Years ago when we were all frothing over the number of doping cheats tumbling out of various sporting systems, Pat Hickey said something that stuck just before the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Hickey was then an IOC member and president of the Olympic Council of Ireland. He said the big thing rumbling down the road in sport wasn’t doping but maintaining the integrity of events and the growing gambling issues around competitions. Yeah, he did.
The wise guys had discovered how easy it was to manipulate results across many sports. One referee could bring down a team of 11 players or 15 players. One judge could manipulate the outcome of an entire boxing tournament. One official could select and place those who they knew to be malleable into particular positions.
Officials in boxing did it precisely that way, according to Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren. He explained that the vetting process for boxing at the Rio Olympics left room only for those “who were considered either: (i) poor quality but were corrupt; or (ii) corruptible and/or obedient to the will of the ED (Executive Director) and the 5 stars (top referees). R&Js (Referees and Judges) who complained, who could not be bought or manipulated, were left out.”
That’s a pretty efficient way of arriving at a preferred outcome – with manipulation now taking place in so many different ways, it has become a thriving global industry.
It is also hugely resilient and arises from all cultures including those we struggle to understand. Many studies have been conducted into the nature of corruption, fabricating, subverting and manipulating in sport and if you stand back and take a look at the extent and varied nature of the problem, there’s a sinking feeling that the complexity could be overwhelming.
For example in 2017 a study was conducted into Taiwanese baseball. Documents from court transcripts and media reports were collected and examined. The syndicates that arranged the match-fixing were interviewed and the professional baseball players, their wives and coaches were all asked about their perceptions of how the manipulation had occurred.
The findings showed how Confucian cultural factors contributed to the problem. Social relationships including obedience to individuals in authority, collective harmony, friendships and loyalty all had a part to play.
In other words, Eastern cultural traditions were an influence. That makes it complex as it isn’t always just a case of bad actors. Reform in Taiwan centred on moral and legal education to try and counteract the corrosive social and cultural influences.
In Africa, the failure of political governance has made corruption endemic. It is a shared fundamental way of living. Most African governments come to power through corrupt and weak institutions, such as electoral commissions and the judiciary.
Fair play
What chance then the sports officials and athletes that participate in competitive international events? If they have never had choices, is it reasonable to expect them all to adopt agreed conventions of fair play.
Like Africa, corruption in Russia is so pervasive that society accepts the unacceptable as normal, as the only way of survival, as the way things just are. It is not only about officials abusing power but ordinary people comfortably adapting these principles to their daily lives.
People do like to get xenophobic about it. But, it is not just an African or Asian issue. Europe is far from immune from screeching allegations. Professor McLaren, in his distressing boxing report, gave us that jab. He names referees, judges and officials from European countries as well as executives in the boxing hierarchy that appointed them.
It was not a corner shop operation. He described the smooth Modus Operandi saying the report notes the allocation of one referee into to either seat one, or, into the refereeing position on 20 of 29 occasions in which he officiated during the Rio Olympics “indicates that he was deliberately allocated to these positions in order to orchestrate a manipulation of results during certain important bouts.”
In a paper written in 2015 called Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy it is argued that four trends have affected sport over the years.
The change from amateurism to professionalism at the turn of the 20th century, medical interventions since the 1960s, politicisation and commercialisation to the point where sport is now a business worth billions annually. Each has had a corrupting influence with the fifth evolutionary trend, criminalistion now in play as more public funding is pumped in.
The problem sport faces, and it springs from its capacity to self heal, is it sometimes quickly and too easily moves on. 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.
Afterwards, sport continues its journey on to the next thing and, although the doubts linger, Fifa simply moves from one investigation to another.
Canny Hickey, against whom nothing was ever proven after allegations were made against him in Rio five years ago, was correct. Sporting integrity is under threat. What he didn’t say was maybe the problem can’t be fixed.
