salary cap resulted from a commercial decision to maintain local fan support by ensuring rich clubs cannot dominate, and the fact the players receive a salary originated in the de-amateurisation of sport. Despite the large input of federal funds to the 2002 Salt Lake City games, the US$350 million only represented 18% of the overall budget for these Olympics ( Johnson, 2007 ). The remainder came from private firms eager to be associated with the commercial aspects and benefits of being an Olympic sponsor. These same sponsors saw their investment jeopardised by the corruption scandal ( Jennings, 2011 : 393). In addition to these co-existing trends, each case involved prosecutions under criminal law and thus crosses into the realm of criminalisation — the latest trend in global sport. However, before discussing the public policy implications of corruption in sport, we first need to examine the governance measures to control doping, match-fixing and host bribery.

Globally, sport occupies both the private market and the public sphere. The private sports market consisting of sponsorship, gate revenues, media rights and marketing is estimated to exceed US$141 billion in 2015 ( PWC, 2011 ). To this can be added the turnover in sport related gambling estimated in 2012 to be worth over £50 billion for the global e-betting market alone ( Forrest, 2013 : 185).

There is also significant public expenditure globally on sport. Public expenditure such as the federal funds for the Salt Lake City Games regularly runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Australian government recently provided AU$156 million to the Queensland state government for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, this is additional to the Australian Sports Commission's AU$265 million allocation ( Australian Government, 2014 ). Corruption control measures are usually publicly funded. The Italian Commissione per la vigilanza ed il controllo sul doping e per la tutela della salute nelle attività sportive (Commission for the Vigilance and Control on Doping and the Protection of Health in Sports Activities) is a public body established under law, which works closely with the Caribinieri to investigate and prosecute doping cases ( Paoli & Donati, 2013 : xxi). Similarly, ASADA is a publicly funded with an annual allocation of AU$16 million. In contrast, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is a private concern and its reach does not extend to the major sports in the United States — American football, baseball, basketball or ice hockey.

The control of doping in sport has made significant advances in recent decades, yet it remains a major problem. Gorse and Chadwick (2011: 10) claim doping is the most prevalent form of sport corruption, occurring in 95.64% of all cases in their database. The international body responsible for countering doping is WADA, which was created by the IOC, and is in effect, a private institution. Accession to the WADA code on anti-doping requires the establishment of a national anti-doping agency. These agencies can be public authorities (ASADA) or private organisations (USADA).

Since 2000, USADA has conducted 108,709 tests on athletes for banned substances ( USADA, 2014b ). These tests resulted in 390 sanctions issued against athletes, ranging from the issuance of public warnings to 15 separate lifetime bans, which included Lance Armstrong and eight other cyclists ( USADA, 2014a ). Outside USADA's jurisdiction, the major leagues have drawn up agreements with their respective player associations that incorporate anti-doping policies. These policies and penalties are summarised in Table 3 .

US major leagues — doping penalties.

Source : MLB/MLBPA (2014) , NBA/NBPA (2012) , NFL/NFLPA (2014) , and NHL/NHLPA (2012) .

There is clearly no uniformity in the major leagues’ responses to doping. The penalties differ in both severity and the number of opportunities players have to fail drug-testing regimes. Both the NHL and NFL agreements refer to the WADA list of banned substances; the MLB relies on Schedule III of the Code of Federal Regulations’ Schedule of Controlled Substances to determine what is a prohibited substance ( MLB/MLBPA, 2014 : 9); and an NBA committee decides which substances are prohibited for basketball ( NBA/NBPA, 2012 : 22). There is also no uniform approach to penalties for substances of abuse — the euphemism in the league/player association agreements for illegal recreational drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines or PCPs, which also affect a players’ performance. These anti-doping policies are also subservient to US Federal law on the abuse of prescription or illicit drugs.

Data on penalties for breaches of the major league drug policies is not readily available. No professional league publishes an authoritative list of players or administrators who have run afoul of anti-doping policies. The MLB commissioned an inquiry headed by former US Senator George Mitchell into doping in 2007. Mitchell's report named 86 players for whom some type of documentary proof or admission indicated they had improperly used PIEDS ( Mitchell, 2007 ). To this can be added 48 other players subsequently sanctioned under anti-drug rules ( Baseball Almanac, 2014 ). One of the only publicly available data sources is Wikipedia, 2 which lists 183 drug related suspensions for the NFL, 17 for the NBA and only two for the NHL ( Wikipedia, 2014a , 2014b ). These figures fall short of the 500 cases compiled by Gorse and Chadwick (2011: 12) . However, Gorse and Chadwick note that many of the doping cases in their dataset refer to minor league athletes, which they posit is a result of athletes in the major leagues being circumspect due to stringent testing (2011: 14).

While there is an international approach to controlling doping through WADA and associated mechanisms, match-fixing remains problematic. If one were to compare the number of cases alone, match-fixing appears to be a far less significant type of corruption in sport than doping. Only 2.73% of 2089 cases between 2000 and 2010 related to match-fixing ( Gorse & Chadwick, 2011 : 2). However, match-fixing often involves multiple actors in a variety of locations — a single case resulted in 50 arrests over 320 corrupted football matches in 10 countries ( Feltes, 2013 : 23–24). The Interpol/FIFA partnership reflects the growing view among public officials that match-fixing poses both an economic and criminal threat to society. Martin de Sanctis (2014) argues match-fixing is one of several means football is used by organised crime to launder or transfer money.

Furthermore, illegal gambling networks involved in match-fixing have been linked to organised crime in the United States. An illegal operation involving a New Jersey state trooper obtained insider information from an NHL assistant coach. This group had links to a New Jersey crime family. There are otherwise relatively few cases recorded in relation to the major leagues. Gorse and Chadwick's database only contains five cases of misuse of insider information for American sports and four of these cases did not involve player (2011: Appendices B and C). Considering the current pay level for major league players this is understandable. Yet similar salaries are available in soccer and hundreds of betting related match-fixing cases involved players from leagues around the world ( Feltes, 2013 ; Gorse & Chadwick, 2011 : Appendices B and C).

Table 4 applies the TASP model to doping, match-fixing and insider information and illustrates the necessity to tailor governance approaches to suit the situation. The data used is illustrative only, drawing from sources with sufficient detail to apply TASP. Aside from doping in baseball and the NFL, corruption in the American major leagues appears to be under control. In marked contrast cases of match-fixing are mainly in the European football leagues, with relatively few cases of doping detected.

TASP applied to several sectors of the sport market 2000–2010.

a 53 players suspended since random testing introduced ( Baseball Almanac, 2014 ); 76 additional players named in the Mitchell Report (2007) .

b Gorse and Chadwick (2011) .

c Wikipedia (2014b) .

d Wikipedia (2014a) .

e USADA sanctions have been added, these include 3 Olympic and 2 Paralympic athletes under basketball, 1 Olympic and 2 Paralympic under ice-hockey/sled hockey and two Olympic baseball players ( USADA, 2014a ).

f Cases can involve multiple fixed-matches.

Data in this table has been distilled from the following sources.

To control match-fixing, there is a growing demand for specific legislative and policy responses. A recent European report showed that of the 27 EU nations, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Poland have passed specific anti-corruption laws to address match-fixing ( KEA, 2012 ). Other European nations use existing fraud or anti-corruption legislation, and a few rely on conspiracy offences ( KEA, 2012 ). 3

There has been a strong push from sporting bodies and organisations for greater public input into controlling corruption in sport. Sporting organisations and licenced gambling operators understand that competition requires a strong element of unpredictability in sport otherwise it loses its appeal to fans, sponsors and broadcasters ( KEA, 2012 : 15). Match-fixing poses a threat to the perception of unpredictability. This was clearly demonstrated in Taiwan in 1997 where a bribery and gambling scandal undermined the legitimacy of the Taiwan Baseball League resulting in large drops in attendance ( Lee, 2008 ). Leading the push to increase government involvement in protecting sport from corruption has been the various international non-government organisations which govern sport.

The pressure to legislate needs to be considered in context. More of the behaviours that constitute corruption in sport are becoming criminalised either through new legislation, or through decisions to apply existing legislation to a sphere that had once governed itself. The Australian Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (AIG) represents an example of the new legislative approach. This act criminalised on-line micro-betting; wagering on a specific event within a sporting competition like a point in tennis or the next type of score in a football match. Although there have been no prosecutions under the AIG, a recent review of the legislation noted its deterrent value and recommended extending the prohibition on micro-betting to cover wagers made over the telephone or at the sporting venue ( DBCDE, 2013 ). A similar story can be told about the control measures for internet gambling implemented in the United States. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. While laws may have a deterrent value at the national level, they are less effective when corruption in sport is transnational.

7.1 International sport

They fell for the dream that the Games might pay for themselves without tax money…Just play the Olympic Game, pander to the IOC members, let them molest your daughters; wine, dine and suffocate them with hospitality until around fifty votes are in the bag. That's Olympic campaigning today ( Jennings, 1996 : 116).

Major international sporting bodies make great demands on the public sphere. Aside from the millions of dollars contributed from taxpayers to host various events, these organisations also expect event specific laws as part of the modern host bidding process. As Jennings (1996 , 2011 ), Jennings and Sambrook (2000) pointed out, these expectations are somewhat incongruous when considering the amount of corruption allegedly associated with cities winning hosting rights. I have previously mentioned the pressure placed on Italy to call a moratorium on its doping laws and the failed attempt to prosecute from actions arising with the Salt Lake City bid. Arguably the officials of international sporting organisations see themselves as above national laws while they operate in the international sphere. The anti-corruption work of these organisations at the sporting level is laudable — WADA and the Interpol/FIFA partnership to combat doping and match-fixing are good examples of this. However, much is undone by the ongoing, legally untested and possibly untestable allegations of bribery and corruption at the highest levels.

This paper has presented a model for analysing corruption in sport and a broader definition of the problem. Using available data, it has demonstrated how corruption in sport differs from place to place and sport to sport. While the trend towards criminalisation has continued, to date, controlling corruption in sport has had mixed success for both the private operators and public legislators. The control of doping in the US has been hampered by major sports wishing to avoid scandal or brand damage and the consequential loss of revenue. It is only when scandals became beyond the control of governing bodies — both the leagues and the players associations — that more robust control and testing regimes were implemented. The current situation in Europe sees mounting pressure to improve control on match-fixing. The contemporary public-policy response is to recommend sport specific legislation on a European-wide scale as part of a suite of actions to control gambling in sport. However, nation-specific legislation may not be effective, particularly as the transnational nature of sport corruption and match-fixing is already established.

Criminalisation is not necessarily the answer. The lessons from the examples above show how Australian internet gambling legislation has a deterrent effect nationally, yet has little prospect of international because the offences are not universal. Similarly, US has had limited success with only a single prosecution of a case of international illegal sports gambling. However, as the cultural attitudes towards the corrupting effect of gambling on sport converge, as they did with doping, it is likely greater consensus will be achieved on an international scale. This convergence is evident through the international forums like the European Union and the FIFA/Interpol partnership advocating a unified approach. The lessons of doping control therefore have salience for gambling and related match-fixing.

While traction has been gained on doping controls, and is gaining on controlling match-fixing, host rights corruption appears to be as cyclical as the major events themselves. This perception is not entirely correct, however it is hard to distinguish because an apparently corrupted process — such as the vote which secured Qatar the 2022 FIFA World Cup — maintains itself in the public mind until the event is held and the sports world moves on. These doubts linger as FIFA moves from one investigation to another. Only the cumulative effect of reform within international sporting bodies can relegate host-rights corruption to the pages of history.

In an age where the argument to control corruption in sport is through criminalisation, policy makers need to think about the problem in a holistic sense when formulating or implementing policy. The universal definition of corruption in sport and outline of a typology within an established analytical framework provides tools to guide this thinking. This paper recognises that all corruption is not the same and even when focussing on a single sector, in this case sport, there are a range of complicating factors associated with the types of corruption, the activities being corrupted and the places where corruption occurs.

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I acknowledging the comments of an anonymous reviewer; this source not regarded as scholastically robust. However, each doping case is referenced to a media report, a sampling of which proved sufficiently valid for the purposes of this paper. Furthermore, wikis are maintained by users interested in the integrity of the sport they follow. Falsified or altered data are continually corrected (see Ferriter, 2009 ). Finally, when teaching corruption in sport, I draw student attention to the Wikipedia reference, explain the reasons for inclusion and STRONGLY warn against its indiscriminate use.

Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Slovenia rely on fraud offences. Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden use existing corruption legislation. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Finland use a mix of fraud and corruption legislation. The UK uses a combination of offences against cheating, conspiracy and corruption.

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Match-fixing and other crimes in sport are a way for organized syndicates to generate high profits and launder their illegal proceeds, with limited risk of detection.

Tackling these issues requires national and international cooperation between sport, public authorities, betting regulators, the gambling industry and law enforcement. We help bring all these stakeholders together to counter crimes in sport.

INTERPOL Match-Fixing Task Force

The INTERPOL Match-Fixing Task Force (IMFTF) forms the focus of INTERPOL’s operational response in this area. It brings together law enforcement agencies around the world to tackle match-fixing and corruption in sport.

The Task Force has around 100 member units, with more than 150 National Points of Contact worldwide. It focuses on sharing experiences and best practices and acts as a platform for investigations and international case coordination.

The IMFTF supports member countries in criminal investigations and joint operations in all sports, and maintain a global network of investigators that share information, intelligence and best practices.

Specific tools developed by INTERPOL are available to law enforcement worldwide, dedicated to data collection on sport corruption (project ETICA) and financial crimes analysis (FINCAF).

Due to its global outreach, the IMFTF is uniquely placed to connect criminal investigative units in all INTERPOL member countries, relevant Integrity Units from the main International Sporting Federations and dedicated monitoring services to unite the efforts to counter any wrongdoing in sport.

In recent years, cooperation frameworks have also been established to protect major sporting events from criminal exploitation.

Contact us for operational support or further information on our activities.

Tackling soccer gambling

Operation SOGA (SOccer GAmbling) targets illegal gambling, match fixing and related money laundering activities. It is a regular fixture timed to coincide with major international soccer events. Suspicious bookmakers, punters, and money launderers are identified following detailed analysis and intelligence exchange, and are arrested in a simultaneous crackdown, hitting criminal syndicates hard.

SOGA IX was carried out from November 2022 to January 2023, under the auspices of INTERPOL’s Joint Task Force for the World Cup Qatar 2022.

19 countries participated in the global coordinated effort, leading to 1,200 arrests and the following seizures:

• USD 2 million in seized funds
• USD 76 million in digital betting records
• Computers, mobile phones, credit cards, luxury cars, jewellery and handbags

Investigators identified several trends, such as a confirmed preference for online betting, lower amounts being wagered to avoid detection, and that men under 40 were considered the typical profile to watch.

INTERPOL’s nine SOGA operations have resulted in 20,300 arrests, seizures of USD 64 million in cash, the closure of some 4,000 illegal gambling dens which handled more than USD 7.3 billion worth of bets. Additionally, administrative sanctions imposed for illegal gambling activities so far amount to EUR 4.5 million.

Building capacity for police and sport

INTERPOL carries out a joint capacity building and training project with the International Olympic Committee to combat competition manipulation. The project offers tailored training courses, workshops and webinars for law enforcement, government agencies, sports, betting operators and regulators, to address competition manipulation and create a global network of practitioners.

Law enforcement investigators training

This training provides law enforcement with the skills to investigate competition manipulation, focusing on transnational investigations, evidence collection and evaluation, betting monitoring and analysis, working with sports, and the key role of the IMFTF members.

Sport investigators training

This training develops capacity in sport organizations to investigate and sanction competition manipulation. It focuses on investigative techniques typical of police work such as interview skills and information collection and evaluation, but also the monitoring and analysis of sports betting.

Integrity in sport workshops and webinars

These workshops bring together national and regional stakeholders including law enforcement agencies, prosecution services of some countries and sports organizations to raise awareness and identify best practices. Amongst key objectives, the INTERPOL- International Olympic Committee (IOC) workshops assess breaches of sport integrity, sports betting developments and global crime trends in competition manipulation.

Central to these workshops is the promotion of capacity building and cooperation at all levels. They also provide a forum for knowledge exchange on tools and services to prevent, detect and investigate sports corruption.

Media monitoring

We monitor media on competition manipulation and compile an overview of open source reports on investigations, sanctions, sentences, best practices, modus operandi and new developments in a specialist bi-weekly newsletter for practitioners. Please contact the Integrity in Sport team if you wish to subscribe to it.

We welcome submissions on best practices, major developments, new trends and relevant articles for publication in the bulletin.

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